Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gundmc 1720 days ago
My Samsung phone came preinstalled with an unremovable third party app store. No root necessary. Maybe device manufacturers aren't considered third party?
2 comments

Silent installation of applications without your confirmation or knowledge is a privileged permission reserved for preinstalled apps. So Samsung can provide a 3rd party store on their phones that can silently install applications on your phone while others can't.

This was changed in Android 12 (I think) where silent app installation is a grantable permission for other stores like F-Droid.

App stores that come baked into vendor ROMs are granted special privileges that user-installable app stores aren't.