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Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

gultsch.social

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Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#91

Post by londons_explore »

eurekin wrote: post #81
lightedman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most android devices do that - sleep-state an application and it won't tell you anything until you actively pick up the device and use it. Been like that since I had my Kyocera DuraForce Pro on Android 6 or 7.

Yes, and there is an option to opt-out of that list. I did enable that. I'll phrase my issue differently: Is there any way to have reliable notification delivery that are time critical? Is actually calling the only 100% reliable option, as the PagerDuty does?

Push notifications via play services are the only reliable way. They work even with battery saver on (but not extreme battery saver, unless the app is excluded).

Note that you can only have one push notification reliably per user interaction. So once you have sent a notification, further ones won't be reliably delivered until the user interacts with your app in some way.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#92

Post by zajio1am »

zaik wrote: post #83
paulcarroty wrote: post #10

Out of curiosity, where's xmpp still popular?

With privacy minded folks and people who think we should just agree on using the IETF internet standard for instant messaging instead of 5 different proprietary messaging apps and 3 apps based on experimental "open" protocols (which are ultimately controlled by a single entity and never standardized).

To be fair, IETF standardization of XMPP was somewhat afterthought, and further extensions (XEPs), which are necessary for modern clients, are not IETF standardized.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#93

Post by riedel »

IMHO we clearly need more nonprofits that take up those cases and cover legal costs. At least get on their nerves, like the guy who singlehandedly sued Instagram because they canceled his restaurant. Noyb successfully showed how this can work for GDPR, we need something similar for digital markets and platforms.

All those platforms only can make so much money because AI makes critical decisions and they can even claim not to be liable. If they make so much money with you it would at least seem reasonable that you get a human contact.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#94

Post by rakoo »

dengolius wrote: post #30
malfist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the Aurora store, it's a drop in replacement for the play store withot the Google nonsense. I started using it after Google refused to let me install watch faces, because the apps hadn't been updated for foldable phones.

fdroid is ok too

F-Droid should be the default repository for safe, unobtrusive, respecting applications with your best interest in mind

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#95

Post by quectophoton »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #57
knightoffaith wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty surprising that you can make money off of a free software app like this, I always thought almost nobody would actually pay for it on Google Play store. I hope he can work it out with Google. Conversations is the best Android XMPP client I know of.

I'm using a fork but it is the best XMPP client out there. Even the ones on Linux are riddled with bugs and usability issues.

Even on iOS, none of them have UI as good as Conversations' (Android).

I was using XMPP only for some notifications (through a small bot) and it was nice while on Android. But when I moved to iOS I just stopped using XMPP because I didn't want to use any of the available clients.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#96

Post by ndr »

alias_neo wrote: post #72

They did the same thing to our messaging app where I work. Claimed we were uploading contacts and removed our app; we definitely don't upload contacts, that's a fact; the infra is also self-hosted so where would we be uploading them to? They only way we got them to allow it back was to add a privacy-policy notice to say that we upload contacts and why, despite the fact we actually don't...

How do you know none of your sdk/deps doesn't either?

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#97

Post by Zigurd »

kalleboo wrote: post #40
Dibby053 wrote: post #11

I use an open source SPAM call blocker (Yet another call blocker), which works fairly OK by querying a local spam phone number database. Recently Google Play decided to display a permanent notification prompting me to uninstall that "dangerous" app because it could "damage" my device. It's impossible to disable this notification. This app hasn't been updated in years. It has no ads. The only network request it makes…

I’m not an android user but from what I've understood is that Google is desperate to deprecate apps that were compiled for earlier Android SDKs before they introduced more iOS-style privacy APIs

This is the most likely reason for that app to get a warning like that. They have made a lot of changes to their 3rd party app security model that would require apps to be updated, even if they were well-behaved under the old model. It's unfortunate that could not have been done with forward compatibility.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#99

Post by tazjin »

alias_neo wrote: post #72

They did the same thing to our messaging app where I work. Claimed we were uploading contacts and removed our app; we definitely don't upload contacts, that's a fact; the infra is also self-hosted so where would we be uploading them to? They only way we got them to allow it back was to add a privacy-policy notice to say that we upload contacts and why, despite the fact we actually don't...

Why didn't you just start distributing the APK yourself if it was a private thing at work?

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#100

Post by Roark66 »

cma wrote: post #89
GuB-42 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a pretty bad set of permissions, which are necessary for it to function, but still scary for Google algorithms. Google doesn't know that its GET request doesn't get orders from a botnet and leaks sensitive data the app has access to. Also, if the app hasn't been updated for years, chances are that it targets and outdated version of Android, which works, but is considered suspicions by Google as it is also a wa…

> Google doesn't know that its GET request doesn't get orders from a botnet and leaks sensitive data the app has access to. And yet the only reason Google won't add internet access as a revocable permission is their ad business. Chrome constantly scans your harddrive in a way you can't easily turn off, and it's not for your safety: it's for the safety of their ad business to try to catch malware that engages in click…

>Chrome constantly scans your harddrive in a way you can't easily turn off, and it's not for your safety: it's for the safety of their ad business to try to catch malware that engages in click fraud. If you have media or backup drives it just constantly adds wear to them.

Is this true? Chrome is open source so someone should be able to point out the code that is doing that. What is the source of this info if not the code?

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