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Is FOSS really safe?
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
64 points (91.0% liked)
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You mention the Google Play issue. That is an example of a disadvantage of closed source (Android is open, the Google Play Protect is not). Google Play Protect is essentially static code analysis. Think of it almost like antivirus. It tries to look for anomalies in the code itself. But it's not great. It can be tricked. And we don't even know how good it is or what kind of checks it does.
FOSS code has many people looking at it. You can compile it yourself. It's extremely unlikely for something that's remotely popular to have explicitly malicious code in it. Is it impossible? No. But just as you get folks deep diving video game code assets, you get people looking at code of many FOSS projects. Likely because they either want to contribute or make changes.
It comes down to it being easier to find malicious actors in FOSS. Its just more difficult to hide than closed source.
Why would you think closed source is any safer for any of the same reasons but worse? Closed source can just as easily (arguably more easily) steal your info (and many did but bury it in EULAs).
How come users don't have root access on Android even though Android is open?
Because the vast majority of users does not need root access.
Alright, but why does Google gets to decide that? Why not make it so that users can get the root access like they can get the developers mode unlocked? On top of that, doesn't them making it difficult or almost impossible to remove their apps defy the idea of opensource? How is Android even called opensource when the users have so much restriction put upon by Google?
There is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), and then there's Google's Android, which has both open and closed components (e.g. proprietary media codecs). There is such a thing as a pure, open-source Android, but what Google ships is not 100% open.
Think of it like Google's browser: AOSP is Chromium, the Android that comes with your phone is Google Chrome.
Whether or not someone has admin has nothing to do with whether something is open source.