It's easy. For the average user, device integrity is more valuable (by a lot) than side loading.
People that think this is unacceptable are not remotely average users. Average users benefit greatly from their pocket appliance not being a full fledged computer.
Ultimate control over devices you own should be a basic right. Apple's wanton abuse of users and developers via the control they have over their platform, and Google's nipping at their heels, should be evidence enough of that.
Fundamentally, it is a trust issue. Why should I be forced to trust Google or Apple has my best interests in mind (they don't)? That is not ensuring 'device integrity', it's ensuring that I am at the whims of a corporation which doesn't care about me and will leverage what it can to extract as much blood as it can from me. You can ensure 'device integrity' without putting any permanent trust in Google or Apple.
That was intended to be a generic 'device manufacturer', not calling out Google and Apple specifically. It's my device. I should control it, full stop. It should simply not be legal for a device manufacturer to lock me out of a device I own, post sale. In the past it wasn't _possible_, so we didn't need to worry about it. But now the tech is at the point where manufacturers can create digital locks which simply cannot be broken, and give them full control of devices they sell (ie. which they no longer own), which are being used in anti-consumer ways.
Considering market forces are against it, I believe the only practical way to accomplish this in the long term is for this to be a right that is enforced by legislation. I don't think it is even far from precedent surrounding first sale doctrine and things like Magnuson-Moss, that the user should be the ultimate one in control post-purchase, it just takes a different shape when we're talking about computing technology.
> No one is forcing you to buy a particular device.
True. But society in practice requires a smartphone with one of two operating systems to live a normal life without significant efficiency losses in your day. Now all phones with both of those will be completely walled off. You'll be forced to participate or make your life a lot less convenient.
Surely you wouldn't defend absolutely anything happening to say roads just because you're not forced to drive, technically speaking?
So you think it's okay for manufacturers to take advantage of users as long as they continue buying the locked-down devices? I disagree, and I think this argument is incredibly disingenuous. You could make the same specious argument about nearly any consumer protection or antitrust case. Just because consumers will put up with it, or because they are manipulated into believing it's good for them, doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected.
Furthermore, if you fundamentally allow this behaviour, the market forces are sure to push us to an end state where users simply have no control, and there are no viable alternatives. We are most of the way there already when it comes to smartphones. The cost of entry to this market (many $billions over many years, if you can even manage to gain meaningful marketshare at all), and the amount of money that is on the table (30% of the $billions transacted on a successful platform today, but who knows how far they push with a real stranglehold) means that it is virtually impossible for competition to solve this problem.
You are forced to trust Google or Apple if you want a smartphone. They own the whole market, it's a duopoly. You already have no power to install an OS without such limitations on most smartphones.
Limitations because it's not just protection - you don't get to choose which authorities you trust. Defaulting to manufacturer/OS vendor as the default authority would be ok, but there is no option to choose. Users have no power over their own device. That's not ok even if most choose to never execute it or don't know about it, it will lead to abuse of power.
Modern life without either of these OS (or like a phone number) is pretty difficult, i.e. you can't charge your car or access e-government without an app.
why do you think you have any say over others' rights? using that same logic, you know what? i think you're going to steal my phone. so do you mind if i sacrifice your rights and install a camera right in your room? wouldn't want you to plot the theft of my phone now would i
Id argue that the average user is not a good barometer. They are okay with slowly being boiled alive. See windows 11 as a good example.
What's being sacrificed in the name of security is not worth it imo.
Enabling side loading on android is not a standard setting you can flick on. Is there any data on the number of devices who have this enabled and are falling for hacked apps?
I might partially agree, but the market already has a fantastic, secure option for those users: Apple.
Android's value was always in being the open(ish) alternative. When we lose that choice and the whole world adopts one philosophy, the ecosystem becomes brittle.
We saw this with the Bell monopoly, which held up telephone innovation for three quarters of a century.
In the short term, some users are safer. In the medium term, all users suffer from the lack of competition and innovation that a duopoly of walled gardens will create.
They're happy in their walled garden, until they don't and discover there is a wall they now can't overcome and learn whose hardware it really is
I do think it is in everyone's interest to be able to run software of your choosing on hardware you bought to own. The manufacturer needn't make it easy (my microwave sure didn't expect to install extra software packages; I don't expect them to open up an interface for this) but they also don't need to actively block the device owner from doing it
Bro, you forbade exactly the reason this is good for average users. Average users get emails that say:
> you have been infected by 3 viruses, click here in the next 5 minutes or the damage will be permanent
And they believe it. Giving them the power to run any software they want, also means giving everyone else the power to make them run any software they can be tricked into installing.
