[HN Gopher] AppLovin nonconsensual installs
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AppLovin nonconsensual installs
Author : jhap
Score : 82 points
Date : 2025-10-14 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.benedelman.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.benedelman.org)
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| 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.
| taspeotis wrote:
| Yes: "App Store" on iOS protects you against exactly this.
| margalabargala wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| renewiltord wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| An older iPhone or an SE is still hundreds of dollars
| more device than these people need.
| colechristensen wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| It definitely can and should be a factor when choosing what
| hardware to set your relatives up with in the first place,
| though.
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| It's much too late for that in both my case and the same
| case for probably tens of thousands of others.
| nicoburns wrote:
| 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.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| 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.
| rgovostes wrote:
| How does the platform even allow a single tap on an ad to install
| an app?
|
| Edit: Discussed somewhat here
| https://www.benedelman.org/applovin-permissions/. Seems like it's
| abetted by garbage from the carrier.
|
| Something for iOS to look forward to?
| lysace wrote:
| You neglected to mention Google's Android. It's business model
| that maximizes for reach over everything else is the root
| cause.
| margalabargala wrote:
| The two options are reach over all else, or control of its
| customers and overcharging them at every turn over all else.
|
| One is not obviously better than the other, though I'll grant
| that Apple has managed to get their users to a place where
| being subjected to them has become a point of pride, which is
| impressive.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| iOS famously doesn't allow reloading themes or software. It's
| part of why they struggled to find a carrier to launch with in
| the beginning, because carriers modifying phones used to be the
| norm.
|
| There are settings carriers can push to iOS (access to features
| like tethering, some network configuration stuff) but this type
| of malware cannot be pushed onto iOS. At worst, carriers push
| shitty Java applets to the (e)SIM, but that's all sandboxed off
| from any user interaction.
| andy wrote:
| I reported problems about applovin sdk clicking on/opening ads on
| ios apps like a decade+ ago. have never used them since.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > Why would Samsung, T-Mobile, and others grant AppLovin the
| ability to install apps?
|
| Exotica like Fairphone and PinePhone are starting to look pretty
| good...
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| AppLovin has been doing this for a long time. BlueStacks and some
| other vendors have been doing this for literally a decade.
|
| The root problem is that Google Play is poorly curated. One
| problem it has is that it ranks apps that have many downloads
| higher than those with fewer downloads. AppLovin is used to boost
| downloads for the purposes of the Google Play algorithm.
|
| Of course, this is known to Google.
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