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Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

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Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#161

Post by pzmarzly »

petre wrote: post #136
pzmarzly wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using clean LineageOS for over 2 years, recently switching to LineageOS+microG. I'm using APKPure and F-Droid for apps, Chrome for browsing (as in Firefox, last time I checked, one tap separates you from losing all open tabs). Some apps refuse to work or break (e.g. Bitwarden does not sync), some have degraded functionality (e.g. WhatsApp sometimes does not ring when someone is calling you), many are just spamm…

What phone are you using? I'm looking to replace my aging Nexus 5 running LineageOS with something newer capable of running it which isn't huge.

Galaxy S4 Black Edition (with leather back), previously Galaxy J7 16, Nextbit Robin, Galaxy S3 LTE and S3. I downgraded as I find notification LED priceless and 5' screen perfect. I'm mostly sitting on HN and Reddit, so it's okay performance-wise (though your Nexus is faster), though I keep my eyes open on new devices.

There are still new S4 batteries manufactured by Samsung for Korean market, got mine in Poland for $25. I'm getting 5h+ SOT.

I'm not a performance-demanding smartphone user, but if I were, I would consider jailbreaking an iPhone. Android & Linux (Purism, Pinephone) keep disappointing me.

EDIT: maybe "disappointing" is not the right word. It's just that for good step, a step backwards seems to be taken somewhere else. Choosing a phone is all about trade-offs now, which is kinda sad. I'm using phone manufactured 6 years ago. Why can't I find any device that is a clearly improved version of it?

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#162

Post by ajnin »

jayd16 wrote: post #151
bchimp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been true for awhile once they forced apps to use API26 or higher (if you want to be listed in the Play store, and really, there is no other place if you want decent exposure.) I had a similar experience switching from "real background" to using FCM. I understand the battery saving motivation, but the problem is that the performance of the google service is terrible. The response time of my simple notificati…

>The response time of my simple notification system was nearly instantaneous, but OK google, I'll play your game. I put together something that used FCM and it can take 15 or 20 MINUTES to get even a "high priority" message from FCM. Letting your phone actually sleep is the battery saving feature. Also, you get throttled for high volume so check that as well. If you think your messages are so important to have a cons…

Some types of messages do require immediate attention of the user, or are of highest value if delivered immediately. Instant messaging apps have been using notifications for a long time and did not require a foreground service. Expecting instant delivery of that class of messages is not abusing the system.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#163

Post by jimktrains2 »

jayd16 wrote: post #149
gubbrora wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ideal platform would use a foss compatible framework. It would allow the user to configure which server to use to push notifications(one server for all apps, since that is needed for battery reasons). Notifications would be encrypted with the apps key.

>allow the user to configure This may be an ideal solution for you but its really not for most people.

That something is configurable doesn't negate the ability to have sane defaults that most people won't touch.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#164

Post by habosa »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #51

So to summarize, to save battery all notifications on Android (since two versions ago) have to go through a single notification service (rather than each app having the option of continuously running in the background and maintaining a connection with its own notification service). Recently Google killed their GCM notifications service in favor of Firebase Cloud Messaging, which (unlike GCM) unfortunately doesn't hav…

[Firebase team member here] As far as I am aware, GCM never had an open-source client. In fact I don't think any "play-services-{x}" library has ever been open sourced.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#165

Post by kortilla »

izacus wrote: post #132
kartan wrote: post #26

> Problem: The Firebase Android client library is proprietary, meaning FOSS apps can not use it. Apps that do not comply are reported to the user as "using too much battery". This is a standard on the industry. From 1999: https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_i... It doesn't matter how much money Google is going to have to pay in the future as a fine for this practice. The amount of money that th…

> It doesn't matter how much money Google is going to have to pay in the future as a fine for this practice. The amount of money that they will get for kicking out the competition is going to be way higher. That is a learned lesson from Microsoft (and probably others before them). The competition in this case is Apples iOS, for which even HackerNews users love to harp over and over and over again how amazing it is an…

Have you considered those two groups aren’t the same?

