Comment by admax88q | Hacker News Reader

Comment by admax88q | Hacker News Reader

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I wonder what the actual numbers are on malware installed via side-loading and malware installed from the play store.

There is no shortage of sketchy apps on the play store.

Through my personal bias I would imagine that most people side-loading apps tend to be people using F-Droid who know more or less what they're doing. Although I'm sure there are some people who blindly follow sketch website telling them to install sketchy APK directly. But do these people really outnumber people installing flashlight app from play store that steals your data?

All this locking down your device "for your own protection" assumes that the play store software is actually vetted and secure, but that second piece never seems to fall in to place.

This random article [1] suggests that 67% of malicious app installs comes from the play store itself. So this whole "Advanced Protection" scheme only protects against 23% of threats. Pretty weak IMO.

[1] - https://www.zdnet.com/article/play-store-identified-as-main-...

There is "people intentionally side-loading", and "people getting social engineered into installing something they shouldn't".

I think even when you sum those two quantities it'll still be less than the number of people getting hit by apps from the regular play store.

Likely but not because no filtering at is is better than mediocre filtering rather precisely because it's not easy for a user to "accidentally" side load.

Tons of apps are referencing 100% turing complete web content and not taking flak. NORPS don't "accidentally" side load by means of typing stuff in a terminal that makes them both feel hackerman and scared shitless at the same time. Only boomers and ties believe it's not about anti competitive behavior.

The problem is, it's much easier to be socially engineered into installing something from the Play Store, or far worse, the Chrome Web Store, and both have extremely unchecked amounts of malware.

The real difference is between "apps that have to give Google 30%, and apps that don't".

> There is no shortage of sketchy apps on the play store.

Certainly the Play store being a walled garden which appears to be full of weeds, nightshade, and hemlock is one of the key factors in pushing me over to iOS.

If side-loading is generally discouraged to the point where it's a hassle, then it's a less attractive entry point for malware authors... so I'd expect the result is that there are ultimately fewer malware instances installed.

If side-loading becomes easy and normalized though...

Sure but does a 23% malware rate justify further restricting side loading? Seems like snake oil security, rather than addressing the bigger problem of malware through the official channels.

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