News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by ayoisaiah on Thursday May 20, 2021 @04:11AM (#27218666)
Auto update is good default policy IMO. Most non-technical people don't care to update apps as long as the apps are working which could lead to unnecessary security issues or critical bugs left unpatched.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by Aerroon on Thursday May 20, 2021 @05:05AM (#27218992)
Perhaps technical people should take more care when making updates for their application? There's a negative sentiment over updates for software and it arose from how bad updates ruining things. Updating might help with security, but it also forces you to put up with every harebrained UI change and removal of features that developers come up with.

Eg tab groups were pushed onto mobile users in Chrome, yet it feels like the people who made the UI change don't actually use mobile chrome much, because the UX is awful. Luckily you can trudge through flags to change this behavior to the old one, but how long until we can't do that anymore?

Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by victornomad on Thursday May 20, 2021 @06:24AM (#27219408)
I got tired of certain apps that kept changing behavior or UI every single week. Some of them sneakily added antifeatures that were not there originally or move features to premium asking me to pay again.

In consequence I disabled auto updates and run an update when I remember...

I'd rather prefer to have auto updates for just security patches not for features.

Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by gmac on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:46AM (#27219914)
This doesn't help much, since antifeatures are rarely described as such (or even at all) in release notes.

What would be more helpful would be the ability to revert to previous versions (can't speak to Android, but this is certainly missing in iOS).

Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by selfhoster11 on Thursday May 20, 2021 @09:57AM (#27221159)
Android can sort-of do it. It's often possible to downgrade without losing data if the application signature hasn't been tampered with.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by VMtest on Thursday May 20, 2021 @11:34PM (#27230184)
It's funny because as you mention this, somebody made a thread few days ago for iOS already

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27175955 | An iOS app update that annoys me | Hacker News

Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by devit on Thursday May 20, 2021 @12:14PM (#27223078)
Applications should not have security issues or critical bugs to begin with.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by anaganisk on Thursday May 20, 2021 @01:50PM (#27224539)
Lol wut? Thousands of brilliant programmers who work for top tech companies push bug fixes and android gets a security update every few months. We are people, people make mistakes, we're not some code fairy queen.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by HappySweeney on Thursday May 20, 2021 @12:27PM (#27223279)
Unfortunately, humans are not capable of errorless long-term work.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by emptyparadise on Thursday May 20, 2021 @06:46AM (#27219536)
Automatic security updates, yes. Automatic feature updates, no.
Re:Android 12 will let alternative app stores update apps au... by junon on Thursday May 20, 2021 @10:03AM (#27221213)
That still gives power to the developer. O could add an anti-consumer change and call it a security feature, prompting devices to automatically update it.

Let's not act like Google would hand out any punishment, either.