Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

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> One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to malware, adware, and outright scam apps.

The crApp Store is full of scams. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-a...

https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-scams-apple-app-store-go...

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/pig-b...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2021/05/15/apple-ip...

https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/11/developer-exposes-another-mul...

There's practically endless proof and documentation for this.

The App Store is actually a honeypot for scammers. It's a single point of failure, because once you get past app review, which is easy, you're home free, and it's also relatively easy to manipulate App Store search, App Store ratings and reviews, and App Store Search Ads.

As a non-scam App Store developer, my biggest problem is discovery, i.e., getting my app in front of the eyeballs of potential customers. It's vastly easier to do that in the App Store than it is via so-called sideloading, especially if you have no ethics. (Unfortunately, I do have ethics, which significantly limits my options for discovery.)

I hear your argument, but it's not convincing.

Your logic states that because an app can occasionally slip through the review process, that we should remove -all- protections. That isn't better, that's worse.

A scam is also a relatively low bar to set for such drastic change, since scams also frequently occur over chat apps and the kinds of access that side-loading and 3rd party stores can avail opens the door to significantly more sophisticated malware. If you truly think the situation right now is bad, just wait until there are no protections for users.

You should also recognise that there is actual data for malware on these platforms. Every year Nokia drive home the same point for why Android has such an outsized share of malware: "...most smartphone malware is distributed as trojanized applications and since Android users can load application from just about anywhere, it’s much easier to trick them into installing applications that are infected with malware."

Since all experts point to the same sources of malware - perhaps that's not the change we should be legislating. How about we do something different.

I've been using an antimalware system which has been highly successful at blocking all sorts of malware. It's where I don't run invasive closed source programs on my computers and give them access to all my shit, and I don't just give my credentials and money to anyone that asks. In other words, basic computer practices from decades ago.

I know that this system may be unattainable for some, namely children, the elderly and the intellectually disabled. But maybe we shouldn't be designing general purpose computers around the lowest common denominators of society, for the same reason you wouldn't design a car for the legally blind or a book for the illiterate.

The nature of smartphones and the internet has some pretty large consequences for the economy, politics, war, and global surveilance. I understand that some people don't know how to manage their own computer, but if you really think everyone's computers should be controlled by dictators and buerocrats maybe you should just go live in a third world country instead.

If the concept here is choice, then why not force apple to clearly advertise that side loading and 3rd party apps stores are not available. The same way that Samsung and Huawei promote theirs?

Then the consumer can make that decision for themselves.

Your position here seems to be that consumers are too dumb to make that decision, but clever enough to fend off sophisticated malware attacks. You are even so gracious to note that perhaps this might be out of reach for ordinary users (well done you! you nearly got there)

If only there was a large and popular platform of devices with side-loading and 3rd party app stores available for us to already see the consequences of what this change does to malware rates. Let's call this hypothetical platform "Android", and then a well respected security report, say by Nokia, could include statistics about this "Android" malware.

Well, you're in luck dear friend! Actual security experts state: "most smartphone malware is distributed as trojanized applications and since Android users can load application from just about anywhere, it’s much easier to trick them into installing applications that are infected with malware". (worth stating twice because I don't think it sunk in the first time.)

So real security experts are advising the opposite approach from you, funny that.

As for a 3rd world country, maybe you should run one since you have the ego of a dictator.

Don't bother, Apple fanboys are delusional. They would willingly slave themselves for the Apple religion. And they generally are extremely dishonest, which is why they want "protection". It easy to see wrong doing everywhere when yourself are operating in a bad way most of the time.

I think somehow Apple found a way to group both limited intellects and intellectually dishonest. This way the second group can pry on the first one and they seem very happy about that.

If you were to listen to them, every windows PC is infested with malware, yet even my grandma that is over 80 years old operates a windows PC without much trouble. She doesn't install nonsense and ask competent people about stuff. Which is exactly the kind of relation Apple wants to steal. So they can charge a lot of money for it, making people dependent so they are fragile. And when they have no other choice anymore, charge as much as you can. Classic sociopath behavior...

This is about as naive as your other posts.

If you need to strawman the opposing point of discussion. Then you don't have an argument, instead you're the fanatic.

You are the one defending the indefensible behavior of a trillion-dollar corporation but I'm the fanatic. I don't need to strawman; you are the one misrepresenting the malware situation in Android. You are also the one misrepresenting people requesting that a corporation let them do what they wish with a device they own. If anything, you are the strawman master.

On top of the strawman nonsense, you attack me as naive. You said the previous poster he had the ego of a dictator. If there is someone who needs to rely on something else than reasonable argument (personal attacks) that's clearly you. It's rather funny because you illustrate exactly the point I alluded to before: intellectual dishonesty.

About 99.9% of apps in the Google Play Store contain spyware (and I doubt it's much better in Apple's store?).

There's a difference between spyware and a library that sends the company usage details about how you use their app. Even apps with ads are only forbidden from using bespoke APIs (other than the built-in prompt "allow <x>" to track you across other apps and websites) to track users' activity and correlate it with other sessions.

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