Opening a walled community is always good for the end users. Promoting competition is always good for the end users.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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There's always been alternative app stores and sideloading on Android. The only thing this really opens up is a lot more companies could end up with your payment info and I'm definitely not a fan of apks that will now be allowed to force update themselves in the background. That's a terrible idea. So would having to update apks from dozens of different sources.
This just feels like fear mongering. Oh no Google says it can't protect us anymore. Whatever shall we do?
What was Google protecting us from?
Adblockers apparently
Certainly not from malware. The play store is the central repository of Android malware.
Privacy and choice.
In theory malicious android apps. In practice they create locked ecosystems that are hard for anyone to break in. No one wants another apple model.
No one wants another apple model.
Indeed... If I wanted a locked down toy I would have bought an iThing.
From what they're going to do to you if they're not protecting you.
"If anything, the toggle made me feel like I was engaging in something truly indulgent, and that appealed to my desire to pretend I’m Angelina Jolie’s character in Hackers"
...opening the settings makes them feel like a hacker?
At this point I think people have been babied about technology long enough. It's time people learned just a little bit about how to handle technology so that it doesn't look like voodoo black magic anytime you do something more basic than opening YouTube and getting cat videos.
Whoa, hold on now, this take could introduce a new wave of tech scammers that actually sound like they know what they are talking about...
/s
You don't even need to open the settings and find the option, as it just present you the toggle when you open the apk...
make her feel like a hacker
Just in: Google whines about regulations made to break up its monopoly.
Regulations set in place because they are unable to regulate themselves.
News at 11
It seems to read an article from an alternate universe. Neo store and droidify can already automatically update third party apps from years ago, just give the permission once per app.
Don't like the automatic update? Disable it in the setting pretending to be Angelina Jolie’s character in Hackers. The third party app store didn't allow to disable automatic updates? Just uninstall it and get a new one.
For example, when neo store forced the user to give the permission to stay always loaded in memory to check for updates all the time, first I checked GitHub to see if it was a bug. When I saw it was a deliberate choice from the dev and that they were unwilling to reverse it, I just uninstalled and move on. There's choice.
Freemium games would never redirect the user to their website for saving some fees because:
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Friction. As a play store IAP a whale can buy $50 in useless game coins with just a scan of the fingerprint. Otherise open the browser, create an account, type billing address, type cc numbers, get the otp.... insane bounce rate that's higher than the fees
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Chargebacks. Nobody does chargebacks against Google because they would nuke your Google account for fraud and that is a disaster. But a chargeback on an idle clicker where you're already bored that bears no conseguences? Oh yes!
Lineage OS user. Don't care.
Google Play Store isn't the only app store out there.
It is insane to put this on Android and not iOS.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Today, Google laid out what’s happening in its Keyword blog, and it’s all in time for the holiday when we can finally slow down and contemplate how much will change about the Android experience due to this ruling.
Noted code sleuth Mishaal Rahman published an easy-to-follow breakdown of how exactly Android’s interface will handle sideloading apps.
You’ll no longer have to dig into the settings panel to toggle on the ability to install apps from other sources, though I also didn’t think it was a big deal to do this in the first place.
If anything, the toggle made me feel like I was engaging in something truly indulgent, and that appealed to my desire to pretend I’m Angelina Jolie’s character in Hackers.
Developers don’t have to hide pricing, either, so they can take up space to tell you how much money you’ll save if you buy in-app coins through their means versus through Google’s.
Though the Play Store has been opened to allow developers to make money in more ways than one, it comes at the expense of what Google presented as pro-consumer practices to keep bad actors from pushing Android users away to Apple’s iOS.
The original article contains 662 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I don't understand this ruling. They all seem like minor things. And this has been true for years:
The ability for manufacturers to provide an alternative app store alongside the Play Store on new devices
Samsung has always had a separate app store install on their phones. And Xiaomi has one I'm pretty sure. Amazon definitely does.
How is it not a good thing for developers to be able to charge customers outside of the app store? I get that it may be better for security for Google to be taking care of it, but it seems financially better for developers not to have 30% of their income taken.
IDK, if someone can explain why this stuff is actually new or bad, I'd love to hear it.
Gizmodo has a stupid take? What a surprise. Death to all Gawker brands.