7 ms·

I had run LineageOS for some time. It works, but FDroid is missing too many apps, even opensource like Signal. I have to update apks manually every few months.

agilob 5y ago
Signal team fought a long war against any forks or unauthorised builds of Signal. There are (or were) FDroid repositories with Signal compatible builds, but Moxie stated that any such build will be considered malware. Signal team was making such builds increasingly difficult to produce. Official F-Droid repo doesn't allow proprietary dependencies on which Signal depends for some messages (push?)
- paulcarroty 5y ago
  > Signal team fought a long war against any forks or unauthorised builds of Signal. Yeah, this is main reason why I avoid Signal together with Google Services usage.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fouc 5y ago
  Why doesn't Signal maintain an F-Droid compatible build? (if there's a dependency problem, then they should considering dropping it, release a Signal lite perhaps)
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Making your own F-Droid repository was harder a few years back, and UX client-side was bad. Nowadays setting up a 3rd-party repo is as easy as scanning/approving a QRCode (for example for Newpipe repo). Not that i approve Signal's attitude on this topic at all, but there are (were?) technical reasons for which they would do something else. Of course, F-Droid maintaining proper LibreSignal builds in their place alleviates the concern, and that's what Signal team famously opposed. For the uninformed, F-Droid has very serious review/build process for apps and i don't think malware was ever distributed on there (and antipatterns are listed in the UI client-side).
  - h4waii 5y ago
    Probably the same reason they don't maintain a Flatpak, Snap, or any other package other than for Debian/Ubuntu for Signal-Desktop. Which according to the GitHub discussion, the answer is: ????
- SahAssar 5y ago
  Signal is open-source in the "look at it, but don't even try to tun it" way. I'd rather support a protocol that supports federation and encourages alternative clients.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    You mean something like XMPP protocol, which is a widely-deployed IETF standard with robust free-software implementations?
  - rakshazi 5y ago
    https://matrix.org https://matrix.org is a good one
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Not upvoting or downvoting, but Matrix is an experimental choice at this point. I have some hope for the near future, but so far Matrix protocol is far from an established standard. > supports federation and encourages alternative clients Currently, the only featureful matrix server (synapse) uses gigabytes of RAM just for a handful of users (see also progress on dendrite and conduit). As for supporting alternative clients, Matrix ecosystem has an overdependence on 3rd party web widgets (eg. Jitsi) for client features because they are not supported by the protocol itself yet, making it harder to implement a native client with good performance and all Element features. As i'm writing this, i realize nheko client now supports WebRTC audio-video calls when a recent GStreamer is available, congratulations on that, and good luck for the multi-platform implementation!
      - SahAssar 5y ago
        > overdependence on 3rd party web widgets (eg. Jitsi) Is there any other example than Jitsi? I thought that was the only third party integrated in the core, and even that can be self-hosted.
        rakshazi 5y ago
opan 5y ago
This exact issue years ago made me think less of (and stop using) Signal rather than F-Droid. You're better off with XMPP or Matrix, plus an ordinary SMS app.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  One has to already bend heaven and earth to bring people who don't care about Privacy from WhatsApp, Messenger to Signal. Only reason someone is able to do that now is because WhatsApp, Messenger gets into some legal trouble and the media advertises Signal. Preaching about significance of interoperable protocol and suggesting apps which use them is beyond the capacity of even those media.
  - afiori 5y ago
    The solution is always the same, focus on a stellar UX.
    - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
      Stellar UX are always welcomed, But the network effects of a chat application are too high of a variable for to just rely on stellar UX to be successful. Case in point: There was a chat app called Hike[1] in India run by the son of the leading Telecom Billionaire. It had more features(free SMS, Stickers) and arguably better UX than WhatsApp according to its users(100M). But it could never gain over WhatsApp's initial market size in India(Why change what works?). Final nail on the coffin for Hike was when WhatsApp was made available on the 4G feature phone released by a competing Telecom operator and loads of people got to experience WhatsApp on their first ever Internet enabled compute device. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hike_Messenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hike_Messenger
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        That's a very good example of why net-neutrality and anti-monopoly principles are important. Thanks for bringing it up
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
Yes it's a shame that Signal is not on F-Droid, but there's a self updating apk available[1] for side-loading which doesn't use Google Push Notifications if not available and as for why it's not there on F-Droid here's their official response[1], Which IMO makes some reasonable (against forks using their servers) and unreasonable (against normalizing side-loading) justifications. [1] https://community.signalusers.org/t/wiki-signal-android-app-on-f-droid-store-f-droid-status/28581 https://community.signalusers.org/t/wiki-signal-android-app-...
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > some reasonable (against forks using their servers) (...) justifications How is that reasonable in a centralized client-server model? That's precisely what we find unreasonable with Twitter and others shutting down or making life hard for 3rd party clients. Why would it be more acceptable from a free-software service? The network effect says a centralized protocol like Signal has "zero" value without reusing the same servers. All this because Signal maintainers have an ideological argument against decentralization, which received many great responses including this one from a Jabber/XMPP client developer: https://gultsch.de/objection.html https://gultsch.de/objection.html In all cases, Signal servers control who has an account, what permissions and what can be posted. You can't just extend the protocol to enrich your client by abusing Signal's servers, but you can make your client compatible with Signal protocol (interoperability). Preventing that is rather user-hostile.
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    You are asking some very pertinent questions. The reason why I felt there's some reason to Signal's stand on forks was because forks not standing up Them having their own F-Droid repository is to the quality standards, not adhering to feature parity while consuming their resources might not go well with their funders. Signal having its own repo on F-Droid is the viable solution for them but they don't seem have any intention of doing it. I don't agree with Moxie's reasoning against federated technologies, TBH I prefer email over any real-time communication due to its federated nature.
dmm 5y ago
If you install signal from the apk they(moxie, signal) provide it works without google play services and it will update itself automatically, just requiring you to click a confirmation every few weeks. Calyxos ships with Signal installed. I think it's an install time option? And it updates in an identical fashion.
- enriquto 5y ago
  > it will update itself automatically is it possible to disable the auto-update? i'd rather see signal stop working than auto-update behind my back.
  - dmm 5y ago
    By auto-update I mean it opens a prompt asking you to update. If you choose not to update it eventually stops working because they change the protocol periodically.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    I use lineage, and the signal apk from the website, and signal nags me to upgrade -- that doesn't happen automatically as far as I can tell. I've disabled the "install unknown apps" permission, but I don't know precisely what "unknown" means in this context.
m4rtink 5y ago
You need to manually update apps from Fdroid due to artificial limitations introduced by Google for third party app stores - only Google Play and possibly device vendor apps stores can update apps automatically on non-rooted device.
autoexec 5y ago
FDroid has Silence and Jami which is what I switched to after signal started collecting and permanently storing user data in the cloud.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Silence is great but needs more contributors. Advertise it to your privacy-friendly friends and Android devs you know :) Anecdote i learned recently about Silence: it's maintained by a jurist who works for a pro-privacy non-profit in France (La Quadrature Du Net)

