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by golergka 1097 days ago
Have you ever helped a relative who installed a dozen IE toolbars and so much malware that his computer became unusable?

This is what happens when you give a user the ability to install whatever he wants. This is what still happens for a lot of android phones.

3 comments

I'm pretty sure this doesn't actually happen on Android phones, and it doesn't even happen anymore in Windows, which runs with admin privileges by default. The toolbars and viruses were mostly a thing pre Windows XP SP2, and they were mostly gone with Windows Vista.
It does happen, but in a different form. Now we have programms that prompt us during installation to install another software (antivirus or browser [looking at you Ccleaner]) for no good reason and most users (including my friends and family) simply click next without reading anything. Same thing on Android but with sticker/gif apps. I can't keep track of the times I had to help a relative or friend with stupid fullscreen pop-ups or adds on their phone and with unwanted software on Windows.
I see it a good bit with less technical users on Android. They'll get apps which put full screen ads on their phone popping up all the time, they'll get ads on their lock screen, they'll get their default browser swapped out and not understand what happened, all kinds of things.
> This is what happens when you give a user the ability to install whatever he wants. This is what still happens for a lot of android phones.

"Some people are bad drivers so all humans must be banned from driving"

What is the psychological cause of such subservience to a corporate entity?

Nobody should be banned from anything. I'm literally member of a libertarian party (not the crazy american one).

What I'm arguing for is people who voluntarily buy devices which are locked down for themselves and their loved ones because we'd rather put sensible restrictions in place for ourselves.

It’s not voluntary when it’s your only choice, or when you get it second hand from someone else. You should always have the option to unlock your own device
Ah yes, the “lowest common denominator” argument. Personally, I hate the idea that everyone should be punished because some people can’t handle something.
They are majority. Why punish them because a few people can't handle not having full access to the device? I like open ecosystems but I don't think your argument holds. Nobody can be an expert in everything.
If only people thought this way about guns, where the overwhelming majority causes no problems yet <1% are insane so some people try to ban them for everybody.