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Re:Apple restores Google’s internal iOS apps after certifica... by flukus on Friday February 01, 2019 @12:20AM (#19051838)
It's a walled garden because the default way to install apps is from the repository, a trusted source that isn't filled with spyware. The gate is that I can download and run software without it. It's the best of both worlds and has been before app stores existed. An unlocked house in the countryside would be running software without my intent, the only place that happens is inside the browser.

You trust the app store just as I trust the repositories, I just have other choices available as well.

> Have you built something from source by downloading a tarball and running `make install`? Did you look at the Makefile before you did so?

Again, it's all about trust.

Under this model companies like google can even build their own extensions to the garden.

Re:Apple restores Google’s internal iOS apps after certifica... by fyfy18 on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:24AM (#19052068)
As a Linux user I agree with GP that Linux is only as safe as it is because it's not a target. It's pretty clear that large tech companies cannot be trusted, I definitely wouldn't run a binary provided by Facebook on my machine. I am hesitant about running apps like Slack and Dropbox, and would prefer not to give them full access to my user account[0], but I need to use them so. Desktop container technologies are maturing nicely, so hopefully one day we'll have permission prompts where we can restrict what an app can access.

[0] Yes I understand I could run them as a different user but that's not very user friendly at the moment.

Re:Apple restores Google’s internal iOS apps after certifica... by z3t4 on Friday February 01, 2019 @02:12AM (#19052258)
You could use Apparmor.