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Comment by whyagaindavid | Hacker News Reader

> Matthew Forsyth, Director of Product Management, Google Play Developer Experience & Chief Product Explainer, said the system isn’t a sideloading restriction, but an “Accountability Layer.”

And... What about accountability for hosting distributing spyware, malware loaded apps from Google Playstore and hundreds of copy cat, misleading apps?

Why can't they pose a question when the phone is setup?

- Yes, I want to sideload

- No I dont want

If the user says NO then to later enable it to allow sideload Yes, the user needs to factory reset phone. Done.

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>And... What about accountability for hosting distributing spyware, malware loaded apps from Google Playstore and hundreds of copy cat, misleading apps?

The rules don't apply to billion dollar corporations. Meta is showing 15 billion scam ads per day.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...

> And... What about accountability for hosting distributing spyware, malware loaded apps from Google Playstore

This is no joke. The Playstore is filled with malware that pretend to be a different app. It takes days if not weeks to remove these apps.

I have twice now had to recover the devices of family members when they installed malware on Samsung phones running up to date firmware.

That malware to this level is even possible is another matter.

A somewhat unrelated thing, is I got bombarded with ads for a 'mental health mindfulness' service on one of the major international news websites.

I decided to Google the company after a few days. I was immediately confronted by thousands of reports by angry users, complaining about how after they tried the app, they got locked into a yearly subscription at exorbitant prices and it was impossible to cancel. The company itself is registered in some offshore tax haven.

They used to scare us, that if we went to those shady pirate websites, somebody would steal our credit cards and steal our money. Well...

This problem is significantly worse than the height of Windows XP spyware.

This right here exposes the bullshittery about the reasons behind preventing sideloading on Android phones.

For Google everything is about protecting revenue, even when doing so exposes their users to real harm, and that's why they will not address the issue of copycat apps, poor practices on play store security or anything else that lowers the number of downloads on apps on play store. But, heaven forbid, I want to download an app that doesn't create revenue for them onto a phone I OWN, Google spends money lavishly.

The Internet cranks are right. Google is run by bean counters and all the invective the cranks heap on the Google leadership is entirely earned.

Right. Or, the way I might put it, you could have set up a system that empowers trusted alternative distributors so that you're not killing F-Droid.

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