There is immense pressure to stop online scams which are draining old people of their life savings. The whole flow from the article seems entirely based around letting power users install what they want while being able to break the flow of a scammer guiding a clueless person in to installing malware.

It is promising that Google has avoided just turning off sideloading but still put measures in place to protect people.

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spaqin 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've never seen any news about such scams with actual malware that can break through Android's sandbox system - as we're still assuming a rootless systems. In most cases it's pig butchering, phishing, cold calls that make the person use the official app to transfer money to an account they're told to.

This stops nothing of the sort.

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bhhaskin 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why is it on Google to stop this and not the banks?

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igregoryca 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What can Bank X do to stop phone malware from scraping the user's session token from the Bank X app or website?

Yes, banks should (and sometimes do) double- and triple-check with you before allowing large transfers/withdrawals, but scammers know how to coach their victims past this. Speaking from experience.

(I also don't fully agree this is Google's responsibility, and I am not happy about this development. But there are legitimate points in favor of outsourcing the question of "will this software do nefarious things" to some kind of trusted signing authority.)

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bhhaskin 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Don't do instant non-reversible transfers. Specially for a transaction that is highly likely to be fraud. I.e. person transfers to someone you haven't done business with before or foreign accounts. Also the fraud detection needs to go both ways.

	▲	pas 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		they can wait. how would the clueless victim check anyway?

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Gigachad 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Because they want to shake the image that the iPhone is for the average person while Android is for technical people who take the risk of malware and scams.

There are more grandmas who just want their banking secure than there are FOSS advocates wanting full system access.

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johnnyanmac 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>There is immense pressure to stop online scams which are draining old people of their life savings.

From who? I'd rather have this done by a regulated service like a bank than a private corporation with a perverse incentive. Frauds and scams are already illegal.

That't the similar narrative to "think of the children". They want to act as this middleman and secure their place, all while having unfettered access to people's data.