As someone who's had difficulty publishing open-source software into the Google and Apple ecosystem I get super angry when bunch of malicious crap-ware is found.
Why do I have to go through a dozen iterations and emails and phone calls yet garbage seems to get through w/o issue.
Insert rant about their respective approval processes. I've read others on HN, so use one of them. The sentiment is the same.
The whole idea of these walled garden app stores is backwards and broken.
People often compare them with distribution repos but those are very different: you have app authors engaging with the community to get their app published where here you have the communities petitioning corporations to allow their app to be published.
Its funny how a single developer publishing so many crap extensions doesn't trigger a ban from google's automated bots, yet someone publishing a single legitimate extension will.
I would think a single extension publisher with over 100 extensions would be a giant red flag in itself.
But presumably an extension for wallpapers shouldn't be accepted: If you can get rid of an entire class of extension code by supporting wallpapers... let people set their new tab wallpaper, block all new tab extensions that say "wallpaper", and tada, entire vector for malware gone.
Extensions are a massive security vulnerability: They often have access to your web browsing activity, and they sit after TLS termination, inside your browser's trusted environment.
Browser extensions should be rejected by default, and have to constantly justify their existence. Pointless extensions (including "cloud to butt", sorry guys), should never have been accepted.
Why do I have to go through a dozen iterations and emails and phone calls yet garbage seems to get through w/o issue.
Insert rant about their respective approval processes. I've read others on HN, so use one of them. The sentiment is the same.