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Comment by icesoldier | Hacker News Reader

> "Smartphone usage has skyrocketed, and some advertisers have begun to experiment with aggressive, new techniques to display ads on mobile devices. This includes pushing ads to the standard Android notification bar, dropping generically designed icons on the mobile desktop, and modifying browser settings like bookmarks or the default homepage," explains Lookout.

Wait, seriously? Perhaps I'm too accustomed to iOS, but I wouldn't expect a smartphone app to change the browser homepage.

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PC applications have always been able to do it so I don't see why not, in the end it's the user that is accepting this, everything needs permissions, if the user doesn't pay attention it's partly his fault. This are features that can still be useful for legitimate uses.

There is a balance to be had, however, and the watch your back! approach to the market is not consumer friendly, and history has shown that it simply doesn't work. There's no reason to accept it.

Honestly -- and I say this as an Android developer -- Google needs to perform at least rudimentary identity verification of developers/developer companies. Right now it is a joke, and is how fly-by-night scammers can roll in and out with impunity.

Here's an outrageous example of how utterly broken the vendor verification is on Google -

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.waefgrwegw...

It is hard to blame a user when they fall for garbage like this. The hundreds of fake reviews are the topping on the cake, and this is one of countless examples of this sort of horseshit.

I have always found the fact that Windows app installers routinely do this to be one of the irritating things about that platform. Apps should know their place: it's my machine, not theirs, and they should not presume to tell me how I should organize it.

It's interesting that Android is rediscovering the same lessons Windows learned. As Windows progressed, they exposed less things via API, realising that the user wants control of their experience. For instance, pinning items to the taskbar.

Devs call MS and whine "how can I make my installer pin the app to the taskbar" and the answer is "that's the user's space, so you're not allowed". Of course, without a sandbox or approved environment, applications can reverse engineer the system somehow. And if MS adds a mandatory sandbox/approval (WinRT) then it's "but it's not an open or fair platform; my machine is locked down; freedom etc.".

Sure, you might say "but I want" this app to violate the sandbox. But if that's remotely easy to accomplish, then all apps just request you to violate the sandbox (just like the tons of sites that used to have "click yes to install the ActiveX control when the scary warning pops up").

The converse is that I really wish there were an app for managing the Start screen in Windows 8 because having to right click a million icons etc. by hand really sucks.

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