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Comment by ipython | Hacker News Reader

Phones tho have a default security model which isolates apps from each other, unlike desktop OSes where each app can read anything on the system

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Isolated from each other, but not from your data.

iOS has always isolated apps from your data. Android has isolated apps from your data more and more with previous Android versions where I think they're finally on a similar level to iOS (where an app doesn't just have full access to your local storage by default and also isn't able to request access to sensitive directories).

I wish desktop OSes had evolved with such a model in mind. There is no reason why a calculator should be capable of reading my downloads folder — in fact, I'd even prefer it if I had to give explicit permission to access my network, Internet included. Maybe software wouldn't be so liberal with data collection if we had started requiring such stringent permissions way back when.

That’s how macOS permissions work.

File access for apps is gated behind “special” folder access (like Documents/Downloads/etc, and “full disk access” which is anywhere beyond the common user directories)

They evolved from a starting point pre-internet

It's not profitable to make operating systems secure because that encourages use of cracked software, and such software is where most malware comes from.

Use flatpak, add an immutable distro and you can do what you desire? Or just run Qubes-OS.

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