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KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

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Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#111

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

Dahoon wrote: post #86
djsumdog wrote: post #34

My current phone has been falling apart for a while and I've already replaced the back 3 times and the camera. With the battery going out and the back starting to crack again under the case, I decided I'm getting sick of Android. My next device needs to be something I can easily run Plasma on. Maybe I'll pre-order a Purism phone. I want a real open source phone, similar to running a Linux distro on my PC in the late…

>I decided I'm getting sick of Android. How does Android and cracked hardware fit together? No such thing as android hardware. Just buy a better one next time. >I want a real open source phone Purism isn't "real open source". Lots of locked down proprietary binary blobs in it and no way to no use them (modem for one). If you want it because of FOSS installing Ubuntu or LineageOS on any other phone would be just as go…

> Purism isn't "real open source". Lots of locked down proprietary binary blobs in it

Could you cite this, please?

With regard to the modem, its inner workings may be opaque, but it is isolated from the system and communicates over a bus (whereas ordinarily the modem on a mobile phone uses shared memory), which is what security-conscious open phone enthusiasts have been waiting years for. What other phone will give that to you?

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#113

Post by skolsuper »

simonh wrote: post #51
kabacha wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ech at least on android you can easily install apps outside of google play. _I_ find it scary to make business with as you can be pretty much _snapped_ out of existance in a single decision.

I don't really follow the argument. If you are a commercial company, the Play store is pretty much all that matters in terms of business viability. At a commercial level, the fact a few geeks can side-load apps is next to irrelevant. Who builds a business on side-loaded apps?

It's very common in rural Asia. Users share apks via P2P file sharing. Typically one person in the village will set up everyone's phone for them. Usually with all apps preloaded, but they're actually quite savvy about adding and removing apps once they get going, since they're on phones with such low internal storage. If you want to make it into these markets, you need to make your app side-loadable

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#114

Post by muststopmyths »

tyfon wrote: post #2

And google is supposed to launch a gaming console today that streams from the cloud. It's bound to generate a ton of support cases, I wonder how they will handle that. I also wonder how they deal with the countries that require a publicly listed phone number and address to be able to contact them.

>It's bound to generate a ton of support cases, I wonder how they will handle that.

They would have to try hard to be worse than Xbox Live Support. Customer service is dead for most consumer electronics.

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#115

Post by jraph »

_ylmx wrote: post #88
jraph wrote: post #75

So KDE Connect (with all features) joins NewPipe, AdAway and other amazing Android applications that are on F-Droid and not on Google Play.

Any other great apps on F-Droid? I'm using all of the above except AdAway and: - Orgzly: Org-mode brought to your phone. I use it for capturing TODOs and push notifications for reminders. - Revolution IRC: IRC Client - Syncthing: Syncs files between my computer and phone. Mostly used for .org files - Goodtime: Pomodoro technique time-management - Loop Habit Tracker: Track habits (reading, exercise, etc.) - Slide for…

A selection of F-Droid apps:

- AFWall+ (firewall, useful to block traffic to limit mobile data usage when I still need to enable it)

- Amaze (File Manager)

- AndIodine (Iodine client, use internet through wifi guarded by captive portals that still let DNS queries pass)

- Barcode Scanner (scan QR and bar codes, share things through QR codes)

- Clementine Remote (control the Clementine music player)

- Draw (to write scores when playing games)

- Easy xkcd, Simple Dilbert for comics

- E numbers, OpenFoodFacts (to know what you eat)

- Clip Stack, a Clipboard manager

- DAVx⁵ (formerly DAVDroid), to synchronize contacts and calendars with a Nextcloud instance (or any CardDav / CalDav provider)

- ForceDoze (to force the phone to really sleep when the screen is off)

- Drowser (to kill chosen running apps when the screen goes off)

- Document Viewer and PDF Viewer Plus to display PDFs. The former seems to segfault quite frequently but is nice when it works.

- Fennec or Icecat (Firefox Mobile)

- ForRunners (to keep track of running sessions, offline)

- LogCat Reader (to show Android's debugging log)

- LibreOffice Viewer (useful when people send office documents by mail) - K-9 Mail (Mail client)

- Maps and OsmAnd (for Offline GPS), OpenVegeMap (helps finding places where to eat)

- NextCloud (access files from a NextCloud instance, auto upload pictures)

- OpenCamera, a nice application for taking pictures. Works better than Lineage's stock app on my phone.

- oandbackup: backup data and applications.

