The funny thing here: They have active spyware and malware on their app store. They go by vague offical sounding names like "Gallery" and "Messages" "Text Messages"
I've reported it and that goes to an google form where the app stays up. I've even gone farenough where I've escalated through internal Google contacts. Nothing is done. It's not sideloading that's the issue.
It's google. This is a hostile behavior to all users of the devices and developers of their platform.
_--
My thoughts on where this might go:
We're getting into an era where there are organizations that are violently hostile to your device and they demand that. These people believe that the device you paid for and the service you paid for is theirs.
I.e. mobile ids from governments, which may introduce client side scanning. More so, theres a hostile push for "age verification" which would lean on the Play integrity chain. Want to find out who does this? Look into Magisck on reddit and the apps people have difficultly using. This is not a case of "someone wants to hack something".. it's all about control.
If you're watching the Root/third party space.. right now there are issues running apps. Some apps scan for "SuperSU" app and will refuse to run. (As in they're not sandboxed)
They believe it because it’s true. RMS et al. have been predicting this for eons, but now that these companies feel comfortable to move overtly it’s pretty much too late to stop them.
I can't believe this criminal that is writing this. Won't people think of the poor data brokers that are sucking down data from this forced app about who he is, what his device profile is, where is location is etc?
Biggest issue I have with Ghostty is that on the mac with Nano.. you can't copy and paste multiple lines into the editor. It's something about how the terminal handles "bracketed pasting".. but yet this isn't an issue with iterm2 and term.
I've used Ghostty as my default terminal since I set up my new computer a couple of months ago. The only issue I have is the missing search which I often reach for to look through output that I didn't pipe anywhere.
Agreed. This is the only thing stopping it from being the undisputed best terminal for me. I’ve referred 2 people to it in the last few months, both like it but didn’t adopt it because of this.
I love 99% of what Ghostty brings to the table as a terminal replacement but the copy / paste issues with it are incredibly frustrating and I run into them almost daily.
> Might be $TERM needs to be set or you need to add ghostty to terminfo
Yeah, except that the specific terminfo needed for ghostty isn't installed anywhere on the boxes you ssh into ... you need to manually install it on everysingle one of them.
That in and of itself makes it truly painful to switch to ghostty.
And there are still a lot of other issues, like e.g. building the tip is a freaking nightmare of dependencies and weird issues (hard reliance on specific versions of the zig compiler and of something called "blueprint compiler", etc...)
> the specific terminfo needed for ghostty isn't installed anywhere on the boxes you ssh into ... you need to manually install it on every single one of them.
Yeah this is going to be an issue with any of the newer terminal emulators. No big deal. Updating terminfo is easy. If you can't then just set TERM=xterm
> Not ready for prime time by a mile IMO.
Nah, the issue is your lack of experience and understanding of the basics is terminals.
I don't think you've used Ghostty in a while. It has auto installing terminfo when ssh-ing.
Also, every program ever depends on a certain version of a compiler, so I don't understand this complaint. Ghostty requires Zig 0.14. That's it, not a specific compiler hash. blueprint-compiler is packaged for pretty much every distribution these days.
I spend like half of my time in the terminal and search is an absolute deal breaker for me. Guys have created an incredibly cool terminal and surely they use it a lot but they... just don't search? I have nothing but respect and admiration for the project, just wondering what their day to day terminal usage experience looks like if they don't need to look for things.
This is yet more corporate/government overreach on devices that you're supposed to own.
Trying to prevent software from being available/installed that isn't even in the "legitimate harm" list. That's insane.
I could rant a lot about where we're in a really horrible you don't own your phone and other people believe they own it world, but that would be going off topic here. (I.e. business you go to the store is trying to force and pressure you to install apps.. i.e. sams club, or tours/businesses pushing you excessively to use whatsapp, etc )
There are estimated more than 500M cryptocurrency users world wide. Single self custodial wallets like TrustWallet have 50M installs in Play Store alone.
Using "greater good" argument for censorship is a slippery slope, as we have seen with UKs Online Safety Act, when you let someone else to decide what apps and websites you should access.
Google, specifically, is having several litigations and investigations related to the abuse of their position in Search and Play Store to promote their own software products over competition.
Right, and very few of those hundreds of millions are experts in auditing software or vetting financial institutions. They benefit when someone vets it for them.
