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Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

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Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#601
post #3

The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it. My company has a half dozen stories like this about Google in the last year alone. Know what Google is doing to its AdSense partners on a massive scale? They wait until your site has just under the earnings when they have to write you a check, then they terminate your AdSense account for “polic…

Has this happened to more of your clients?

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#602
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When did thing go so horribly wrong? When every company and their dog decided their content needs an app. Instead of using the nicely standardized thing called http and web browsers. That moved us from http straight to corporate technical fiefdoms with no control.

I’ve been building apps for Windows for over a decade (we used to call them programs or software) and this isn’t exactly a problem there. The problem is strong centralized App Store control, not native app development.

>I’ve been building apps for Windows for over a decade and this isn’t exactly a problem there.

You 300% completely miss my point. Apps ARE the problem. Especially in the "for Windows" context. Now I need to install 30 different apps to access 20 different sites, and another 40 different apps on my other device that's in a different app eco system.

...versus standardized http and browsers. The entire app eco system in their specific walled incompatible gardens is top to bottom is toxic.

And that's not me pulling a stallman. Every fuckin website and company on every device wants me to install their own app. It's tedious AF at best

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#603
post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...until it's your app that has been removed, your company that is going out of business, and the response from the rest of the technological world is, "Eh, collateral damage. Too bad."

I mean is this not literally the cost of business? I could think of a few things entirely outside of my company’s control that if happened would just straight up end our business within the week.

The skill of operating a business is in minimizing uncontrollable risks, not celebrating them.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple problems here: 1. As you stated, Google forces devs to rely on presence of the Google Play Services 2. Devs don't care: I don't see why e.g. Discord should not run properly on MicroG (I get push messages after logging in, but the app itself shows all friends as offline, no servers and a "can not connect to discord" message; from what I found online, it doesn't seem to be intermittent). 3. I wouldn'…

3. uptodown

DuckDuckGo/Googling for that yields only the site, no review or some 3rd party information if it is safe to use. I mean, as a side-project, I could setup a website that pulls APKs from Google, infests [some] of them with a virus and puts them on a fancy looking website or "alternative app store"-app.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, that's good info. Please report back if you have time to scrape the app and give us that perspective. Is it easy to scrape the app now that it isn't in the store anymore? I have a hunch the violation will be something to do with him trying to cut costs on the Google Places API.

By scrape I meant that there are some sites allowing to download apks from Google play They usually cache the apks for a couple of days so that would have been a way to download it. And after that, I would have looked at the app manifest (it contains all the permissions that the app might want to use, so there might be some interesting stuff there) and maybe use it. I don't plan to look at the bytecode for shady beha…

Ya, looks like it got updated again and he doesn't have to make any changes.

Google thinking he was in violation was an error on their part.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't strawman this argument into a conversation about intelligence. This is about personal freedom. Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability. Installing an app will not do that. Let's stay on topic. And while we're at it, you and I both know that majority opinion has never been strongly correlated with truth.

> Installing an app will not do that. Ever seen a botnet?

There is a difference between installing some sketchy third-party app from an apk provider and installing an app that simply doesn't meet Apple/Google's community guidelines.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#607
post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me 20 seconds to find one example on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Forge-Excellence-Supplement-Metabolis... It is a loophole in that they can list "FDA something " on their product and prey on consumers who do not know any better.

> It took me 20 seconds to find one example on Amazon: That product in fact does NOT say that it is FDA approved, nor does it say that any of its ingredients are FDA approved. So it is not an example of "stamp the FDA approval on themselves". > It is a loophole in that they can list "FDA something" They are making a statement of 100% fact. Their facility was inspected by the FDA. Outlawing saying so would violate the…

The title of the product is "Forge Excellence - Extra Virgin, Pure, Unrefined Coconut Oil Dietary Supplement - GMO Free & FDA Approved"

This is so obvious that I think you're intentionally missing this just to be argumentative.

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