[AnthonyMouse]

It seems like you're missing the most important part.

If you had to rank app stores by probability of malware, the lowest probability would be F-Droid. After that it might reasonably be Apple followed by Google Play.

But F-Droid isn't available on iOS, so if you want to use the app store with the lowest probability of malware, it's only available on Android. And more to the point, the safest app store is available on Android only because Android has third party app stores.

To have a single store to the exclusion of all others, that store has to be a big tent, and big tents get full of clowns.

[jackstraw42]

No, I feel like rather you are misunderstanding my main point.

I do understand that I am stuck with the Apple equivalent of the Google Play Store. Android is more like a completely open ecosystem, Apple's is much more closed filled with walled gardens. Still, walls provide protection if the ones building them know what they're doing.

So, I feel like Apple has the edge with what we have, over Google's stance of "do nothing" rather than trying to give users a good sense of privacy. If Apple were fully open and allowed such a thing as F-Droid to exist on their OS, you would have a point.

edit: and both OSes are not perfect. That was also part of my main point, not that Apple's is clearly far superior. All I said was I'm glad I trusted my instincts and explained why.

last edit: I've read back the comments to try and see where the misunderstandings are coming from and hopefully have addressed them. While the most secure App Store does exist on Android, it's taken us a while to get there (I know F-Droid has been around a while as well). I am talking about the time period since very early Android and iOS up until now. If I had been using Android, no doubt I would have tried to do it the proper way, but knowing what I like to do freely on my mobile device instead of feeling like I need to worry about privacy with every. single. app. I pick iOS for my mobile OS from 2008-2025 again and I am glad that I did. None of the exploits, vulnerabilities, etc have affected me and I have to give Apple the credit for at least giving me my money's worth on that.

[stavros]

I don't think your point of "I think Apple is safer without much evidence, it's on you to prove otherwise" isn't very solid. You can think whatever you want, but the evidence is clear (as presented here) that the official stores don't do much to prevent malware.

A historical review of app store security also doesn't have much applicability to the current point of Google trying to raise its garden walls even higher.

[jackstraw42]

The point I'm trying to make is less about what Apple and Google are doing for us, and more about what their policies allow developers to do with their apps on their platforms.

[stavros]

I'm not sure what your point is, though. If you want an experience like the App Store, use the Play Store, they're basically the same. If you want to vet your apps, use another store, or install the APK.

Google gives you that freedom (or used to), Apple doesn't. The discussion here is that we Android users want to keep that freedom of choice.

[jackstraw42]

> I'm not sure what your point is, though.

Ok. I am saying GrapheneOS and F-Droid is the answer, but I don't think 17 years of what I would describe as Early Access Android was the way to get there.

[stavros]

Well, the issue with that was that iOS didn't get there, so it does appear like Early Access Android was the only thing that got us there in the end.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Still, walls provide protection if the ones building them know what they're doing.

And what I'm saying is that they put the walls in the wrong place. They belong around the store, not the platform, so that each store can have its own walls and the user can choose the store independently of the platform.

Suppose a platform wanted to do what F-Droid does, i.e. offer only a manually curated selection of apps and impose high standards for privacy and openness. If that store was the only store on a platform, would that platform be popular? It would immediately have to e.g. reject the Facebook app, so no.

In order to be the only store for a platform, the store is put under insurmountable pressure to compromise privacy in order to sustain the popularity of the platform. Even when the proprietor is as powerful as Apple, Facebook is still there.

Whereas F-Droid doesn't have to do that in order for Android to be popular, because the people who insist on compromising their privacy by installing the Facebook app can get it from Google Play and still use Android, and still have the benefit of the assurances F-Droid provides when installing other apps, and allow people who use only F-Droid to benefit having from a popular platform. And then the iOS app store contains apps that compromise your privacy like Facebook, and F-Droid doesn't.