Banking Trojans have hit millions of Android devices in 2025 — here are the biggest threats and how to protect yourself

Just because you aren’t aware of it, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening already.

some of them can barely operate at light switches

Here's a short story for this fact.

I have sold coffee machine on Monday. Next day got a message that it doesn't work. I ask what is up with it and she told me it won't start. I asked if she turned switch in the back in ON position? 1h later she writes me that it works!

I mean yeah, there is a switch in the back and a big ass ON button on the front. But I totally think that basic troubleshooting would solve this enigma before shooting the gun at me for selling a faulty device.

What you want is basically a recipe for the web turning into an exclusively corporate wasteland. Lack of installation freedom doesn't provide security from anything when the A/G app stores are already full of malware. Real security - security for users - lies in our ability to exercise choice - to use a FOSS app, or to pay conventionally via the web instead of having to put up with creepy opaque vendor portals (or worse, an app)

Phones are generic computing devices. We must able to operate and maintain them however we wish.

I am too stupid. This is true. Too stupid to buy an iPhone too.

BTW, this only happens (usually!!) if you install from the web, which.. like, if you don't have the tech literacy to figure out what's fake or not (especially banking?? Any reasonable bank HAS an app in official platforms, like the play store) then you don't need and shouldn't sideload, BUT the option is there for people like me, who use F-Droid and other FOSS-related apps.

The only downside is that unless people literally ignore warnings from the system for downloading apps (maybe first time stuff, then either the warning design sucks, or again, user error) then maybe just maybe they should read, if it's not official play store.

Yeah, it's a messed up position. It's made more complicated by then being half right. People do often like having fewer choices. Making a streamlined OS that doesn't allow them access to the kernel or crucial components, that they literally can't break by accident, that is indeed an appealing feature to many. But it's not appealing because they're stupid, it's appealing they're rational.

This has always been Apple's method, make everything intuitive, easy to use for anyone and their mother. And a big part of that is removing all the extra clutter from the interface, all the options users would rarely if ever use. This is also the contentious part, removing the advanced options that power users might want access to.

But at least initially, they understood that the reason for doing all this, their goal, was to make their products better. These days it seems like they're less clear on that goal. The idea that they're "dumbing down" their products and controlling everything because their users are too stupid, this is a new attitude, and it shows a misunderstanding of the principals their company was built on. Apple was only successful because they made very good products which were comfortable to use. They certainly never won popularity through competitive pricing or having the most powerful machines...

Personally, I think it's a foolish move to be this controlling over their iOS ecosystem. This is really making the product inferior. Sideloading apps will not destroy their walled garden, it just gives power users the options they want. Apple should be afraid of losing more market share, they don't have all that much to lose...

I was talking about the point you made in your first paragraph. Where businesses would suddenly start providing their apps only in third party stores.

We used to have a poster up at work in the IT room that had a picture of a person scratching their heads and looking blankly at their laptop and the text "I've tried nothing, and I'm all out of ideas".

Some people have zero troubleshooting skills and don't even try. Their immediate reaction is to try and make it someone else's problem.

Well you weren’t very specific, so I wasn’t sure which point(s) you were disagreeing with.

I’m sure there are a number of apps which were only available on one storefront (Google, Samsung, F-Droid etc.).

China is in an even worse spot, as Google is outright banned - there are a dozen or so competing Android app stores; however their saving grace is that literally every digital transaction goes through either Weixin or AliPay - so there’s a somewhat lessened risk of credit card fraud.

Why would smaller, niche apps move to alternative stores on iOS? To (rightfully) avoid the excessive fees charged - so yes, a restaurant would be a prime example of someone not be willing / able to give 30% to Apple (nor should they, it’s downright extortion).

Again, I can understand where you come from, but it's been proven, time and again, that using apps from the main app store (ios or Android, doesn't matter) is not inherently safer or more dangerous than getting apps from other stores. The problems are the apps not the stores. Additionally, I have yet to see any company, institution or organization publish apps exclusively in alternative app stores,which means that, as far as I'm aware, every app "needed" will be in the platforms own store, which means that nobody has to get an alternative app store if they don't want to.

These facts render your arguments to block giving owners of devices options completely invalid.

Yes, if you feel safer with the platforms' default stores, you're free to remain there and avoid anything else, as this is your device, and therefore your choice. But these arguments you bring take away CHOICE for absolutely no good reason.

But this also happens in the official stores as well. While it does happen less in ios than in android, the fact remains that it happens in official stores ss much as I alternative stores, which makes this argument irrelevant at best.