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Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

androidpolice.com

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Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#61

Post by CWuestefeld »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #5
branon wrote: post #2

Alternative app that's not encumbered by the Play Store's rules: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghostsq.commander/

Its functionality is hindered by Google in that it can not download and install updates in background as Google Play does. One has to root the phone and loose access to banking and SSO apps to get enough permissions for F-Droid. EU anti-competition monkeys should have looked at that a long time ago.

My Pixel 5a is not rooted, and I have F-Droid running on it, from which I've installed several apps.

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#63

Post by athrowaway3z »

fooqux wrote: post #55
lkxijlewlf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will this have any implications for f-droid?

No. F-droid isn't on the play store as far as I can see. You go to their site, download the APK yourself, and install it manually. It's outside the scope of Google's Play store rules.

> and install it manually.

But how would you do that? Firefox 'opening' an APK is obviously also able to update itself.

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#64

Post by user_7832 »

wardedVibe wrote: post #54
throwaway67743 wrote: post #4

Wonder if they'll block Firefox next since that (like many) allows you to download and install an apk just by opening it

That sounds like a one way ticket to anticompetitive lawsuits from the FTC

As much as I'd this to be true, sadly Google does not care. Easy example that I can think of: access google.com from chrome and Firefox (on Android). At least until a few months back, it still had that ancient UI on Firefox. Changing useragent, of course, made it the "modern" version.

Who will, or even can, bell the trillion dollar cat?

Edit- just tried with Firefox Focus, and sure enough, it's the "old" UI. Screenshot - https://i.imgur.com/dfRvBIW.png (With chrome it's the regular/modern one but I was logged in and couldn't screenshot in incognito)

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#65

Post by SemanticStrengh »

Frotag wrote: post #21
TrianguloY wrote: post #18

An app on google play can't update itself...except if the app was made by google (YouTube updates itself almost weekly, all server side). That's why it's called google play, because it's where google plays with all of us.

PWAs are basically websites with a home screen icon. But they can be published in the playstore and update everything but the icon and name.

Hybrid web apps like ionic too.

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#66

Post by guerrilla »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #57
guerrilla wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. It can still theoretically be forked if it gets bad enough and the right people get motivated enough. No reason to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

What can be forked? Android isn't blocking anything, Play Store and Total Commander are closed source.

The entire android ecosystem. F-droid is free and works. You're way less free using iOS which you have 0 control over vs. Android which things can be rebuilt on. iOS could disappear tomorrow forever and there's not a single thing you could do about it.

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#67

Post by alex3305 »

throwaway67743 wrote: post #4

Wonder if they'll block Firefox next since that (like many) allows you to download and install an apk just by opening it

According to the article this seems allowed:

> [...] This restriction does not apply to code that runs in a virtual machine or an interpreter where either provides indirect access to Android APIs (such as JavaScript in a webview or browser).

Also blocking Firefox to install an APK would be anti-competitive, because Google's own Chrome also allows APK installations.

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#68

Post by zufallsheld »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #61
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its functionality is hindered by Google in that it can not download and install updates in background as Google Play does. One has to root the phone and loose access to banking and SSO apps to get enough permissions for F-Droid. EU anti-competition monkeys should have looked at that a long time ago.

My Pixel 5a is not rooted, and I have F-Droid running on it, from which I've installed several apps.

Do theses apps automatically update in the background without you having to do anything?

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#69

Post by asddubs »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #61
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its functionality is hindered by Google in that it can not download and install updates in background as Google Play does. One has to root the phone and loose access to banking and SSO apps to get enough permissions for F-Droid. EU anti-competition monkeys should have looked at that a long time ago.

My Pixel 5a is not rooted, and I have F-Droid running on it, from which I've installed several apps.

yes, but you have to manually update those apps

Re: Total Commander forced to stop letting you install APKs

#70

Post by jeroenhd »

mschuster91 wrote: post #52
jeroenhd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the ING NL app also works perfectly fine on rooted devices. You can usually apply a working Magisk Hide plugin relatively easily for apps that don't support it. I suspect that some banks use a whitelist rather than a blacklist for certain phones.

Some also check for other signals indicating root - for example, if Samsung Knox shows up as enabled in the build properties, but accessing it fails with an exception, the phone was rooted at least once (even if you re-flash an official firmware and re-lock the bootloader, the Knox Secure Enclave stays dead). Tricking out these detections is a nightmare.

Yeah, Samsung is pretty bad (or good, depending on your point of view) when it comes to this stuff. I would never root a Samsung phone because of this mess.
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