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#166

Post by habosa »

jchw wrote: post #88

I was confused for a moment because I thought the Firebase SDK was open source. Interestingly, though, the Android version appears to be only partly open source. I did not find an explanation as to why some of the source is not available, it is mentioned on the Github repository but not explained. In any case, I don’t see the code for Cloud Messaging in there. It may not be that it is done out of secrecy, though. A c…

[Firebase team member here] Our goal is to open source all of our SDKs, and we have steadily open-sourced more of them over time. The SDKs you see on GitHub right now are all standalone, they don't require communicating with Google Play services running on the device.

Our bar for moving an SDK to GitHub is that it has to be more than a source dump, it must be the source of truth for that team's development. Right now that's not possible for FCM because of the dependency it has on Google Play services.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#167

Post by ViViDboarder »

izacus wrote: post #132
kartan wrote: post #26

> Problem: The Firebase Android client library is proprietary, meaning FOSS apps can not use it. Apps that do not comply are reported to the user as "using too much battery". This is a standard on the industry. From 1999: https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_i... It doesn't matter how much money Google is going to have to pay in the future as a fine for this practice. The amount of money that th…

> It doesn't matter how much money Google is going to have to pay in the future as a fine for this practice. The amount of money that they will get for kicking out the competition is going to be way higher. That is a learned lesson from Microsoft (and probably others before them). The competition in this case is Apples iOS, for which even HackerNews users love to harp over and over and over again how amazing it is an…

I would like a choice between consistent and curated vs open and free with both respecting privacy.

Unfortunately, the choices today are limited.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#168

Post by enitihas »

dwaite wrote: post #152
maxaf wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please forgive me for being unnecessarily obtuse this early on a Monday morning. Where does Apple say that GPL code isn’t allowed on the App Store? I ask entirely out of my selfish need to avoid unpleasant surprises later on.

Someone should probably tell VLC if GPL is disallowed, since they have been shipping across tvOS and iOS for years.

I think VLC core had a large amount of code rewritten, to change the license (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4787965), which required a large effort from the VLC team.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#169

Post by joshuamorton »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #163
jayd16 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>allow the user to configure This may be an ideal solution for you but its really not for most people.

That something is configurable doesn't negate the ability to have sane defaults that most people won't touch.

Often times even having configuration options creates surface for security issues.

A good example of this is that there were scams that involved having people paste some script into their chrome devtools and steal data. This worked fairly effectively. Facebook ended up doing some magic to show a warning message in the devtools console to tell people that no, you really shouldn't paste random stuff here, it will do bad things.

Configurability does come with a cost. And "the ability to reroute all push notifications through an arbitrary MITM" is a security cost that I expect wouldn't be worth it.

Re: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

#170

Post by Despegar »

izacus wrote: post #132
kartan wrote: post #26

> Problem: The Firebase Android client library is proprietary, meaning FOSS apps can not use it. Apps that do not comply are reported to the user as "using too much battery". This is a standard on the industry. From 1999: https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_i... It doesn't matter how much money Google is going to have to pay in the future as a fine for this practice. The amount of money that th…

> It doesn't matter how much money Google is going to have to pay in the future as a fine for this practice. The amount of money that they will get for kicking out the competition is going to be way higher. That is a learned lesson from Microsoft (and probably others before them). The competition in this case is Apples iOS, for which even HackerNews users love to harp over and over and over again how amazing it is an…

The difference is Apple has been the same from the beginning. There was no bait and switch. People who bought Apple products knew what Apple was and will be and what the terms were.

With Google there is a bait and switch (and it doesn't really just apply to this particular story). They came to market defining themselves as the open alternative to Apple to get market share and developer interest (and evangelism), and now that they've achieved dominance the terms are changing.

There's no surprise that there's going to be massive pushback (and probably antitrust implications).

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