Cryptocurrency scams and thefts are common because of this.
Google is not deciding what apps you can use. There are multiple places to get software.
As far as I can tell, this is purely a Google thing, not a government thing. The cited laws apply to money services, so something like a custodial wallet would count, but a vendor that just makes a local crypto wallet and never touches your money doesn't fall into that. Google has simply decided to ban more than necessary "just in case".
You can use alternate stores to get your desired Android apps. There is F-Droid, Amazon Appstore for Android, Huawei AppGallery, Samsung Galaxy Store, Aptoide, Uptodown, APKMirror, APKPure, Xiaomi GetApps, OPPO App Market, AppBrain App Market, 9Apps, and probably others I forgot.
Maybe it's time to start a phone that people can own, which inside will have a phone they they do not own but it's compliant with banking, govt, and other regulations
I could use a bunch of nice metal and plastic cards to pay things in stores if I owned a Librem 5. A small price to pay for freedom that seem each day a bit more enticing.
Well, if using your watch that you have to make sure is charged every day to pay for your coffee instead of having to carry a plastic card gives so much of a welfare boost to you, who am I to dispute your claim.
The consumer is king. Better being a consumer than a citizen!
That's something for the product vendors to worry about, stop thinking about them and focus on the impact to your life. Is the music festival really worth being chained to a computer you have no control over?
I'm not a music festival person so I wouldn't know, some people seem to really like them so I guess maybe? I personally say no.
The status quo most software devs believe about software is: I can do whatever I want
In reality, software isn't like this anymore. You, as a dev, gotta comply with various regulations and local laws if you intend to distribute software. Sure, most software in the app stores is still unregulated, but think of medical software (HIPAA or FDA in the US, MDR in the EU) or all software dealing with personal data (GDPR in EU), gambling (most countries), AI stuff (AI Act in EU), copyright (most countries) etc.
This is simply Alphabet (the company) having to comply with new regulation. In some way, this sucks for users and for devs, in other ways, it helps to protect users of (shitty) software.
And if you think about it, software seems to be the only thing you can sell without thinking for one second about regulations most of the time. It's kinda odd.
What's the possible harm? Malicious wallet app stealing users crypto coins for example.
Merely writing software doesn't make you a HIPAA covered entity. If you sell software to a covered entity then they're responsible for their own compliance. But if you sell SaaS that handles protected data then you'll have to sign a Business Associate Agreement and take the required compliance steps yourself.
Often the most expedient way to comply with regulation is with a heavy hand. It is easier to accurately group apps by cryptocurrency/non-cryptocurrency than by custodial/non-custodial. And pissing off a couple of crypto enthusiasts is better for their business than pissing off regulators. So this is the best side of the line for them to err on.
No, actually it couldn't, because part of my point is that you don't get to pollute arguments by trying to use stuff that sounds good if people don't think about it for ten seconds.
The kind of "civility" you want is actively damaging, because it normalizes bad behavior and removes all negative reinforcement.
The fact that some Democrats are introducing bills that mandate creation of infrastructure that can be easily repurposed to censor political viewpoints, during this administration no less, tells you all you need to know about how much disdain they really have for their electorate.
The name of this bill, "Block BEARD" is what really gets me.
It's a simple thing. Just a casual joke that means nothing to most people.
I worry because there are millions of young citizens who are going to have to work harder either for new political parties or to overturn this kind of language and jab.
We can't ever prove it's a higher level system that keeps every next generation in perpetual non-paying advocacy and grassroots political work. That's deeply unsettling.
I've reported it and that goes to an google form where the app stays up. I've even gone farenough where I've escalated through internal Google contacts. Nothing is done. It's not sideloading that's the issue.
It's google. This is a hostile behavior to all users of the devices and developers of their platform.
_--
My thoughts on where this might go:
We're getting into an era where there are organizations that are violently hostile to your device and they demand that. These people believe that the device you paid for and the service you paid for is theirs.
I.e. mobile ids from governments, which may introduce client side scanning. More so, theres a hostile push for "age verification" which would lean on the Play integrity chain. Want to find out who does this? Look into Magisck on reddit and the apps people have difficultly using. This is not a case of "someone wants to hack something".. it's all about control.
If you're watching the Root/third party space.. right now there are issues running apps. Some apps scan for "SuperSU" app and will refuse to run. (As in they're not sandboxed)
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