this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Some of these comments are wild.
The OS should not at all stop me from doing what I want to do. Ever. Not even if that means I can fuck it up.
They can warn me when I attempt to do things that could fuck shit up. They can make it a bit harder to navigate to certain things so I'm less likely to fuck shit up. But it's my god damn hardware. I should be able to run and configure the software on it as I see fit.
But we subsidised the cost of your phone so we could make sweet sweet recurring revenue off your usage habits and targeted advertising!
You wouldn't want to take that away from us would you? Won't SOMEBODY think of the shareholders?!
I'm getting really sick of products being only available subsidized by a level of invasiveness that should be illegal.
The government should need an individualized warrant to purchase my data. And honestly Google should need one to collect it
You mean like smart TVs?
An early metastase of the cancer.
I realise you're being facetious, but if anything Google made my phone more expensive with the certification process.
meh both on mac and windows you’re not the true admin of the machine. mac requires disabling SIP and some others to even be able to delete default applications for example and don’t get me started on windows. linux ftw (as I type this from my old ass ios device)
And on any Intel hardware the true root account belongs to NSA anyway.
To be clear, Kolanaki is saying that that is not how an OS should behave.
oh yea I agree I was just venting further; prefer less hand holding
you can get all the right you need with a little trickery. I mean, psexec is made and distributed by Microsoft, freely. a simple download. and I don't think it's bad that the average user can't run everything immediately as TrustedInstaller or SYSTEM.
that’s a nice option to have, at least. i’ve s few more complaints left for each OS, but in the end i’d prefer a linux style and level of control over a machine and overall less abstraction. we’re getting software locked out most hardware nowadays: cars, household appliances, public transit, airports, privacy and so on
I think that just falls under "make it a bit harder to navigate to certain things so I'm less likely to fuck shit up."
I mean nobody is shocked that they both suck. If it's not open source you are not in control.
From a personal freedom POV, I agree. But, if it was easy it would be a support nightmare.
Google and Apple scan every app that gets loaded into their app stores for malware. There's also a lengthy review process, even just for updates. Some malware does still slip through, but it's a trickle compared to what gets blocked. If sideloading apps were easy, my younger sister would be in so much trouble. She'd have various accounts phished within a day. She'd install something that drains the battery within an hour and not understand what was going wrong. And, she's relatively tech savvy. I have no idea how the older generation would survive.
Of course, since Apple and Google make 30% of every sale on the app store, they're not purely motivated to just keep their users safe. The real problem is that there is a duopoly in smartphones. Apple and Google have essentially the same policies, and if you don't like them you have no other options. If there were a dozen OSes, there could be smart phones for Granny that had everything locked down, and smart phones for h4x04z that didn't. Companies that struck a good balance between protecting their users and allowing their users freedom would do well in the market. Companies that didn't would shrink and fail.
Sure, but there's a good argument that that should be an end-user issue, and not something that the OS/Phone manufacturer should be trying to mitigate. It's a risk you take when owning a device, that you can also break it, or get it infected.
Otherwise, why bother selling the phone in the first place, rather than contracting it out under a rental agreement?
So? Don't run fishy files off the internet unless you're open to the risks. Have secure walls that require either a setting change or individual permission grants before they can access secure apps.
Operating systems are prone to natural monopoly or duopoly. Furthermore there's anti consumer incentives here in that governments want surveillance data and os companies sell it.
Where competition fails to protect consumers governments must. And that includes protection from governments. I know it's ironic today as we're in a fascist regime, but that's one of the basic principles of my country. So anyways please Europe protect us worldwide consumers from American companies.
your younger syster should have parental controls on, and it's worrying that you suggest it is not the case. I don't know their age but most probably they shouldn't be able to install any apps from anywhere without parent approval.
guessing fron what we already know, she probably shouldn't have half of those accounts.
My younger sister is in her 40s. She's a pretty typical cell phone user.
in that case parental controls would still solve a lot of problems, including this one
I think your parents should turn on their parental controls because you're going a bit wild, buddy.
I mean you're basically arguing for parental control, it is just done by google.
K
oh don't worry daddy google will turn it on for all of us thanks to the deranged irresponsibility of your kind.
if someone is so tech illiterate that they are breaking the phone's software and leaking their information all over the internet, they cannot be responsibly allowed to use that device without restrictions.
I bet you are one of those that want forced government ID based age verification everywhere because you agree with people who can't be bothered to set limits on their kids phone.
K
Have you people never worked in IT support? Like its all fair and good that you, a power user, dont want the OS to restrict you at all. But for your averrage person to be treated the same is just asking for disaster.
I have worked in IT. People still manage to screw up shit that's locked down. Babysitting everyone because some people are just technologically incompetent is stupid and does not solve any actual problems.
Can't IT lock things down if they so desire? That is the owner of the device using it as they see fit: Locking it down so the non technical users of the device can't break it. That you keep suggesting that devices should come out of the box restricted would make your IT job obsolete and in fact impossible to perform.
Edit: And before you ask yes I have worked in IT support, although I currently do not.
Not corporate IT, but IT for home users, back in the days when things were much less locked down basically every computer i got access too was completely crawling with malware. Had tons of people lose all of their data including family photos and the like because they dowloaded something dodgy off limewire and their system just let them run it.
Why cant you guys understand that the vast vast majority of computer users are not technical? And as such need those safety rails in place to save them from their own ignorance?
We'll always need safety rails, I think the thing you're missing in most of the arguments you're seeing here is that people want ways over or around those safety rails, and that those safety rails do not need to be as strict as they're becoming. That is not the case currently and that is definitely not the direction AOSP or iOS are interested in going.
Also, just for the record, comparing the modern era of computing to the limewire era is bananas.
Exactly.
I have no problem with safety rails for those who need it, my problem is that with each passing update these rails become obligatory and non-removable.
Is that not what sideloading is? A way over the safety rails?
Not at all. Root access would be a way over safety rails.
Also the context of this post is that Google is attempting to make "side loading" harder.
they are crawling with malware today, from the factory, except it is harder to remove, especially on smartphones.
safety rails are not steal walls. instead of walls education is needed. education can happen not only in schools.
Most Android phone owners don't even know they are Android phone owners.
A hidden option to unlock power user mode solves this
Yeah exactly. Though i would personally say a bit more obfuscation is needed then a simple hidden switch.
Don't hide it. That's pointless. Make it so someone has to type "I understand what I'm doing and my username is blah" into a box to activate "advanced" mode, after reading a warning, sure.
I don't disagree, but it's very funny that LinusTechTips went through that exact process a moment before publically destroying his desktop on PopOS
Right, but pretty much everyone but Linus and his sycophants agree that was a bone headed mistake. If you type "I understand what I am doing..." and you do not understand- you are asking for trouble.
Granted, that bug shouldn't have existed in the first place but I feel like the warning should have raised a big red flag for a 'tech expert'. It almost feels like he did it on purpose to prove some sort of point about how Linux 'isn't there yet' but ofc there is no way to prove that.
“Why isn’t x working! I set x on my [insert device here] and now it won’t turn on!”