[lotsofpulp]

I have many years of experience dealing with malware on Windows machines, and Android from my dad’s usage of OnePlus phones.

MacOS can also have malware because uneducated non English literate people have no idea what they are clicking.

iPadOS and iOS’s saving grace is that it does not matter what someone clicks, everything is easily uninstallable and walled off.

[cubefox]

I think it uncontroversial that this experience is so rare that it doesn't justify forbidding sideloading on Android, Windows, and MacOS. Then it also doesn't justify it for iOS.

[lotsofpulp]

If it was so rare, then there would have been no need for the plethora of software made to get rid of malware like CCleaner and malwarebytes and ninite.com and so many others.

[smoldesu]

Not that any of those save you from malware, necessarily. Nor the App Store - NSO has proven that you don't even need to install anything to get your iOS devices compromised. At some point, we have to acknowledge that all cell phones rely on their user to not mess things up. Even on iOS you can respond to the Nigerian Prince on iMessage with an Apple Pay of $300 (to be repaid as $1,000,000 in the Kingsland, of course).

If people want to use only Apple-sanctioned apps, that should be an option. It should not be the impetus for keeping features off the iPhone though.

[cubefox]

Those seem to be tools from an old Windows XP SP1 era. I don't think anything like that is commonly used in Android or MacOS, or modern Windows.