I had never seen Android malware until my mom showed me her phone. I think she's barely ever installed an app on purpose in her life, but there it was this malware that looked like the husk of a legit app repurposed to show banner ads after every phone call
My MIL has an ungoogled huawei phone. She was trying to get some app and family told her she needs to get the play store to get the app.
Holy fucking shit. What a hive of scum and villany you encounter when searching for the play store. The first link on google launches a full screen PWA that looks _exactly_ like the play store. It took me a hot minute to realize that I was about to install something unsavoury. I almost wanted to dunk the phone in some bleach.
I'm an android user, and I prefer it over iPhone, but the surface area for attacks is way way way too large. Users who are less technically inclined are so damn vulnerable. I don't know how to fix this.
When I bought an ipad a few years back, it had been at least 10 years since I was on the ios ecosystem(last iphone was the 3gs). I was shocked how hard it was to find what I was looking for. Instead of the Playstore minefield of free spyware apps, you now have cheap knockoffs, likely still spyware, but now everything costs $5 dollars.
I think there's two different sets of perverse incentives. On the apple side, it's how to trick you into a "small" purchase of 5 dollars. It's just a cup of coffee man, c'mon just a coffee. Essentially banking on some user will just add it to their apple tab for convenience.
On the android side, the expectation is primarily free apps, with paid generally being a premium app. There are some free apps that just do what they say, typically small side hustles from solo devs banking on some add revenue with the option to upgrade(Shout out to GoneMadMusicPlayer, paid for it back in 2013 and the devi is still out there supporting and responding to emails). If they're not that, they'll be spyware infested trap holes.
Fdroid is typically where I go when I'm looking for an app with a unix philosophy. Just do one thing simply. Voice recorder, guitar tuner, etc.
this is what I'm talking about. I wish more folks in this thread had gone this direction.
I think those types of people like your MIL represent a very concerning bulk of Android users. So people are walking around with god knows what in their pockets, doing every single thing in their life through them these days. I thought others who had arrived at this thought would be alarmed too, but I'm not sure what to think anymore I guess.
I don't really see how you can guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, I feel like you may be exaggerating here.
I also don't mind the downvote, but if you would please tell me how you are able to guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, please tell me instead of hiding behind a downvote. Otherwise my solution is don't use an Android device.
wow, downvotes on all three comments! thanks, stranger.
> I don't really see how you can guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, I feel like you may be exaggerating here.
Can you do it on an iPhone? (You can't.)
Between android and ios, which platform is considered more secure or safer?
It's not easy to find out directly, but bug bounty programs can be used as a heuristic. Guess which one it is, after both being the same for a long time? (It's android).
> I also don't mind the downvote, but if you would please tell me how you are able to guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, please tell me instead of hiding behind a downvote. Otherwise my solution is don't use an Android device.
The same way you guarantee it on any other OS, be it windows or macos or linux. You do your best, don't download sketchy apps, and don't be a political figure. Of course that doesn't guarantee it, just makes it 99% likely.
> Otherwise my solution is don't use an Android device.
Do you think you can guarantee this on an iPhone? May I ask you how you are able to guarantee this on iOS?
I haven't said anything about Apple guaranteeing this, I just am saying that Apple seems more trustworthy to me. And unless you can prove Android is actually better, then I still believe that. I feel like people are misunderstanding my original post.
You would probably not be surprised that I would still trust a heavily regulated government that's occasionally broken rather than one that's run in a totally free market by all varieties of selfish interests.
You're getting down-voted because you're structuring the argument in an unwinnable way, and I think you know that. None of us can prove that any phone doesn't have malware. Seems like you're arguing in bad faith.
the thing is, I didn't mean to argue. I'm merely responding to people's comments, who started an argument?
I am very, very concerned about our ability to communicate with each other as human beings these days. Maybe this thread was meant to be an example of that, I don't know. I didn't realize everyone was trying to prove me wrong with this. sheesh.
further, I am seeing why some folks decided to close themselves off completely to stuff like this. I enjoy intellectual curiosity and try to find others who do, but I realize many people don't enjoy it and many even hate it. it's not because it's a lack of intelligence. It's that everyone seems uninterested in the thoughts that made me type that initial comment, they're more concerned with proving me wrong. Am I accurate in this assessment, or can I trust you to not treat this question as an argument, if that is a better way to put it?
I had never seen Android malware until my mom showed me her phone. I think she's barely ever installed an app on purpose in her life, but there it was this malware that looked like the husk of a legit app repurposed to show banner ads after every phone call
My MIL has an ungoogled huawei phone. She was trying to get some app and family told her she needs to get the play store to get the app.
