Google Play Shows Warning To Anyone Searching For Fortnite APKs (betanews.com) 83
Mark Wilson quotes a report from BetaNews: The arrival of Fortnite on Android has not only been eagerly awaited, but also steeped in controversy. In addition to making the game a Samsung exclusive (for a few days, anyway), Epic Games decided to bypass Google Play and host APK downloads on its own servers. But this isn't going to stop people looking for Fortnite in the Play Store. Google is well aware of this, and that there is the potential for fake, scam apps to appear, tricking users into downloading something malicious. As such, the company is taking action, and is showing a warning to anyone who searches for Fortnite in Google Play. Conduct a search for Fortnite in Google's app store and you'll be greeted by a message that reads "Fortnite Battle Royale by Epic Games, Inc is not available on Google Play." Searchers are also advised that Fortnite rival PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is available to download.
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It's not about the value of letting those apps in but the cost of keeping those apps out.
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No, it's actually about the value of an app store. I, as a user, have no use for an app store if I still have to worry about bogus apps and malware. If I have to deal with that shit, I can as well forgo the appstore. It is basically the main asset such a place is for the user.
Re: Potential for fake, scam, malicious apps? (Score:3)
I think that there is a lot of cost in policing submissions and too many submissions to ever keep up with, but this stems from wanting to have the most apps. It used to be that the main metric that Apple and Google used in their dick waving contest to measure their stores was the number of apps. It was any easy n
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You mean the model where developers keep developing clones of the same apps over and over because the new shit gets promoted? That's the model you want?
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If it's the ten best apps that do a thing, then you can win either by making a better app that does a thing, OR by making an app that does a new thing.
Good luck finding a top ten for each category (Score:2)
Just curate the best ten apps for any given purpose or category and only show me those.
Let's explore the feasibility of "curat[ing] the best ten apps for any given purpose or category". To start with: What are the ten best side-scrolling platformer video games of all time, what is number 11, and on what basis do you conclude that each of numbers 1 through 10 beats number 11?
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What are the ten best side-scrolling platformer video games of all time,
In the case of games, I would account for each title as a separate purpose, since one title does not substitute for another.
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In the case of games, I would account for each title as a separate purpose
If you'd deem each "Fortnite" app in the games category to have a separate purpose, that's the same as not curating games at all.
one title does not substitute for another.
Some copyright maximalists on Slashdot would disagree. Their comments state that if lawful copies of a given work are not available to the public at any price, viewing a different work is preferable to viewing an infringing copy of that work.
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one title does not substitute for another.
Some copyright maximalists on Slashdot would disagree.
They can lick Nintendo's boots on their own time.
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It's not just Nintendo. The maximalists say the same thing when asked about the film Song of the South and the animated TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea (the English dub of Les mondes engloutis). Hence why I said "work", not specifically "game".
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The point really isn't that I get the 10 undisputed best of N choices for any given category, but that I don't get the N - 10 worst choices along with them. There are probably some categories
Re: Good luck finding a top ten for each category (Score:2)
Honestly, I'd be happy if I could A) filter out apps that have in-app purchases and B) see all games categorized into tight groups where it's obvious your game is "Tower Defense" regardless of what skin you put on it. "Strategy" is a useless category. "Infinite Runner" is a good category.
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Honestly, I'd be happy if I could A) filter out apps that have in-app purchases
By that rule, you would have filtered out Doom and all other 1990s shareware games, which gave the player the first episode without charge and required payment for later episodes. Would you prefer that even the first level be paywalled?
Re: Good luck finding a top ten for each category (Score:2)
No, that's the demo app model which was used widely on the Play Store before in-app purchases became a thing.
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On the other hand, claiming that the sort of abusive nickel-and-diming seen with repeatable "energy" purchases == in-app purchases is also "a pretty desperate argument." The line between tolerable free-to-try and abusive free-to-try lies somewhere between Nintendo's Super Mario Run, which is pretty close to shareware, and EA's Dungeon Keeper.
Re: Good luck finding a top ten for each category (Score:2)
In either case, the problem is hidden costs. Just be up front and I will pay you gobs of money for decent apps.
