Nevermind that being downloaded a million times doesn't mean by a million people, as scammers download their own app to boost numbers -- a million is what, 1 in a few thousand smartphone users?
I'd love it to be zero but the amount of vigilance warranted has gotta be a lot less than it was in the past unless there's some argument that magnitude of harm has gone up by a massive amount while probability has gone down by the same amount. Which, idunno, maybe that argument can be made actually.
Also I guess 2001 felt unsafe to visit trusted websites, so the advice upthread was already a bit lessened.
> Nevermind that being downloaded a million times doesn't mean by a million people, as scammers download their own app to boost numbers -- a million is what, 1 in a few thousand smartphone users?
Isn't this cause for people to be more vigilant? You can't even trust apps that are vouched for by large numbers of users (with these large numbers being not mere claims on a shady website, but statistics officially certified by the authority of the app store).
But 2 million downloads among 35 apps is nothing when it comes to evaluating your personal risk. There's like 50,000 times that many apps downloaded every year. The point is the odds of you installing this app are very low. And if those numbers are half fraudulent then the odds are half of that already very small number.
That's one incident among many. Don't judge the situation by a singular incident. Google's move to realtime scanning of apps upon install is not because there is no risk.
I'd love it to be zero but the amount of vigilance warranted has gotta be a lot less than it was in the past unless there's some argument that magnitude of harm has gone up by a massive amount while probability has gone down by the same amount. Which, idunno, maybe that argument can be made actually.
Also I guess 2001 felt unsafe to visit trusted websites, so the advice upthread was already a bit lessened.