I'm deeply concerned about how this will impact users like us, especially since we're such a small minority that our desires could easily be trampled by the masses, but this is a clear win for the average user.
(And don't make the perfectionist fallacy w.r.t. Google not successfully preventing 100% of malware)
Damn we should just give up on this whole computer thing outright then, seems pretty dangerous. There are plenty of other things we could strip away that would make people much safer than just installing software, that's thinking small!
Stripping away computers entirely would have significant negative impacts. For the *average user*, preventing them from side-loading unsigned apps will have no negative impact.
For now, maybe. Like all discussions on freedoms and rights it's usually not about the day to day impact or the average person, if we optimized for the average person, we'd be in a sorry state.
Two reasons: they are not educated about devices they use, desktop operating systems are still awful at security (exe from a mail attachment can have a pdf looking thumbnail, executed with two clicks, even if accidental, immediately gets access to all user files... the whole concept of antivirus software...). It has nothing to do with side loading, especially on Android, where sideloading is a very explicit action already, and then you need to allow the application to do harm.
> Giving them the power to run any software they want, also means giving everyone else the power to make them run any software they can be tricked into installing.
You are taking away people's agency. Either you get to control your bank account risking that you get scammed, or someone will control it for you.
> very explicit action already, and then you need to allow the application to do harm.
So the email they get which tells them about the 3 viruses also contains a phone number where a "nice tech support person" will walk them through the steps of side-loading the "anti-virus app". You'd be surprised at what warnings/permission boxes people will blindly accept when they think they're talking to someone from Microsoft or Google's tech support.
> You are taking away people's agency.
Agency they don't want and never use. It's taking away agency from people like us but for the average user, Google is taking away nothing they've ever cared about.
> Either you get to control your bank account risking that you get scammed, or someone will control it for you.
I was just saying a couple of days ago that we need a service for old people where any transaction above a certain configurable threshold (for example, $500 in a day) has to be approved by an employee of this service who serves as a neutral 3rd party whose sole function is to try to prevent scams. That way the old folks would still have their agency so they can go out and buy all the hot-rods and transistor radios they want but if they're about to wire money to "Microsoft" then the anti-scam-company would step in and prevent that transaction (or at least require the old person have a discussion about why its an obvious scam first before eventually allowing the transaction through depending on the client).
Whether this change actually takes control away from us remains to be seen. For example, I don't see anything in the article that suggests we wouldn't be able to install a custom ROM with the signature check removed. Personally, I already run GrapheneOS so I expect I actually won't be impacted by this at all.
> You'd be surprised at what warnings/permission boxes people will blindly accept when they think they're talking to someone from Microsoft or Google's tech support.
But I know they do, I've seen this first hand. It's lack of education (except for extreme cases of people who cannot take care of themselves. but that's not the majority)
> Agency they don't want and never use. It's taking away agency from people like us but for the average user, Google is taking away nothing they've ever cared about.
It's agency they don't know they want, until it suddenly becomes useful.
I'm not expecting everyone to use side-loaded, unapproved apps every day, it's about keeping OS vendors in check, about limiting their power over devices they don't own. If they act against users, there should be a way to circumvent them. Such ideas take that away.
> I was just saying a couple of days ago that we need a service for old people where any transaction above a certain configurable threshold (for example, $500 in a day) has to be approved by an employee of this service who serves as a neutral 3rd party whose sole function is to try to prevent scams.
Enabling such a service is a choice they would have to make. The default is control.
The situation with all side loading restrictions is opposite - you don't get to choose.
Unless you are suggesting that such service should be forced on people that match some vague "old" criteria. Our disagreement goes far besides technology in that case.
Saying "the users need to be educated" doesn't solve anything. Google could start an education campaign tomorrow and it would be ignored by most of the people that need it. If they were interested in learning then we wouldn't have this problem.
> If they act against users, there should be a way to circumvent them
Then install a custom rom. All the power you want is already available, just no longer on the official android builds. Seems silly to demand Google screw over the majority of their customers because you don't want to install a custom rom.
> The situation with all side loading restrictions is opposite - you don't get to choose.
On the contrary, you choose when you purchase your phone. If you don't like it, purchase a phone that caters to users like us. There's the librem5 which I sadly own but that phone is a joke (but tolerable if the android landscape starts looking too much like Apple). I've heard good things about the pinephone but personally I'm never touching anything that comes out of pine64 again after the disastrous pinebook pro. I love the idea behind the FairPhone but the security on that device is a joke. I'm hoping the GrapheneOS people launch a decent phone.
