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Comment by spideymans | Hacker News Reader

> This is a bit inaccurate; first because the App Store has a spotty record of stopping malware from reaching your phone

Spotty relative to what? The App Store hasn’t had a 100% perfect record, but it’s pretty darn close to it. I really can’t think of any other software distribution channels for general purpose computing devices (including the open web) that have had a better security track record than the App Store

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Have there been widespread instances of malicious software in Linux repos? It might just be that Linux distros are lower value targets than apple phones, but they do seem be pretty good in terms of both keeping out actual viruses (which Apple is pretty good at keeping out) and also keeping out shady advertisement/snooping based software (which Apple seems to have done less good at keeping out than the repos. Although, they are doing good for a private company, right?)

Also, Steam seems to do all right as far as I can tell.

With 1% desktop market, there are more juicy targets to exploit.

Like the server market; high bandwidth, always on and likely running and endpoint for z mobile service.

Those are easier to bring down with DoS attacks.

Denial of service is just one of many potential goals.

> I really can’t think of any other software distribution channels for general purpose computing devices (including the open web) that have had a better security track record than the App Store

GNU/Linux packaging systems? F-Droid?

The open web is a distant second at that - perhaps third if you think the google play store is relatively malware-free compared to the open web.

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