- QKSMS: a really nice SMS app that is able to synchronize with the default Android SMS app, which is important for me for backups

- Riot.im (not using it at the moment though)

- Red Moon, which I use to make the screen even darker (and it works well with an AMOLED screen). I don't actually use it to filter blue light.

- SMS Backup +: to backup SMS and call logs to an IMAP account. I also copy files from /data/user_de/0/com.android.providers.telephony/ for that, which provide a perfect backup, MMSes included.

- SatStat (to debug GPS, and show a compass)

- Sky Map, to see the stars and constellations.

- Sound Recorder

- Termux: provides a GNU/Linux like environment, and a great terminal emulator which can be used with a real GNU/Linux distribution installed in a Chroot or from SSH.

- UnicodePad (look for unicode characters / emojis)

- VLC (a good music and video player)

- 2048, Open Flood, PipePanic (games), DroidFish (chess)

XServer XSDL is a good free X11 server for Android that is unfortunately not in F-Droid but now there is an X server in F-Droid (which seems to have less features).

Etar looks like a good calendar app. I've come across Wi-Fi Reminders, which can be used to display notes when connecting to a particular Wi-Fi, which seems nice and useful. There are apps to avoid leaks when using Wi-Fi. And also notes / tasks apps that I don't use regularly. TrebleShot looks nice to exchange files between devices.

[edit : added oandbackup]

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#116

Post by travisgriggs »

skolsuper wrote: post #113
simonh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really follow the argument. If you are a commercial company, the Play store is pretty much all that matters in terms of business viability. At a commercial level, the fact a few geeks can side-load apps is next to irrelevant. Who builds a business on side-loaded apps?

It's very common in rural Asia. Users share apks via P2P file sharing. Typically one person in the village will set up everyone's phone for them. Usually with all apps preloaded, but they're actually quite savvy about adding and removing apps once they get going, since they're on phones with such low internal storage. If you want to make it into these markets, you need to make your app side-loadable

But is that a model that producers can build a business on?

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#117

Post by aepiepaey »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #37
Svoka wrote: post #27

I find it extremely scary to make business with Google. Their robot would get your account banned, all cloud, play and every other thing with it. Every hour it is banned would be lost money and lost customers. This is not my problem, really. It is Google's public image as I seen it soulless support for last 10 years, and stories like this pop up time to time. Too sad they pretty much locked in Android app market, and…

GCP will no longer just shut down your projects without a human approval.

But they will still keep your credit card number forever if you ever give it to them.

Once it's been added, it can't be removed.

They claim it's for auditing purposes, but those "auditing purposes" shouldn't require keeping it attached to the account as an active payment method (which is what they enforce).

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#118

Post by dcole2929 »

muststopmyths wrote: post #114
tyfon wrote: post #2

And google is supposed to launch a gaming console today that streams from the cloud. It's bound to generate a ton of support cases, I wonder how they will handle that. I also wonder how they deal with the countries that require a publicly listed phone number and address to be able to contact them.

>It's bound to generate a ton of support cases, I wonder how they will handle that. They would have to try hard to be worse than Xbox Live Support. Customer service is dead for most consumer electronics.

I've actually found that Microsoft has great support. I've had some asshole from Russia actively trying to steal my LIVE.com email for the last year (for whatever reasons). And every time he finds a way to get in I just fire up the chat and they reset my account.

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#119

Post by Aissen »

pedroaraujo wrote: post #64

It's kind of ridiculous that Google is very active in shutting down legitimate apps like KDE Connect but paid clones of open source apps, or apps that promise to upgrade Android the version [1], are still happily up for download. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/b1ske7/stupid_apps...

Do not forget about apps that let you download more RAM: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=more%20ram&c=apps

See https://twitter.com/LukasStefanko/status/1036595679316140032 and https://twitter.com/LukasStefanko/status/1037219072633659392

Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS

#120

Post by meditate »

simonh wrote: post #51
kabacha wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ech at least on android you can easily install apps outside of google play. _I_ find it scary to make business with as you can be pretty much _snapped_ out of existance in a single decision.

I don't really follow the argument. If you are a commercial company, the Play store is pretty much all that matters in terms of business viability. At a commercial level, the fact a few geeks can side-load apps is next to irrelevant. Who builds a business on side-loaded apps?

A lot of companies do. I've actually found it's pretty difficult to get mobile apps deployed inside bigger companies WITHOUT delivering a custom build that enterprise IT rolls out on their own, even on iOS.
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