Item — HN Reader

I've literally never had an infected Android device, and neither has any member of my family despite the existence of sideloading.

Also, when's the last time anyone's installed a virus on Macs? They're infinitely more open than their mobile counterparts, yet there's barely any issues there.

I'm willing to bet the large majority of people don't even know what sideloading is in the first place, and even if you somehow accidentally happen upon an APK you need to go through some scary warning screens before it even lets you do it. I genuinely don't see this ever being an issue, it just sounds like shilling for Apple to keep their dominance and closed APIs

2 comments

> They're infinitely more open than their mobile counterparts, yet there's barely any issues there.

That are marginally more open than mobile, but by default, there are still a lot of protections that (certain) developers complain about. Really, this is probably the model that you’re going to see — a phone that is locked down with a bright red shiny button that says “if you click this, you can run unsigned programs, but don’t ask us for help if you get hacked”. That’s basically how it works on Macs, except the button is grey. However, the OS is still far from open — certain developer rights are still blocked by signing keys/privileges.

> They're infinitely more open than their mobile counterparts, yet there's barely any issues there.

I know that isn't true because otherwise I wouldn't have a job.