koper

"Safe" being defined in a user-hostile manier, i.e. with unmodified Google components and not rooted.

"Google-controlled" would be a better word.

"I dropped my fair share of hard Rs back then"

I don't have an opinion on the matter being discussed

You know it's an option to just... keep scrolling right? This isn't high school, you aren't obliged to leave a comment.

Obviously acquiring publicly available data is legal

Under the EU GDPR it is often not legal. Controllers need a legal basis, which only exists if there is an appropriate relationship between the controller and the data subject.

No, you got downvoted because you were insulting and incorrect.

The Google Play Store has long been the bastion for safe and worry-free app downloads

It's nice that the article starts with this blatent lie, so that you know everything that follows is just regurgitating Google's marketing.

Even ignoring that most of the apps in the play store are unreviewed proprietary spyware sending all their data back to Google, there have been many instances of obvious malware being distributed through the play store. It seems like they are trying to sweep that under the rug.

The uMatrix add-on for Firefox seems to do what you want.

You can't just compare the file sizes without looking at the quality. Each will have different quality loss depending on the exact encodings used.

Reserved for future use

Key servers can be dishonest, so you need to have another way of verifying that the key you receive is correct.

This is fake