[OgsyedIE]

Are there any apps designed to specifically gate every install, including background OTA installs sent by carriers, because I'm security conscious with my devices but I have family who very much are not.

Ideally, I can just nag my non-tech savvy relatives to let me install such a security app for them and then enjoy having peace of mind for their behalf.

[jeroenhd]

Not buying a carrier phone or buying an iPhone (which doesn't permit carriers to inject the same type of crap into the device, they can only influence access to certain settings). AppLovin cannot install anything in the background without deep system access, and manual installation of non-Google apps requires confirming at least three popups.

There are antivirus apps on Android that will warn you for this crap, but an antivirus cannot work on an operating system designed to install malware.

[taspeotis]

Yes: “App Store” on iOS protects you against exactly this.

[margalabargala]

Having non-tech-savvy relatives throw out their phones, buy thousand dollar hardware and swap to an operating system they are unfamiliar with is an absolutely terrible solution to the problem.

[alfalfasprout]

Hyperbole of this comment aside, what else do you suggest then?

It's a fundamental tradeoff between allowing multiple ways for apps to be installed or forcing everything through a single installation workflow (a la iOS and its App Store).

[margalabargala]

Nothing in my comment was hyperbolic. The median price of a current gen iphone is $999. The people OP is asking about are not typical HN users; asking them to change phone operating systems is an unreasonably onerous ask.

OP had a good suggestion for a solution, something that allows gating surprise app installs.

[DrewADesign]

I’m not saying that you should cajole them into doing something they don’t want to do, but in case it’s useful to anyone else reading this, I had a good experience having family make that switch for that reason. Having used Google, Samsung, and Apple phones extensively, I knew that switching to iOS is way less frustrating than going in the other direction, or even from vanilla Android to Samsung, IMO. The iPhone 16e is more than sufficient for a non-demanding users and is $599 totally unsubsidized, without trade-in, and they really do keep ticking for years for basic needs. (I got them iPhone SEs years ago and they just upgraded recently.) Quite usefully, my family lives near a few Apple Stores, so they can go in and get user support (including backup/phone reset type stuff) for free nearly on-demand, which saved me a lot of time mitigating someone just downloading some bullshit that had a name like “Weather Zone Plus Free Pro Traffic Weather News Games Center Deluxe Free (no ads)” that totally horked their setup.

[margalabargala]

$599 for a phone is frankly exorbitant for what is required here.

The phone they have have that was being asked about is probably either free or close to it with carrier incentives.

Here on HN we are in a bit of a bubble. Most users of this site can just make a $500 purchase if they want to and not think about it. The median American's liquid savings are well under $10k, and buying the least expensive iPhone is a burden. "Buy an iPhone" is not a suggestion that should be made to a person who would have to put it on a credit card and would be unable to 0at.it off that month.

[renewiltord]

Anyone who is trying to save money shouldn't buy the "median" device. Just get an older iphone or the SE if you want it. Doesn't make sense. “I’m in top 10 percent of price conscious users so I want 50th percent device”? Just illogical behavior.

[margalabargala]

An older iPhone or an SE is still hundreds of dollars more device than these people need.

[colechristensen]

On the other hand, iOS is popular because of quality issues like this. Android is only as good as it is because of the competition from Apple.

Before the iPhone you couldn't even get the "cool" phones in America, Japan had so much better things available and everybody envied what wasn't available here.

The reason we have any control from the carriers was the power Apple had and the stubbornness of Jobs.

A lot of the battles being lost by Apple are being won by groups who will make the ecosystem worse.

[margalabargala]

I mean sure, the iPhone did a ton to create the modern smartphone as we think of it. If you as a user care about that history and want to support what Apple does, you should buy their devices.

That doesn't make it a reasonable device for a sizable segment of the non-tech-savvy population though.

[lukev]

It definitely can and should be a factor when choosing what hardware to set your relatives up with in the first place, though.

[OgsyedIE]

It's much too late for that in both my case and the same case for probably tens of thousands of others.

[loeg]

Many people are buying new phones every couple years. That's a new opportunity to switch.

[cudgy]

If you leave your front door open, you’re gonna get a lot of strangers and stray animals in your house. If you don’t have the desire to close the door, I guess you’ll just give in and get familiar with your new roommates.

I’ve never understood why people use android, which was built by the largest advertising company in the world. A company with a history of violating privacy, scanning personal data for advertisement purposes. Also, what amazes me, is that many technical, well-informed people continue to use standard android os, knowing full well that they’re giving up major privacy protections and using a much less secure platform than alternatives like iOS. I’m sure there’s good reasons for it that people have and can rationalize.

The main rationalization that I have seen from technical people is that they just hate Apple. They’ll never use Apple, even if they have to give up significant privacy. Other people like the fact they can customize the device (which I like as well), but unfortunately, makes it easier for bad actors to customize your phone in ways you don’t want.

[FredPret]

Take the hourly billing for those of us who work that way. Multiply by family tech consulting time. It's probably cheaper to buy an iPhone for everyone!

At least this used to be true in the halcyon days when iOS was simple.

[Nifty3929]

The same "walled garden" app store that is much maligned on HN?

[Dylan16807]

The only walls that need to be in place to prevent this are against malicious carrier app stores. There's no need to restrict users here, which is what people complain about.

Stopping carriers from ruining phones is quite popular on HN from what I've seen.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Yup.

Geeks don’t like it.

But Apple is a three-trillion-dollar corporation, because most folks aren’t geeks.

[MrDarcy]

I’d bet a large sum of money the safari user agent holds the top spot for total number of mobile users for Tuesday US office hours. Maybe dang can validate or reject the hypothesis.

[nicoburns]

You could try looking at "MDM" products. They're mostly targeted at corporations, and tend to be server based (OS calls the server directly) rather than on-device apps. But they can do some of these kinds of things.

[JumpCrisscross]

> could try looking at "MDM" products

TinyMDM at $23/year seems to fit the ticket [1]. (I've never used it and just heard about it today.)

[1] https://www.tinymdm.net/pricing-usd/

[kokada]

Modern Android devices now have the "Device Protection" option that does a bunch of things, including disabling side loading. And I think you can enforce this via work profiles too.