> Saying "the users need to be educated" doesn't solve anything. Google could start an education campaign tomorrow (...)
Of course just saying it doesn't fix anything.
I don't want Google or Apple or any other vendor to do any education campaigns (and they clearly don't even want to try), part of my point is that the issue is too deep to be solved by such technological measures. For example, not skipping such warnings (includes invalid/expired certificates in https) and basic cyber hygiene should be taught in schools. There should be more public campaigns about these issues.
So I'm not even sure if Google should be fixing that particular problem (although I can guess why they are really eager to "solve" it this particular way). I would rather they focused even more on a stronger sandbox, making sure system software on licensed phones has no vulnerabilities and making sure the users understand what power they give to an application, than pretend that this fixes much.
Sideloading restrictions only barely (because it's not like they are actually going to verify the applications, nothing about that in the post) plug one way to scam people remotely, over many, many other more severe ways. The banks in many countries don't even properly verify identity of people they give loans to, why not focus on that instead? (Yes, Google won't fix this, I'm not asking them to, they shouldn't try.)
We lose more than we gain.
> Then install a custom rom. All the power you want is already available
On most phones it's not, but that's besides my point.
> Seems silly to demand Google screw over the majority of their customers because you don't want to install a custom rom.
I'm not demanding Google to screw over anyone, and the current "sideloading" situation does not screw over anyone.
I just believe that the vendors should not have the sole power to decide what applications can be installed on devices they don't own.
Maybe let's have multiple certification authorities besides Google, like with TLS, as a start/compromise? I see the point of actually having an expert verify if an application is legitimate, and this isn't even it.
> On the contrary, you choose when you purchase your phone.
That choice should not be made when the phone is purchased.
And also I'm not talking about what I want to do with my phone, I'm talking about what I believe people should be able to do with their phones - for example they should be able to opt out of such protections if they don't want them (and leave them on if they want them), or choose who verifies their applications.
Only possible if they know what the protections do and what the risks are, going back to what I wrote about education.
In the short term, yes. In the long term, it means Google can ban any app it doesn't like, and it means governments can compel it to do so.
Governments being able to ban software without easy workarounds could have far-reaching consequences affecting people who don't even use the software in question. This is a Bad Thing even if it helps keep a few people from getting scammed.
> Average users benefit greatly from their pocket appliance not being a full fledged computer.
Why, though?
There's certainly no technical reason that a pocket appliance can't be a full fledged computer. The primary reason it isn't is because device manufacturers benefit greatly from having a tight control over their products. This is not unique to mobile devices; we see the same trend of desktop operating systems becoming increasingly user hostile as well.
The claim that these features are in the best interest of users is an inane excuse. Operating systems can certainly give users the freedom to use their devices to their full capabilities, without sacrificing their security or privacy. There are many ways that Google could implement this that doesn't involve being the global authority over which apps users are allowed to install. But, of course, they are in the advertising business, where all data that can be collected, must be collected.
Agreed. Most people don't care that they can't run "unauthorized app XYZ", as long as their bank account / vacation pics / texts don't leak.
Now, that may happen anyway, but they'll give up a TON to avoid that.
Me, I try to avoid using my phone for anything important, use a VPN under Linux at home whenever possible, ad blockers, privacy guard, etc, etc. I can't expect my non-technical family members to do that.
Bad car analogy coming up: MOST drivers benefit more from ABS than the few really, really good race car drivers who can do threshold braking and outbrake ABS - and even then, I doubt it's true for anything but the earliest ABS systems. I'll bet the newest ABS systems are better than almost any human - because they don't have an off day, don't get distracted, etc.
And I get the anger - I'm an old school Atari 800xl / ST / DOS / Linux user who tries to ditch Windows where possible. Restricting things seems heavy-handed - and I don't trust Google in the least. But I would NEVER tell anyone in my family to sideload an app, even though they're all Android users - I don't want that support burden.
Don't pretend that average users are asked, or that their opinions would matter. Or even that you have some sort of insight into the average user that other people don't have.
People who think this is unacceptable are the people who 1) understand what it is, 2) don't stand to profit from it, and 3) don't dream about locking average users into an ecosystem that they control some day.
And people who are financially interested in letting users side-load apps (malicious or otherwise) are good at what they do. I mean, even Russian banks that are banned from the Apple App Store are still finding ways to distribute iPhone apps.
People that think this is unacceptable are not remotely average users. Average users benefit greatly from their pocket appliance not being a full fledged computer.