this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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And this right here is why you use open source apps.
This only would work if you check every line of source code, even the dependencies and build chain, and then build it yourself. See xz utils backdoor or heartbleed, etc.
The whole point is that at some point somebody can check, and you can have a higher level of trust in that than proprietary software.
And if someone does something like this then it has to be disguised as an innocuous bug, like heartbleed, they can't just install full on malware.
It's a different beast entirely.
There is no guarantee that the released app is exactly the same as the source code when getting it on Google Play. You'd have to decompile or compile from source and try to compare.
Using F-Droid is good alternative.