New Google Data Shows Dangers of Third-Party App Stores (onthewire.io)

Trailrunner7 writes: Google's position in the Internet world is a unique one. In one or another, the company controls or sees much of the traffic on the network and owns one of the larger computing arsenals on the planet. It's also in control of a decent chunk of the mobile world, thanks to Android's popularity, and securing that ecosystem is a tremendous challenge in both complexity and scope. Google scans more than 2 million apps every week for its 1.4 billion Android users. And it collects a lot of data from its users, of course. Some new data from the company shows that using only the Play store is much safer than using third-party app stores. The data Google has collected shows that users who install apps only from the Play store have far fewer potentially harmful apps installed on their devices than users who also sideload apps.

Comments

Vendor finds buying from vendor only is best buy

[Anonymous Coward]

News at 11.

Re:Not necessarily true for desktop software, thou

[richy freeway]

Do fucking shut up.

Hmm...

[wwalker]

In other words, Google says Google is better. How about an *independent* study?

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Third party app stores like...

[Dutch Gun]

I think Google is really talking about third-party stores in China, India, etc. I'm not sure if the Google presentation didn't mention those countries by name, though TFA does. Apparently, lots of people use them over there, and subsequently get viruses or malware. It probably causes Android malware vs iOS to be badly skewed. Google is rightly pointing out that you're more likely to get hit with malware from some sketchy Chinese app store than from Google Play. It's not really all that shocking a revelation. Think about CNet's Download.com and all the crap you get on your system if you use that site, and you get the basic idea.

People are implying that Google is singling out Amazon here. While I don't think Google would shed tears if people somehow got that impression, I'd bet that Amazon's store is almost as safe as Google's. Besides, Amazon is a big boy and doesn't need defending from us, the peanut gallery. If they want to release a study demonstrating how safe their own store is, they're perfectly capable of doing so.