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i hope these zippo fucks get sued by everyone who contributed. bastards are doing dropshipping but with malware pretty much
“have full network access” BIG YIKES
I mean it makes sense for error reporting. Lots of apps automatically report errors so that they can be detected easily, which would require internet access.
that kinda makes me think google should to a log retrieval and storage api which can retrieve and send logs to developers.
Wow, the new owners enshittified those apps really fast.
sigh. Most people will just accept the new default permissions without blinking an eye. They’re taking advantage of people’s ignorance.
You overestimate most peoples tech skills.They will never know because they have auto-updates activated.
It has begun
(ps install the fork versions of the simple mobile tools suite, its called fossify)
So it begins
ugh.
I think a good way to avoid this for any other app in the future is to just use alternativea found on fdroid.
… And disregard the rest :D
Throwback to when they announced releasing a simple phone. Fun times.
That was amazing. Someone linked to alibaba where you could buy the same 4? Year old phone for something like $120USD. Someone else dredged up a weird eastern European connection for the ‘FOSS’ OS. And they promised support, which ended when you bought the pos.
Guys.
Dont install FOSS apps from the Playstore. Use F-Droid (F-Droid Basic if you are on an updated OS)
Thanks.
I agree that F-Droid is great!
What I usually do is to buy the pro version on Google Play and install it later on F-Droid.
On the other hand I don’t see anything wrong for non tech people to install FOSS apps from the Play Store. The apps are still FOSS
Not exactly. When building for play store release - google injects their tracking into the binary.
I think this is a myth. Android Studio or something allows to build it in, but Google doesnt automatically do that. Afaik
A personal recommendation is to use Droidify, it’s just a great F-droid front-end.
You can download the APK here: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.looker.droidify/
When I last used it it was somehow unstable. Maybe that has changed.
My experience too, but I switched back and it’s far better now.
I have used it for maybe a year and I never had any problems. Then again, I’m hardly a power user, so it makes sense that other people might have different experiences. :)
I really like that they add more repos you just need to enable. Number 1 reason to use it, as F-Droid will never add those for obvious reasons.
Some that I cant live without
- Izzyondroid
- Guardian Project
- Collabora office
- signal foss twinhelix
- molly
- futo
- simplex chat
- Cryptomator
- Mobilsicher (proprietary German apps that are core infrastructure. They ask those developers if they can get the APKs)
- (Bitwarden) (dont use it)
- Julians Repo: nice to get GrapheneOS app updates, but you should install their appstore instead.
Ijusto use Obtanium.
Tried it, it was at least back then not scaleable. Not every Dev publishes precompiled APKs, that is actually not something regular because F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid exist.
So in the end I had 8 or more of my favourite Apps still F-Droid only, and when adding all those sources some barely worked and in the end Obtainium didnt load anymore.
Does it autoremove APK files? Otherwise its just a fancy Feed Reader, I use Feeder for the few Apps that are Git* releases only
Yes it autoremoves the apks.
Droidify is the best! Best performance and UI of all compatible clients, and even handles 3rd repos that wont load on others.
Hey thanks for this! I used f droid for a while but was always meh on the UI and how clunky it is. I used this for a bit and I already like it waaaay more. Cheers!
Yeah. I usually go to the Playstore to buy out all the In-App purchases and support development, but this is really discouraging.
True. But F-Droid has Donation links everywhere. I prefer that over buying, idk why.
Oh, found out at least F-Droid Basic doesnt display the links! Thats not nice
Less fees taken if you donate instead of buying most likely.
Droidify shows the donation links fine, which is nice!
General question: is there a version of F-Droid that uses Shizuku or otherwise doesn’t require me to tap through installing each of the apps it updates?
FFUpdater has a Session Installer option that works with minimal prompts, both it and Obtainium support Shizuku. But one is browser specific and the other is a bit tedious even if you know what apps you want.
F-Droid basic uses modern Android Libraries and modern Apps can be updated without interaction.
Thats because Android has a Package manager that uses APKSigner signatures to verify the app. That is Private/Public Key authentication, so its pretty sure the App comes from the developers.
Only if the Signature matches the App gets an Update. So there is no danger in using automatic updates.
Making F-Droid Basic “battery unrestricted” will help.
Thanks for letting me know! I was going out of my way to avoid that one, because the name suggested it was the same as regular F-Droid but stripped down. I didn’t know they had updated it that way.
I should have read the part of the description that mentioned it can do unattended upgrades
Yes I hate the name. It makes no sense. I will do another post on multiple Platforms to advertise it.
Yes the unattended upgrades only work on a modern store and modern apps. The original client is extremely outdated.
Droidify can do both: Session Installer and Shizuku: https://github.com/Droid-ify/client
Not really the focus here, but Google could really improve those listings by providing some guidance as to what permissions are actually required for certain tasks.
I am not certain I would know if am SMS program needs full Internet access or not.
(I get in this instance everything added is bad.)
strangely, you need “internet” for mms so, yes, sms app needs full internet access
Damn, how did I even manage to miss that Simple apps have been bought off? I’ve used them for years and am still subscribed to the reddit community…
Some people suggest the action could possibly be deemed illegal, by breaking the licence the project was made under.
https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241#issuecomment-1837452672 - the dev’s explanation, and replies which discuss the legal issues
https://old.reddit.com/r/fossdroid/comments/1893j2p/simple_mobile_tools_is_about_to_be_acquired/
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Over the years there have been a few times I tried to communicate with the developer, and he was always arrogant.
yeah tibor was known for that
Fossify has many of them, Gallery, Files and Calendar (the main ones) are already on F-Droid!
- sms: deku sms, way better
- phone: GrapheneOSses AOSP dialer, dont know if you get that seperately, or Welefon
- music: so many alternatives, Vanilla Music is nice
- keyboard: florisboard, openboard
- phone: lol Pixel with GrapheneOS
Its sad that the community did not donate enough. People dont care…
fcitx on Android is a pretty good keyboard experience now too.
Can you explain what that is and how it works? Is it a Keyboard with Plugins?
To add to this, Fossify just released their phone app. It hasn’t hit the repos yet, but it’s on their github.
deku sms
I haven’t used this, but it seems to do way more than the average person know how to use for an SMS app
Even in the readme, it says:
The technical functionalities of the app are currently not user friendly, which would be updated with the help of PRs and issues. The reason for the lack of user friendliness is solely based on the app aiming to be as customizable as possible. Users should be able to configure the app to their custom cloud servers without being tied into using specific providers.
It just works as an SMS app with possible AES encryption.
They were sold to ZippoApps, who specializes in adding crapware to apps.
What else would we expect anyway…
sounds like an uninstall
Hopefully fossify will release fossify messenger soon. Fossify’s a project forking all the simple apps
