Posted by rom1v 1 day ago
In the past, they forced Steam to implement proper refund policies, and they are currently suing Microsoft about the way subscribers were duped into paying more for "AI features" they didn't want.
If i send a golang binary to someone with a mac via signal or other mediums, apple simply displays a dialog that the app is damaged and can't be run.
You need to use chmod to manually remove the quarantine flag to run it.
That for me is something that should be fined ad infinitum, because it is clearly designed to disallow non technical people to run custom apps.
On your point about security, this kind of aggressivity from the platform owner tend to backfire.
The user was already convinced to open that mail, download that file, and try to run it. Pushing the process to the terminal just means your clueless users now run the provided incantations in the shell instead, and the attack vector now becomes huge (the initial program doesn't even need to be malware)
That wouldn't be perfect, but at least the user could be prompted for a concrete action instead of a vague "this script is scary" warning.
Has this changed? I thought it failed to launch, but if you go to Privacy & Security in Settings it would give you the option to allow it to run?
Though yes, macOS doesn't prompt you to do that, you have to know where to find it.
but macOS lets you override any system determination, iOS does not, and Google is proposing the iOS flavor.
I think it is mostly about expectations, macOS trained people that it is relatively safe to install signed apps. If your app is unsigned, Gatekeeper will refuse to run it.
Because it's obscenely profitable for the platform holder to have complete control over app distribution.
Can we stop pretending it's about anything else than that? Just imagine if Microsoft got a 30% commission on every PC software purchase in the world...
In the US maybe. In Europe, not so much. With Apple having a market share of "only" about one third and WhatsApp being the de facto default messaging app, this discussion never happened here.
Therefore your argument doesn't apply to Europe at all. Android is more than the "hacky" part. Albeit I'd really love to keep that.
99.9% of people who use Android have never, and never will, install apps outside the Play Store, and aren't even aware that they can do so.
I'd guesstimate that close to 50% of Android users know how to install an apk.
Outside of the Western market, installing Android apps not from Google Play is a completely normal and regular thing. In countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines (which represent a massive portion of global Android users) it is a standard part of using a phone.
> Judgment of the General Court of 14 September 2022 — Google and Alphabet v Commission (Google Android) > > The General Court largely confirms the Commission's decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and mobile network operators in order to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/202...
Press release:
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/202...
The UK petition link appears to be broken:
* https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...
Feedback: Closed Consultation period 17 July 2025 - 24 October 2025 (midnight Brussels time)
You can't? THEN YOU DON'T OWN YOUR PHONE.
Simple as that.
I also recall a time in the nascent era of web file hosts, like Rapidshare.de and Mega upload, and some others that came and went so quick that I don't even remember their names, some services offered the option to "sideload" (as opposed to download) straight to their file server.
As of now, I can create APKs of my apps and install them on my mother's phone by unchecking the "prevent apps from other sources" option.
Even after going through so many articles, I still don't know unambiguously whether I can continue this workflow in future, or I'll need Google's approval to install on just our own 2 family phones.
There's a failure in communications here from both sides.
Ambiguity suits Google perfectly fine.
But it's counterproductive to its opponents because every dev who's confused will remain a fence-sitter rather than an ally, even if only motivated by personal inconvenience rather than any principled stand.
I doubt I'm the only Android dev who's confused. I hope at least f-droid communicates more clearly the consequences of this policy to all types of developers and deployment scenarios.
I can't even go into my workplace and get the company to not install Google Chrome and use Microsoft Edge on Windows (mind you, Edge is now based on Chromium) because everyone is so far up Google's ass that they must run CHROME and not another CHROMIUM browser because MICROSOFT. It's fucking insanity. It's taken as a default.
Stop using their products. Stop giving Google so much power over the fucking internet. Meanwhile I go on internet forums, IRC, and places like HN and people still fucking cry about Microsoft as if somehow we're in the 1990s. Like literally Gen Z wasn't even born in the 1990s and they decry Microsoft because us Millennials and Gen X continue to think Microsoft is the absolutely worst evil ever and Google is like the patron saint of the internet.
Apologies for the little bit of pro Microsoft rant here, but the point I'm trying to make is we should evaluate both Google and Apple through the same lens that we all give Microsoft shit for.
DeGooglify your brain, and then the rest of the world will begin to follow. Stop changing everything in your fucking services to kubernetes and istio. Don't switch your projects over to Go. Stop letting them run everything.
Like every time Google releases a new piece of technology the entire industry jumps on their tallywhacker. And that just continues to cement their legacy in all of these stacks.
Microsoft made changes to force consumer users to create Microsoft accounts to login to their PCs and you can go on Youtube and see 500 videos on how to use some bespoke tool to bypass this that has racked up thousands of views because some 'nerd' who literally walks around with a Macbook and an iPhone told them that it's the most evil thing Microsoft could make you do.
Meanwhile, once Google completes this transition on Android, you'll basically be forced to have a Google or Apple account to install any software on your devices, backup and restore the device, etc. And yet folks that dominate these boards are just like "yah that kinda sucks but like, ya know, ya know? ya know!?"
I agree that open software and even open hardware is a good thing. But both Apple and Google have done an incredible amount of damage to the open ecosystem of the web over the last 20 years in so many more ways than Microsoft could have ever dreamed of doing back in the 1990s.
And nerds not only let it happen, but embraced it, camped out in days-long lines wearing diapers to buy the latest shiny overpriced brick they could put in their pocket so they could look cool to all of their friends for a whole 12 months before the next one came out and made them look like a povo. And now walking around with a Macbook at college is like wearing the latest fashion trend because everyone has to show off that they're completely irresponsible with money and spend $2000 for something they could realistically get for under $1000 just so they can show off that they're in the same social class as everyone else.
It's the most infuriating thing to happen to the internet and technology.
Oh, and then to add on, they all get jobs in the tech industry and throw a fucking entitled childish hissy fit when their company hands them a $1000 Windows PC that's got monitoring and security software with no Admin rights on it instead of the $2500 Macbook Pro that they get root access to because mommy and daddy never told them no.
You can also uninstall Edge and all the other Microsoft bloatware. Google on Android is actually one of the worse offenders in Europe for not being able to uninstall software as they consider far too many things to be critical to the operating system (for example, search).
Hell, even internet-of-shit devices make you sign up for an account to manage the hardware you buy (Ring, Nest, smart LEDs, etc.)
I'd give that on pure number of raw technical devices deployed to the internet today, some form of account and/or internet connectivity is a requirement moreso than not.
Note some companies give Mac books with admin, smaller companies though. It can be a real shock to go to a large company and get a locked down windows machine. What the boss can now see how much time I really spend working!?!