[semiquaver]

If a user can do a thing, then an app can ask the user to delegate those permissions to it. And since 99% of users don’t read permission dialogs, the two ideas are completely equivalent. The only way to prevent an app from doing a thing is to make it impossible.

[pdpi]

Even if users do read permission dialogues, how many Adobe users out there actually understand what modifying the hosts file means? There can be no informed consent if the person who's meant to consent doesn't have the tools to understand the information.

[semiquaver]

I think we agree.

[Dylan16807]

You can put pressure on app developers to use standard installation methods that don't give unrestricted access.

Even if users don't read the permission dialogs, you can make one path a lot easier. And you can flag anything too tricky as malware behavior.

OSes are doing a bad job of this, but they could do much better. Linux is making the most progress on various package formats.