On 06/06/2026 12:13, Hugh Frater wrote:
As someone who's spent ages cleaning malware and junk off relatives'
Android phones, I'd prefer it if Google actively spent more time targeting
junk in the play store, rather than pursuing developers this way.
I genuinely don't understand why they aren't policing the Play Store...
When I read Hamish's post, I did wonder if malware was at the back of
this move from Google. It would be difficult to do anything about this
without some form of control on the quality of the code submitted to the
Play Store.
It seems to me that they have three options here:
1. Leave things as they are and spend time and money tracking down and
cleaning up the Play Store. This clearly doesn't work and would be
very difficult to do.
2. Provide for a developer network, as they appear to be doing. The
problem with this is that it requires additional spending to vet the
developers; so they have decided to charge for this.
3. As per 2. above but close the source. I suspect that's the part
that is raising the ire of the current developers but Google have
every right to do that, except if they've accepted free
contributions from developers prior to this change.
Of course Google's reasons may be more evil than I suspect and if so, I
doubt if anyone will be able to change their minds.
--
Terry Coles
--
Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2026-07-07 20:00
Check to whom you are replying
Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... https://dorset.lug.org.uk
New thread, don't hijack: mailto:[email protected]