Holy fucking shit. What a hive of scum and villany you encounter when searching for the play store. The first link on google launches a full screen PWA that looks _exactly_ like the play store. It took me a hot minute to realize that I was about to install something unsavoury. I almost wanted to dunk the phone in some bleach.
I'm an android user, and I prefer it over iPhone, but the surface area for attacks is way way way too large. Users who are less technically inclined are so damn vulnerable. I don't know how to fix this.
When I bought an ipad a few years back, it had been at least 10 years since I was on the ios ecosystem(last iphone was the 3gs). I was shocked how hard it was to find what I was looking for. Instead of the Playstore minefield of free spyware apps, you now have cheap knockoffs, likely still spyware, but now everything costs $5 dollars.
I think there's two different sets of perverse incentives. On the apple side, it's how to trick you into a "small" purchase of 5 dollars. It's just a cup of coffee man, c'mon just a coffee. Essentially banking on some user will just add it to their apple tab for convenience.
On the android side, the expectation is primarily free apps, with paid generally being a premium app. There are some free apps that just do what they say, typically small side hustles from solo devs banking on some add revenue with the option to upgrade(Shout out to GoneMadMusicPlayer, paid for it back in 2013 and the devi is still out there supporting and responding to emails). If they're not that, they'll be spyware infested trap holes.
Fdroid is typically where I go when I'm looking for an app with a unix philosophy. Just do one thing simply. Voice recorder, guitar tuner, etc.
this is what I'm talking about. I wish more folks in this thread had gone this direction.
I think those types of people like your MIL represent a very concerning bulk of Android users. So people are walking around with god knows what in their pockets, doing every single thing in their life through them these days. I thought others who had arrived at this thought would be alarmed too, but I'm not sure what to think anymore I guess.
Depends on your definition of malware.
If you consider adware to be malware, which I personally do, then I would estimate close to zero Android phones are operating without malware.
I don't really see how you can guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, I feel like you may be exaggerating here.
I also don't mind the downvote, but if you would please tell me how you are able to guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, please tell me instead of hiding behind a downvote. Otherwise my solution is don't use an Android device.
wow, downvotes on all three comments! thanks, stranger.
> I don't really see how you can guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, I feel like you may be exaggerating here.
Can you do it on an iPhone? (You can't.)
Between android and ios, which platform is considered more secure or safer? It's not easy to find out directly, but bug bounty programs can be used as a heuristic. Guess which one it is, after both being the same for a long time? (It's android).
You can check out https://www.wired.com/story/android-zero-day-more-than-ios-z... and https://cyberscoop.com/ios-zero-day-zerodium-high-supply/
> I also don't mind the downvote, but if you would please tell me how you are able to guarantee your Android phone doesn't have malware, please tell me instead of hiding behind a downvote. Otherwise my solution is don't use an Android device.
The same way you guarantee it on any other OS, be it windows or macos or linux. You do your best, don't download sketchy apps, and don't be a political figure. Of course that doesn't guarantee it, just makes it 99% likely.
> Otherwise my solution is don't use an Android device.
Do you think you can guarantee this on an iPhone? May I ask you how you are able to guarantee this on iOS?
(I haven't downvoted you)
I haven't said anything about Apple guaranteeing this, I just am saying that Apple seems more trustworthy to me. And unless you can prove Android is actually better, then I still believe that. I feel like people are misunderstanding my original post.
You would probably not be surprised that I would still trust a heavily regulated government that's occasionally broken rather than one that's run in a totally free market by all varieties of selfish interests.
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You're getting down-voted because you're structuring the argument in an unwinnable way, and I think you know that. None of us can prove that any phone doesn't have malware. Seems like you're arguing in bad faith.
the thing is, I didn't mean to argue. I'm merely responding to people's comments, who started an argument?
I am very, very concerned about our ability to communicate with each other as human beings these days. Maybe this thread was meant to be an example of that, I don't know. I didn't realize everyone was trying to prove me wrong with this. sheesh.
further, I am seeing why some folks decided to close themselves off completely to stuff like this. I enjoy intellectual curiosity and try to find others who do, but I realize many people don't enjoy it and many even hate it. it's not because it's a lack of intelligence. It's that everyone seems uninterested in the thoughts that made me type that initial comment, they're more concerned with proving me wrong. Am I accurate in this assessment, or can I trust you to not treat this question as an argument, if that is a better way to put it?
I guarantee no malware by using fdroid
Fdroid just checks there is no proprietary code and compiles. They don't do any review. You are completely reliant on the app not being malicious.
1 reply →
I didn't downvote you, and it's against the rules to focus on the voting anyway.
Ok, thanks for saying that I guess. FYI I wasn't talking directly to you on the second line.