Google Starts Scanning Android Apps 172
Posted
by
timothy
from the bender's-job-between-seasons dept.
from the bender's-job-between-seasons dept.
eldavojohn writes "A recent blog post has Android developers talking about Google finally scanning third party applications for malware. Oddly enough, Google claims this service (codenamed 'Bouncer') has been active for some time: 'The service has been looking for malicious apps in Market for a while now, and between the first and second halves of 2011, we saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market. This drop occurred at the same time that companies who market and sell anti-malware and security software have been reporting that malicious applications are on the rise.' So it appears that they allow the software to be sold even before it is scanned and it also appears that no one has been bitten by a false positive from this software. Apparently Bouncer is not as oppressive as Apple's solution although given recent news its effectiveness must be questioned. Have any readers had their apps flagged or pulled by Bouncer?"
Re:Scan for quality? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Scan for quality? (Score:3, Informative)
It's because it is the most widely supported enterprise email app. It was the first most companies went with so they are slow to move to alternatives.
The "recent news" was retracted... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Scan for quality? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Create ArrayList
2. Add ALL THE THINGS
3. Forget to remove old entries when not used anymore
Reference still exist, not considered garbage.
Re:Scan for quality? (Score:5, Informative)
Memory Leaks in Java are not objects that are not freed, but dangling references to data/objects that are no longer needed (often static HashMaps that people use to implement their own caches and forget to clean up, or listeners that are still registered, even if the listening object could be discarded).
Also there are leaks in the Android WebView: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9375 [google.com] :(
So using the WebView (which many apps do) causes leaks
(not the fault of the developer though)
Re:Now? (Score:5, Informative)
If you had an Android device you would know that you do not need to root your phone to install apps from someplace other than Google.
You just go into settings and select that you want to be able to install programs from Unknown Sources.
You can try again to spread FUD if you like.
I will wait.
Re:Now? (Score:5, Informative)
once you jai - sorry, root the device.
Settings/Applications/Unknown Sources.
It's a toggle, so you can turn it back to block unknown sources after you've sideloaded whatever you wanted.