[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.

[jackstraw42]

Still not what I'm saying. I think we are paying the price for Android being so open right now, with the chaos happening in the US and worldwide. 17 years of messy Android evolution got us to a point where we could possibly start to examine what this has done to us. But based on how my original comment was received, I have much less hope than I did before I wrote it. Especially since I would consider some of the best minds on the internet to be regulars of Hacker News, and before we can even address this issue we need to clarify and understand it. I'm trying to do that here.