• SomeGuy69@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Does Google not currently have an anti trust lawsuit going on? Fine addition of them abusing their quasi monopoly position. But maybe they want to use this as argument “look people could just get it from fdroid” or something like that. IANAL

    BTW does removal mean phones with enabled google protect will ask users to uninstall the app? I have this “feature” disabled.

  • asudox@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Solution: don’t install it from the Google Play Store. F-Droid and Obtainium exist.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is a workaround for tech savvy people, but pretty far from the point here. This move is bad for the community and bad for the app. Play Store brings orders of magnitude more exposure and users

      • w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Most non-tech savy people aren’t even looking for an alternative map app. They are just going to use the one that comes pre packaged on their phone.

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I don’t know how many people found it through the Play Store, but for a point of comparison, OSMand has over 10 million downloads. That’s 10 million people who are interested enough to seek out and install it, despite not being tech savvy enough to get it from F-Droid, etc.

    • parpol@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      I tried f-droid just now but organic maps gives me a 404 when trying to install. Was it removed from there too?

      Edit: It looks like it was an issue on my end. F-droid was stuck on v1.17 and couldn’t update so I reinstalled it, and now I received a hundred update notifications from all my apps, and was able to install the organic maps app.

  • Z3k3@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    On the bright side I had never heard of this app. So thanks I’m checking it out now

  • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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    3 months ago

    This means I want to install organic maps now.

    Update: I like it, it got us home quicker than google yesterday. And the route was less boring

    • Routhinator@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      It’s getting good. I keep it as an alternative to OSMAnd, but find that Organic maps are harder to read and missing a lot of detail compared to OSMAnd.

  • Lee Duna@lemmy.nz
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    3 months ago

    That’s one of the reasons why we need to breaking up google. They use gapps and play store to control the android ecosystem.

  • FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Organic Maps is also available via https://accrescent.app/ which is developed by a GrapheneOS community member and even hosted in the GrapheneOS App Store.

    Accrescent is a private and secure Android app store built with modern features in mind. It aims to provide a developer-friendly platform and pleasant user experience while enforcing modern security and privacy practices and offering robust validity guarantees for installed apps.

    Accrescent comes from within the GrapheneOS community and we’re collaborating together.

    https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/112821386750410102

      • FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        A grapheneos community member is just a random person

        A random person that is mentioned specifically by the official GrapheneOS account, not to mention that GrapheneOS has said Accrescent is their recommended app store above F-Droid. Maybe Accrescent dev is not a GrapheneOS core dev, but still a step up, with more credibility, than just “a random person.”

        • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          True. I pushed them when they published the first build. I like it yet it’s not as open as an app store should be like fdroid or flatpak

          • FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            The main thing they have going against them is the currently small list of apps, and it won’t grow unless people become aware of it and ask devs to put their apps there.

            As for “not as open,” can you clarify what you mean? Yes, Accrescent does have “certain minimum requirements for all apps submitted to it to ensure the privacy and security of its users.” Is that what you mean,to loosen that? https://accrescent.app/docs/guide/appendix/requirements.html

            • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              There’s no other repos. It’s not federated, it’s not decentral. It’s like google’s store but from someone who’s endorsed by grapheneos. Maybe it’ll become the official grapheneos app store. (Its just a random thought) in that case it’ll get graoheneos’ reputation but still, there’s a reason why many people love fdroid and with the rise of reproducible builds it’ll become difficult to conquer their castle

      • FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Or “just get it from Accrescent and be done with it?” Are you implying if you get it from Accrescent, you’re somehow not done with it? Sorry, I don’t follow your logic.

        Also, no thanks on F-Droid as GrapheneOS recommends against and there are multiple security issues:

        F-Droid has far too many security and trust issues for us to recommend it. The vast majority of apps in the official F-Droid repository are built on their sketchy infrastructure and signed with their own keys. We’re concerned about a future mass compromise of F-Droid users.

        https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1803185925112934533

        https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/

        • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          That’s old info. Apps are now signed by the developers on F-Droid since about a year ago:

          but now with reproducible builds F-Droid ships APKs that are signed by the upstream developer(s).

          Source: https://f-droid.org/2023/09/03/reproducible-builds-signing-keys-and-binary-repos.html

          EDIT: I should note this doesn’t address the other issues in your second link (I have twitter blocked, can’t see that link) but it does fix the primary issue of the apps originally not being signed by the developer.

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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          3 months ago

          Graphene OS is not a good source of information. I call BS on anyone calling F-droid insecure. If you have a better option that is fine but Graphene does not have a better offering. F-droid is the best we have.

          • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            I would trust GrapheneOS, but understand that everyone has their own tolerances for security and the Graphene project is probably at the highest levels.

            The GrapheneOS devs were right about F-Droid being less secure when they would sign other dev’s apps. This meant that if anyone were to hack F-Droid, they would get full access to every device using an app installed by them. This issue was fixed just last September.

            Now that F-Droid fixed this issue, the responsibility falls on each individual developer to secure their signing keys. Should an app’s signing key be compromised, it would now only impact users with that app installed. Security is about layers, not 100% foolproof solutions.

          • FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Graphene OS is not a good source of information.

            They’re not a good source of information on Android security? Granted, they’re not perfect, but they are one of the leading teams in terms of Android security. I call BS on anyone calling GrapheneOS a bad source of information for Android security lol.

            News regarding vulnerabilities reported to Google and physical attack roadmap

            Improvements to factory resets by Google due to reports by GrapheneOS

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 months ago

    Any info what the exact problem they had was? Can you search for brothels in that app or what? (I remember you can in OsmAnd)

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      There’s nothing you can find in open street maps that is not also going to have an equivalent in Google maps. There’s no messaging capability in the app. There aren’t even photos, except if you link it with Wikipedia. I can’t think of a single reason why this would get flagged, even accidentally.

      • subtext@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Well some Wikipedia articles could be construed as not appropriate for kids if you’re dead set on removing the app.

        I’m thinking of things like Auschwitz or Hiroshima or the Twin Towers where content could be objectionable for children, but also that’s a terrible argument because it’s Wikipedia and it’s a fantastic educational resource.

        • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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          3 months ago

          Wikipedia has images of nude humans in articles about sexuality and genitals, so that would be a possible reason there; not applicable to OSM.

          • subtext@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Good point, that too, though that would presumably be harder to find exclusively through the app since I assume the linked articles are primarily about locations / landmarks

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Absolutely true. I just updated a neighborhood area yesterday that is completely wrong in Google. I didn’t mean to imply that it’s identical, just comparable in terms of content.

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        But Wikipedia app is on the Google store… I won’t pretend to understand the logic of the indefensible.

    • Scrollone@feddit.it
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      3 months ago

      I’m angry that Google prevents sideloaded apps from running on Android Auto. I think this is against the recent EU laws about gatekeepers.

  • Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    That’s funny I just installed it yesterday but decided to use f-droid instead. Going to be my default going forward.

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      This is not the first time the play store removes an app for absolutely no reason and then refuses to explain why it did so, and it won’t be the last. Usually they don’t just reinstate the app for no reason.

      I don’t think it was a mistake, but even if it was, they do not have proper communications to resolve such mistakes.