Shows who's boss on the phone. It's practically a remotely managed corporate environment.
F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
151–160 of 192 posts
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Graphene is not acceptable either, since it requires putting trust in someone who does not exibit enough stability or rationality to justify that kind of trust. I mean it's only the keys to your whole life, no big.
I agree but he's not involved anymore since even Louis Rossman called him out on his behaviour. Edit: apparently according to a post below he's still involved just not lead dev anymore. Sorry I missed that part.
Oh, that actually changes things, assuming whoever steers things these days isn't more or less the same.
No denying the guy isn't a no-joke developer, so, his code and work would be valuable, but only if the bigger picture didn't depend on his judgement.
It's not that I have a specic scenario of a particular bad thing he might do, like make a backdoor for the government or secretly collect & sell data, or even something like somehow ban you from using as an individual he didn't like because you criticized him or something. It's that once someone is shown to be that irrational, then all bets are off. You don't have to have a specific proposal of what they might do, because they might do anything.
Anyone might do anything, and the only way you can function is you just have to trust other people, and the only thing you have to go on is very little in most cases. So you have to give strangers the benefit of the doubt until there is some reason to doubt. And this guy acting this way is more than enough to avoid. It's not like there haven't been countless examples of people who seemed good at first going off the rails and taking a bunch of users down with them. It is entirely valid to see this guy and go "Nope. Avoid.", and that would not be a case of just ignorant discrimination against non-conformity, it would be using your nose for what it's for.
But if we don't actually have to trust him as much as before, that changes things.
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And why do we have to accept that phones just turn into garbage after a few years? Even my old 2009 laptop* still runs an up-to-date OS but my 2016 phone is obsolete after 2-3 years? It is because computers run one of a few available OS's. The OS is being maintained by the distributer (MS, Apple, Google) and your hardware is good as long as the drivers are still receiving updates. Phones are different because even…
I mean, I know why it happens, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about accepting it. It is really annoying how every vendor cobbles together a Frankenstein abomination of a kernel with just the right drivers and patches and good luck trying to run anything else. But I also understand that they (except maybe for Google) have no interest or incentive to clean up this mess.
That's true, and I think that we should be rewarding the companies that are bucking the trend:
Fairphone 5 will receive security updates for 8 years
Pixel 8 will receive updates for 7 years
iPhone 15 will receive updates for 6+ years (apparently, Apple has a track record of between 6 and 8 years)
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#154Shows who's boss on the phone. It's practically a remotely managed corporate environment.
But you can turn it off. It’s basically AV for Android.
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree but he's not involved anymore since even Louis Rossman called him out on his behaviour. Edit: apparently according to a post below he's still involved just not lead dev anymore. Sorry I missed that part.
Oh, that actually changes things, assuming whoever steers things these days isn't more or less the same. No denying the guy isn't a no-joke developer, so, his code and work would be valuable, but only if the bigger picture didn't depend on his judgement. It's not that I have a specic scenario of a particular bad thing he might do, like make a backdoor for the government or secretly collect & sell data, or even someth…
I agree. He attacked me once out of the blue here because I said something good about CalyxOS, and said I was part of a CalyxOS-inspired conspiracy against him. For the record I've neither used CalyxOS nor GrapheneOS because I've never had a pixel phone.
I was following CalyxOS' progress at the time because they were working on enabling support for some OnePlus models but right around that moment OnePlus came out with an update that made it impossible to do change the bootloader signing keys and they abandoned the project (which I understand). I'm also a huge fan of MicroG and really prefer this open-source approach over the sandboxed google play approach. And I'm critical about some of Graphene's stances, around SafetyNet in particular ("We don't lie about security features" - I don't agree attestation is a security feature but in my opinion it's more about control/DRM). So yeah if I had a choice I probably would have gone for CalyxOS. But I'd never even heard of the guy before this happened. I had nothing to do with any hate campaign (which I doubt even exists).
But no, I don't want someone like that deciding what code goes on my phone.
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Graphene is not acceptable either, since it requires putting trust in someone who does not exibit enough stability or rationality to justify that kind of trust. I mean it's only the keys to your whole life, no big.