Storage and bandwidth crunch of registering (Score:2)
If the demo version and the paid version are separate apps with separate listings in Google Play Store, the problem becomes one of having to fit both the demo version and the paid version on the user's phone until the user has exported all data from the demo version to the paid version. In addition, the user has to download data for the paid version that the user has already downloaded for the demo version, which may cost several dollars per GB on cellular or satellite Internet. Structuring registration as
Re: Storage and bandwidth crunch of registering (Score:2)
Pretty sure Google at least has a mechanism to share data between apps if the developer wants. So when you get the full version, everything is just as it was with the demo.
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If anyone knows how to share executable code and data between Android applications from the same publisher without including redundant copies on the user's device's storage, please feel free to share the citation to Google's documentation of this feature.
Re: Storage and bandwidth crunch of registering (Score:2)
"Content providers can help an application ... share data with other apps"
https://developer.android.com/... [android.com]
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That solution is somewhat limited:
1. The demo and registered version can share assets (non-executable data), not code, through the content provider mechanism.
2. It works only if the assets are downloaded separately, not if they are downloaded as part of the APK. This breaks downloading the game and running it for the first time while offline.
3. As the user migrates the campaign and first episode's assets to the registered version, the assets still occupy duplicate space on the device until the content provi
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> You mean the model where developers keep developing clones of the same
> apps over and over because the new shit gets promoted? That's the model you want?
Are you talking about app stores, or *everything in the world*?
Because it sounds like you're talking about cars, hair dryiers, "New, Improved" loops, and every other thing for sale on the planet earth.
Re: Potential for fake, scam, malicious apps? (Score:2)
The difference is that the app store catalogs get ever bigger, while stores only reserve some parts of the inventory for new whiz bang, while dedicating large parts of the inventory to old standby brands that everyone knows and wants.
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No, it's actually about the value of an app store. I, as a user, have no use for an app store if I still have to worry about bogus apps and malware. If I have to deal with that shit, I can as well forgo the appstore. It is basically the main asset such a place is for the user.
Depends, are you going to go looking for a specific thing and check out the apps or just download and install whatever shit is on the new today tabs?
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the whole point is that if developers start bypassing the store, telling users to enable installing apps from unknown sources and download apps from here and there, as Epic Games is doing here, then they're at risk of not giving Google a cut.
With as much "fake apps and malware" as the Google Play Store hosts, why do we keep going along with Google's narrative that sticking to the store benefits users in some way?
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Apple users seem content on giving tons of money to Apple. And Apple devs seem content on lubing it up. What's the problem.
The hilarious/sad thing is Fortnite can't go around the Apple store, so they are content with Apple getting 30% of their sales, but screw Google getting any! Even though Android is a far larger platform.
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What is the value of the Play Store if it lets those apps in?
Because apps then don't have to pass some arbitrary barrier to entry set by facelesscorp. If you want diamonds you have to dig through the shit.
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Ironically though I've found you get better apps on Android than you do on the even more tightly controlled iOS.
An example would be apps for learning English as a foreign language at beginner level. There are a few good ones on Android, but iOS is just full of total crapware put together by amateurs, or outright malware. The only decent stuff is for more advanced students on iOS.
I'm not sure why that is, but it's interesting that the more controlled app store is also the worst.
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I'm not sure why that is, but it's interesting that the more controlled app store is also the worst.
It's pretty straightforward IMO. The tight control drives off developers, there are more users on Android, and Android uses a more common software development language than iOS. Apple doesn't care how much app diversity there is so long as people keep paying for the apps they curate, so they have no motivation to "fix" the system. From their viewpoint, it's fixed already.
Re: Potential for fake, scam, malicious apps? (Score:2)
the only valueof an app store is the $ cut to the owners.
EFF should sue google for the same treatment for fdroid and all others refusing the play store too
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is better :P
Third is lame though.
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Still less annoying than all the pro-Trump and anti-Trump idiots who post comments not only in completely unrelated threads, but in all the threads.
This actually changed situation for the better (Score:5, Insightful)
Play store has been utterly flooded with fake Fortnite installers since iphone version release. Everything from malware and (before play store ban) miners to just ad serving garbage.
Google didn't give a shit. For months. This garbage even popped up on "recommended" list for me a few times.
And now that Epic actually stated that it isn't publishing on play store, Google finally put a warning on that garbage. Good job Epic for forcing Google to act in some manner, and what the fuck took you so long, oh benevolent overlords at Google?
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Google can instantly find, block and strike people who mention Alex Jones on Youtube but they cannot get rid of all those apps that are 100% malware. Goes to show where their priorities lie.
