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Comment by avaer | Hacker News Reader

The blast radius is far worse than any "malware" Google could protect you from.

TFA is playing it up, but it is arguable that this is a real virus, except the shady hackers are Google.

I don't think 'virus' is the right term, since it should self-replicate. 'Malware' or 'spyware' are probably better terms.

Malware on Android causes more harm, both to individuals and collectively to all Android users, than Google locking people out of their accounts. These aren't even in the same order of magnitude. There are countless examples of people who have lost their life savings, all their data, etc. Losing access to your Google account sucks too, and I don't necessarily agree with what Google is doing here, but you're completely off base here.

If it makes my phone, that I paid for, do things I dont want it to do then it's malware.Especially because those things make the device less useful to me.

Google thinks they own my phone. They do not. I do not consent to this change, and will be voting against it by using the only remaining option: Moving completely out of their ecosystem.

They really left me no other choice when they decided that they didn't need the owners consent.

The comparison is not Google app store security vs nothing.

It's app store security vs app store security with verified developer IDs

The fact that the android fraud is not endemic means that the later is not worth the increased risk of losing your Google account.

Was this comment made by an LLM? i dont know anyone who drops "blast radius" in casual conversation besides claude.

People in security space use it all the time.

for CVE's, maybe.

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