"I mean it's only the keys to your whole life, no big." It's a telephone, with a computer on it in your pocket with a shit load of sensors. The computer part involves components from many parts of the world, with many opaque subsystems. The OS is sort of Linux with knobs on and a lot of opaque parts - the first layer "belongs" to a prolific ad slinger hell bent on knowing everything about you. Then if it isn't a Goog…
The fact that other things like the carrier are bad, does not somehow make any other thing like graphene good. (not that it's bad exactly just that there is a problem, which is not no problem, even if it's a problem you personally have just decided to be ok with)
Someone else said that the head guy isn't the head guy any more so the biggest problem may not be a problem any more. The idea, stated ideal, design, & construction (as far as one can tell honestly) of the os are all fine.
But the point was, you don't need any more reason than his behavior to avoid granting him such a priviledged place in your phone, which holds such a priviledged place in your life. Just on basic principle. You don't need to justify that to anyone and he or the project does need to justify why one should trust them. The usual justification is merely the utterly flimsy weak one of benefit of the doubt. It's more or less impractical to actually vet strangers, and so you just grant benefit of the doubt until there is some reason to question. But that goes out the window the instant there IS any reason to question.
People have different tolerance for risk, and so, you might be fine with saying "that guy is acting a little weird in this way, but whatever, probably he can still be counted on in this other way.", but no one else is obligated to. And this example of "weird" was not just neutral irrelevant non-conformity.
There have been countless examples of people in positions of responsibility and trust going off the rails and taking a bunch of users down with them. There is no reason not to use your nose for what it's meant for in this way.
But like I said, maybe the problem is resolved now by the fact that we don't actually have to trust that guy any more. In which case, ok.
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#157Related to this, I really dislike how Google Play acts like it owns your device. Installing an apk? Hey, I'm Google Play, I exist, how about turning Play Protect on?
Looking at AOSP, the logic that allows something like Play Protect to work is at [1]. It looks for system apps that can handle the ACTION_PACKAGE_NEEDS_VERIFICATION intent, which is the Play Store app in this case. Looking at the Play Store's AndroidManifest.xml, the PackageVerificationReceiver component is what listens for that intent.
With root access, it should be possible to disable just that component without breaking other functionality by running:
pm disable com.android.vending/com.google.android.finsky.verifier.impl.PackageVerificationReceiver
pm default-state com.android.vending/com.google.android.finsky.verifier.impl.PackageVerificationReceiver
[1] https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
The constant nagging when you tell Google "no" shows how little respect they have for their users. Messages by Google, which is primarily an SMS app, is asking me every 1-2 weeks to enable RCS chats. The link for declining the request is small and easy to miss, while the AGREE button below it takes up 25% of the area of the popup. Dear Google UX designers, the way you present your little "decline" links is illegal in…
I dislike how there's no complete open source RCS implementation, and after trying it out a few years ago, I now actively avoid it (I instead use QKSMS on Android)... But I don't see the problem with the decline link and EU law? AFAIK, most EU regulations are about tracking and consent in using your information... In this case, you're already using a Google product (the Messages app), and Google is just (aggressively…
Personal data is shared with Google and the carrier, that's why they need to ask for consent to enable the feature.
Here's the consent popup: https://imgur.com/a/PIqcDgR
The design of such consent popups has been deemed illegal in the EU, Google was also previously fined [1] for a similar consent popup. The "REJECT" button needs to be just as accessible and needs to have about the same visual weight as the "ACCEPT" button, dark patterns like the ones you see in the RCS consent popup above are illegal.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/7/22871719/france-fines-goog...
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#159One way to be a little less constantly violated by your phone is to run GrapheneOS, instead of iOS or ordinary Android: https://grapheneos.org/
They only seem to support pixel, although pixels can be bought for cheap when compared to iphones, they're still expensive for countries which are still developing. For example Im using a device which is 1/4th the price of cheapest first hand pixel that I can get :(
I got lucky and bought a barely used Pixel 3a for ~ $130 USD. But yes, it was hard to find.
It was much easier to find a Pixel 4 or a 4a, but those were too expensive for me.
Re: F-Droid version of KDEConnect uninstalled by PlayProtect
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, most banking apps are horrible and not worth using over accessing the bank's browser version.
Some banks, especially newer ones, don't even have a browser version. Or they do, but they require you to use the app for 2FA.
When the app itself is also the second factor.