h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Congratulations, Marv! Can we call you Big Hacker?

A White Hatcker.

I just discovered the android app store! It's a dangerous place. I have secured a bunch of free apps, but first I need to get on Silk, the kindle browser, and download AVG...

Pastey's tour has made it to Sydney. We checked into our serviced apartment, and found we'd got a free upgrade!
Which is great, because both me and the missus have come down with a stomach bug and haven't been able to venture far from the bathroom all day.

[]

*on a week off from work.*

Lil, the biggest problem with the Android app store is with adware. Lots of free apps will be funded by ads. This is annoying and mildly malicious. If you have doubts, read through the comments and see if people are complaining. There are lots of copy cat apps out there that do little more than serve ads. The big hitters tend not to be as bad. Apps from legit sources are less likely to be infested with annoying ads.

I did exactly that, Marv. But in the technical details Amazon lists the permissions that the app uses, and that is a real eye-opener. I steered clear of the sticky ones.

My shoulders hurt from stylus wielding.

Pastey, I feel your pain. There's a stomach bug here, and I have it. Not fun.

Skype's getting on my nerves. It insists that anything starting with 011 must be an international number, so attempting to dial a number in Leeds I get as far as 01132 and it decides I'm trying to call Belgium. Selecting UK in the drop down list doesn't help so I eventually had to input it as 011441132... (+44 being the UK country code). Listen, Bill Gates, I'm not in the s**ding US, and over here international calls start 00.

On the more cheerful side, I'm getting ready for holiday in Germany. Have checked my stocks of Euro and I have 42 cents. I may have to visit the Post Office for a little extra spending money (mind you, using my credit and debit card abroad is only a little more expensive).

Asters, a lot of the time with app permissions it isn't that the app needs, or even wants access to that stuff, but that it's turned on by default in a lot of app building software.
When you create a new project it automatically puts in the code asking for permissions for lots of things, with the idea that you then take out the stuff you're not going to use.
The other annoying thing is that so many things are grouped together, so while an app may just need to see if you've got an internet connection, it's part of the permissions that give access to network and call stuff.
If Google/Android sorted out the permissions better, then I think they'd have more security concious people heading over to their eco-system.


We're now packing to leave Sydney, we've one more day here where we're heading out of the city, hopefully to see some Aboriginal artwork. My cousin lives here and is going to drive, before an afternoon bbq at his prior to getting dropped off at the airport. Our flight is at 6:20am local time, so checking about 3am. There's not going to be much sleep tonight

Sorry to interrupt Florida Sailor kindly directed me here as I'm new and was looking for places to chat

This is probably one of the better places


Although I'm currently out of my native time zone, sat in an overnight "holding pen" waiting area at Sydney airport, because they shut the international airport overnight.

What on earth did you do to make them shut the airport

Tried to leave the country

Seems that Sydney has a night flight curfew, which means they also shut the terminal.

A country that puts their planes on curfew like naughty teenagers

Just Sydney apparently, the other cities are better behaved

Hi, towelshop, and welcome to Lil's Atelier. Lil will be along in a bit to properly welcome you.

So, I see you are new to h2g2. How did you come to find our little corner of the Internet?

I was looking for a quote believe it or not

Ah, and did you find it here?