Say I have Google Camera installed with network permissions revoked. Say I also install Play Services which does have network access. Would Google Camera be able to share data about my pictures to Play Services which would then phone home to Google?
Say I have Google Camera installed with network permissions revoked. Say I also install Play Services which does have network access. Would Google Camera be able to share data about my pictures to Play Services which would then phone home to Google?
I’d like to see some evidence that F-Droid is less secure (or privacy respecting) than using the big Gs playstore or services, which many, if not most, playstore apps depend on to function.
I mean this sincerely and respectfully. I’d love to look onto it.
Because in my current opinion and approach, if you vet your apps and practice good digital hygiene, then FOSS>GOOGL/Alphabet for nearly everything from a privacy and security perspective.
Edit: if I misunderstood and you were saying don’t use G playstore or Aurora AND don’t use F-Droid, then may I ask where are you getting your apps, other than directly from the devs page or github and so on?
There is an app called Obtainium. This allows downloading signed apps directly from source
Thanks!
For that to work you need to know the app exists first. I also like to look at F-droids anti feature list.
Me too, but good to know I can check that at F-Droid and then fetch from source if I want. Best of both.
I’m a little bit too late 🤪
I personally don’t use anything of google, browsing and trying apps from fdroid, and have obtainium for the ones I usually use
But Graphene’s approach is all about security, and privacy only after it So they recommend the most secure options first, and don’t recommend minor options So, their current opinion on fdroid that it’s less secure than googlag’s store, so a more secure option would be googlag, or that second store that has 3 apps in it
But it’s for “marketplace” apps, so obtainium not in the scope, but kinda should be (we just need to rethink where we get our apps from)
Good points and makes sense to me. Thanks.
Here is one brief video explaining some of F Droids security issues: https://youtu.be/lAbgeJau3eE&t=305 piped link: https://piped.video/watch?v=lAbgeJau3eE&t=314
That is old(ish) news. And f-droid have since then implemented allowing reproducible builds
which allows for developer signed keys to be used for the APK
This is the best of both worlds. You verify the source code is actually what the developer says it is. And you verify the binary you’re running was built by the developer.
Now if we only could get the F-droid project to be controlled by a board and not a single person.
https://f-droid.org/2023/03/20/f-droid-board.html
Recent drama aside they are trying to do exactly that
https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/tree/master/board/meeting_minutes
If you read the recent meeting minutes, it’s just growing pains, they’re doing the right things
If you really want to get into the recent drama, you can read the issues. But they are being open and transparent about everything. Which is exactly what you want in public governance.
https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/448
Nice. Great discussion all. Thanks.
Keep in mind that the security issues were addressed a while back. It was in a blog post.
Thank you for providing some info for discussion MagneticFusion.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/lAbgeJau3eE&t=305
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
All apps on Fdroid are built and signed by Fdroid devs which gives them infinite power. If you trust them completely, go ahead and use it.