> Nowhere is their goal to allow users complete control of their device. Android was built as an open-OS for the mobile device industry, not end-users.
The fact that having root access is not the default supports that. Without root we're just "consumers" and that's how they see us. There's a lot of discussion about the security model of Android and how root is bad. But we've come to the point to argue that having root access is not only less secure but that we don't need root at all. A lot of replies, even on HN, are like:
> Why would you even need root access? What is it you're trying to accomplish?
That's a much bigger security smokescreen than the one in TFA. Sure, having root may be dangerous, especially if you don't know what you're doing, but it's still a choice. Having no phone or doing banking IRL or not downloading apps from the Play Store you haven't heard of before would also be more secure. But these 3 options don't align to the financial gain the consumers would bring to the providers. The consumers having no root, on the other hand, benefits the providers.
This is the initial press release for the Open Handset Alliance, the collaborators for the creation of Android: https://web.archive.org/web/20260420021444/https://www.openh...
Nowhere is their goal to allow users complete control of their device. Android was built as an open-OS for the mobile device industry, not end-users.
Android might have been considered more open than other mobile OSes by users, but it was never a promise or goal.
> Nowhere is their goal to allow users complete control of their device. Android was built as an open-OS for the mobile device industry, not end-users.
The fact that having root access is not the default supports that. Without root we're just "consumers" and that's how they see us. There's a lot of discussion about the security model of Android and how root is bad. But we've come to the point to argue that having root access is not only less secure but that we don't need root at all. A lot of replies, even on HN, are like:
> Why would you even need root access? What is it you're trying to accomplish?
That's a much bigger security smokescreen than the one in TFA. Sure, having root may be dangerous, especially if you don't know what you're doing, but it's still a choice. Having no phone or doing banking IRL or not downloading apps from the Play Store you haven't heard of before would also be more secure. But these 3 options don't align to the financial gain the consumers would bring to the providers. The consumers having no root, on the other hand, benefits the providers.