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> And yet you expect them to do that research for EVERY APP someone on the phone tells them to install?!

No, we're expecting people who don't want to do that research to only install from an official, vetted source, like the Apple App Store.

> That is how scammers walked my grandma through installing a fake banking app on her android phone, and stole all her money.

That genuinely sucks, but I don't think keeping people from fully owning their devices is the answer to that problem.

Put another way, if this is your position, then you should also support the idea of Apple also locking down macOS so it will only run apps installed through the Mac App Store. And Microsoft should do something similar with Windows. But I sincerely hope you wouldn't support that... that's just absurd.

The funny thing is that directing people to malicious websites is generally a lot easier than getting them to sideload a malicious app. If Android were to suddenly start disallowing sideloading, I'm sure the people who tricked your grandmother would have based their scam on a malicious website instead. If she trusted some rando on the phone to download and install a malicious app, I'm sure she would have been tricked by that same rando directing her to a malicious website.

But I guess we can just ban web browsers too, right?



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