Apple

Just think of the average Android User, they're the same outside the tech bubble.

I don’t follow Android, does this happen with a more open OS? Like tons of malware and shit? I mean with normal people, not Redditors

In excess of 90% of all mobile malware is for Android.

Good lord I hesitate to think of the average iPhone user who hears about this, tries it, and winds up with literal vermin and spiders cascading out of it like the masks in Halloween 3.

How the fuck would one literally have vermin and spiders “cascading” out of their iPhone if they installed an application outside the App Store? Like how would that even work? Some dude drives out to your house and objects spider eggs into the phone? The physics alone don’t make any sense.

I was downvoted on technology sub for saying that I am terrified of this.

The number of people I have seen who just click Accept or whatever the button says without reading a thing is fairly high. And the number of people who end up installing shit and later say “it just came by itself” is high as well. I am so happy me and the family I care about are on iPhones and I read that all the scams this year in my city were on Android devices. I feel a bit safer knowing that it is harder to pull off this shit on iPhones, thanks to what Apple is doing.

I like EU push for USB-C and RCS. Not so sure about sideloading.

On most Android devices, sideloading is turned off by default such that the device will block any APK not downloaded through only Google Play (or the Galaxy Store, if you're using a Galaxy). You have to go into Settings > Apps > Special App Access, check a box usually labeled "Install apps from unknown sources", and acknowledge a warning before you can turn on sideloading; on my Pixel you can even restrict it to certain sources (I have it turned on for Chrome, Fdroid, Firefox, Files by Google and Google Drive, but not for other apps such as WhatsApp, TOR or Gmail). And most Android users who sideload apps do so through a third-party app store like Fdroid or the Amazon App Store, or through a developer they already know and trust. Honestly, I feel like I'd have to be actively looking through the dark web to get close to downloading malware.

I also want to point out that if you have a Mac or MacBook, it enables sideloading by default (hence why you can download apps like Word or Firefox or Spotify). If you want to disable sideloading so the user can't download apps outside the macOS App Store, you have to go into Settings > Privacy & Security > Security, then under "Allow apps downloaded from" change it from "App Store and identified developers" to "App Store". The only major desktop OS that has sideloading turned off by default is, ironically enough, Chrome OS.