Re:This actually changed situation for the better (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait a microfortnight... (Score:4, Funny)
Is an application still "malware" if it has the name "Fortnite" for a legitimate reason, such as a unit conversion calculator centered around the furlong-firkin-fortnight system [wikipedia.org] whose source code is published?
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If it's pretending to be Fortnite the game, has the "game" tag on it, and serves ads, malware and mining? Yes.
If it's an actual calculator, it's not going to be confused for Fortnite the game by any modern algorithm. Among the first thing they look at for identification is tags.
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No. No, they can't. And they don't. That's completely absurd. It took them years to block Alex Jones himself, and you think they can automatically find people who mention him, and would autoblock anyone who did? I mean, leaving aside the technical complexities of doing so, why would they do that?
Re: This actually changed situation for the better (Score:4, Interesting)
The real answer is that a lot of what goes on at Google is done by algorithms that are uncaring about things such as this. Eventually enough of a stink is made or someone higher up sees the bad press and human intervention is made. Ask anyone who has ever had to deal without Google support and they will tell you that this kind of thing is par for the course and has been for years. The human intervention always comes off as hamfisted because the person making the decision has little idea of what is actually going on and no one can really fill them in since an algorithm has been steering the ship up to this point. Maybe the algorithm gets tweaked a little bit in response, but probably not.
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I can see why they would never in a million years do such a thing, but they could just provide a link to The site where Epic has put the installer.
Why? Do they owe Epic something? Is Epic paying them for the link? No, on both counts. Epic made their choice to cut Google out, Google doesn't have to do a damn thing that helps them.
Honestly, it's more than enough that Google is trying to do their customers a favor by filtering this rather than let Epic deal with complaints about "their" installer giving out viruses.
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Why? Do they owe Epic something? Is Epic paying them for the link? No, on both counts. Epic made their choice to cut Google out, Google doesn't have to do a damn thing that helps them.
I never said they did and if they were to do something like this, other developers would jump ship from Google's store as well. Why pay 30% when you don't need to because Google will just direct traffic your way (just as they would with web search) for free?
The point I was making was in the context of the post I replied to which stated that Google had no warnings or special response to this until it became a bigger story precisely because as I pointed out, the algorithms handling things don't notice thes
Epic is dumb (Score:1)
If your app is such a malware target for your users that other stores have to warn people, then maybe you're doing something wrong, Epic.
Cheap-ass dip-shits will never get a dime from me.
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If your app is such a malware target for your users that other stores have to warn people, then maybe you're doing something wrong, Epic.
Cheap-ass dip-shits will never get a dime from me.
It's more like the people that will blow $100s of their (parents') money on a free game to buy skins and dances are the type of people that are more likely to fall for malware and tricks.
Re:Epic is dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Epic is dumb (Score:2)
Nope. Last Unreal game I played and enjoyed was Rainbow Six in 2002.
In fact, I just looked through the whole list of Unreal games listed on Wikipedia, and I've come to the conclusion I shouldn't ever bother with them. It's primariy FPS's which I don't play, and games made by devs who are more concerned with graphics than gameplay.
Thank you Google (Score:5, Interesting)
For doing the right thing here. And I mean not locking down the Play Store, allowing 3rd party sources. Google could easily (ab)use its dominant position in the smartphone OS market to force Epic to go through its Play Store and forfeit 30% of their revenues. But they didn't. Thank you for not being Apple.
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For doing the right thing here. And I mean not locking down the Play Store, allowing 3rd party sources. Google could easily (ab)use its dominant position in the smartphone OS market to force Epic to go through its Play Store and forfeit 30% of their revenues. But they didn't. Thank you for not being Apple.
...ish. The advertising of the rival in the warning is getting into dodgy territory though. If you have a control over the search mechanism, and you push someone to download something that can provide you revenue over what they wanted that won't provide you with revenue, that's very convenient for you. If you have a monopoly position then it would be an illegal abuse. That "monopoly-status" step is debatable.
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Bullshit. If Google had an ounce of integrity, they'd link people who search for Fortnite to the download page on Epic's website.
But that isn't why Google did this. They thought they could make a buck on PUB installs by piggybacking on Fortnite's popularity.
Amazing! (Score:2)
what a great solution!
imagine if they would just remove those bad apps, luckily we get an alert we can safely ignore instead.