Comment by idle_zealot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by idle_zealot | Hacker News Reader

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This isn't a free or safe choose one scenario. As a platform owner Apple could offer a vetting service for known-safe popular applications, make those easy to install, and create a clear scare-screen when enabling installation from other sources, as well as management profile settings for disabling unvetted or 3rd party app installation all together. Then the only education anyone needs is to not install unvetted apps.

As a bonus, they could make the app curation system extendable, so other groups could run vetting programs. By default your device would only have Apple as a trusted vetter, but as part of a management profile or something you could also trust apps vetter by some security research group, or Epic, or Valve, or whoever. That way security isn't all-or-nothing.

And of course, if anything slips through and your layman user OKs all the warnings and installs a malicious app, it's still operating in a sandbox, and can't do much more harm than clicking a shady link and ending up on a scam website can.

> This isn't a free or safe choose one scenario.

And yet the choose one scenario is the one that has worked best for me. My dad would fill up his Android phone with malware regardless of scare screens. The solution was simple, and allowed at least him and I to spend more time doing other things.

In the scenario I described, equivalent action would be to set up a device policy for him that disables installing untrusted apps. You wouldn't even need to have bought him a new phone!

It is hard to believe anyone would manage to fill Android phone with malware without going out of their way to do so. Google Play is the default app store. You have to enable installing from other sources. Google Play then still gets to inspect the app and warn you about possible malware. Of course you can disable all the safety feature and only use 3rd party stores...but you have to go out of your way to do that. If person has done that without knowing what they are doing then they will probably fall for the first, second and 10,000th phishing email or phone call and there is nothing anyone can do to protect them.

You can fill your phone with malware without ever leaving the Play Store. Similar is true of the App Store, with the caveat that at least hostile iOS apps can't replace your homescreen.

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