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by _bxg1 2487 days ago
> If you have read access, then yes. Conventional desktop and server linux distributions would allow this behavior.

The difference is in people's expectations of mobile vs. desktop apps. You'd never install untrusted software on your desktop, but mobile OSes provide the sense that software is isolated. In Android, that's mostly an illusion.
2 comments
feanaro 2487 days ago
I feel like users install untrusted software on the desktop all the time and it's called closed source software.

It's not like Facebook is some small, unknown malware peddler so that its software should be considered "untrusted". If anything, it's untrusted because it's coming from a scummy company and opaque (due to being closed source).

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_bxg1 2487 days ago
You're right that it being from Facebook makes things a little different. At the same time, I've never needed to install a native desktop app from Facebook and I'd have some suspicion about doing so if such a thing existed, for exactly this reason.
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usr1106 2487 days ago
> The difference is in people's expectations of mobile vs. desktop apps. You'd never install untrusted software on your desktop

I knew many Linux desktop users who had installed the Slack client back in the days we used Slack at work. Myself I have installed Skype. Not that I find Skype particularly good, but sometimes I need to communicate with people who have no clue about software freedom.

So, yes the number of "untrusted apps" is significantly lower on a (Linux) desktop, but "you'd never install" is an incorrect characterization.

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