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These days there are so many apps infested with spyware or adware, and it almost seems as if the stores themselves are promoting them in exchange for a cut. And some apps that start off clean get "updated" to include ads and spying. How do you find free apps that aren't infested?
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sillema sillema nika su
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday June 06 2015, @08:37PM
People want free and 99-cent apps, and they get them. The app stores are full of them. The spyware/adware/tracking stuff is the real price you pay. You want free apps, then the time, expertise, equipment (which ain't cheap), and training to create them has to be paid for somehow by someone. Someone once said something about a free lunch. Anyone remember that quote?
Would anyone at all support a high-quality, expensive app? Would enough people support one to fund a kickstarter project? I hear crickets. If you can't make a living doing something, then it's going to turn to rot, which app stores are doing now.
Even Apple, the boutique hardware company that charges high prices, has fueled the apps-on-the-cheap model.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Saturday June 06 2015, @08:42PM
You want free apps, then the time, expertise, equipment (which ain't cheap), and training to create them has to be paid for somehow by someone
Interesting. In the real world we all use software that is free. Really free. I'm not aware of any adware/spyware/tracking in the linux kernel, or apache, or bind, or my web browser, or my IRC client, or text editor, or document editor, or spreadsheet, or a host of software. Why is mobile software so different?
(Score: 2) by drussell on Saturday June 06 2015, @09:10PM
Why is mobile software so different?
Because the majority of the masses are clueless enough to pay for a ringtone/ringtune or put up with ads, upsells and BS in a "free" app, etc. etc.
I think most people these days must be somehow subconsciously addicted to wasting money.
It's very sad.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Saturday June 06 2015, @09:30PM
Because it's a very "young" market, and the industries had a jump on it. Free/Open source is slower in comparision to aggresive market penetration, bazillions monetizing startups, etc.
Anyway FOSS will still be the solution in the long run. Just use what's available for the time being and try not to get locked in.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @01:48AM
Because you're using an ecosystem run by for-profit companies like Apple and Google. This is why the ecosystem kind of sucks and is full of spyware crap. Stick to not-for-profit endeavors and some of the corruption goes away.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday June 07 2015, @10:26AM
One difference is that mobile software is expensive to develop. With iOS, you have to pay to play just to release an app, plus you have to buy Apple devices and computers. Android is cheaper, but still not free like building a white-box computer from parts.
Other free software is platform-oriented, like Apache, Emacs, etc. Free software tends to be software everyone needs to do basic work. The farther you get away from common platforms (and common programs like word processors) the less free software you find. The kind of stuff that has malware/adware in it is rarely found in free software.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)