agilob 5y ago

Signal team fought a long war against any forks or unauthorised builds of Signal. There are (or were) FDroid repositories with Signal compatible builds, but Moxie stated that any such build will be considered malware. Signal team was making such builds increasingly difficult to produce. Official F-Droid repo doesn't allow proprietary dependencies on which Signal depends for some messages (push?)

paulcarroty 5y ago
> Signal team fought a long war against any forks or unauthorised builds of Signal. Yeah, this is main reason why I avoid Signal together with Google Services usage.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fouc 5y ago
Why doesn't Signal maintain an F-Droid compatible build? (if there's a dependency problem, then they should considering dropping it, release a Signal lite perhaps)
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Making your own F-Droid repository was harder a few years back, and UX client-side was bad. Nowadays setting up a 3rd-party repo is as easy as scanning/approving a QRCode (for example for Newpipe repo). Not that i approve Signal's attitude on this topic at all, but there are (were?) technical reasons for which they would do something else. Of course, F-Droid maintaining proper LibreSignal builds in their place alleviates the concern, and that's what Signal team famously opposed. For the uninformed, F-Droid has very serious review/build process for apps and i don't think malware was ever distributed on there (and antipatterns are listed in the UI client-side).
- h4waii 5y ago
  Probably the same reason they don't maintain a Flatpak, Snap, or any other package other than for Debian/Ubuntu for Signal-Desktop. Which according to the GitHub discussion, the answer is: ????
SahAssar 5y ago
Signal is open-source in the "look at it, but don't even try to tun it" way. I'd rather support a protocol that supports federation and encourages alternative clients.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  You mean something like XMPP protocol, which is a widely-deployed IETF standard with robust free-software implementations?
- rakshazi 5y ago
  https://matrix.org https://matrix.org is a good one
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Not upvoting or downvoting, but Matrix is an experimental choice at this point. I have some hope for the near future, but so far Matrix protocol is far from an established standard. > supports federation and encourages alternative clients Currently, the only featureful matrix server (synapse) uses gigabytes of RAM just for a handful of users (see also progress on dendrite and conduit). As for supporting alternative clients, Matrix ecosystem has an overdependence on 3rd party web widgets (eg. Jitsi) for client features because they are not supported by the protocol itself yet, making it harder to implement a native client with good performance and all Element features. As i'm writing this, i realize nheko client now supports WebRTC audio-video calls when a recent GStreamer is available, congratulations on that, and good luck for the multi-platform implementation!
    - SahAssar 5y ago
      > overdependence on 3rd party web widgets (eg. Jitsi) Is there any other example than Jitsi? I thought that was the only third party integrated in the core, and even that can be self-hosted.
      - rakshazi 5y ago

opan 5y ago

This exact issue years ago made me think less of (and stop using) Signal rather than F-Droid. You're better off with XMPP or Matrix, plus an ordinary SMS app.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
One has to already bend heaven and earth to bring people who don't care about Privacy from WhatsApp, Messenger to Signal. Only reason someone is able to do that now is because WhatsApp, Messenger gets into some legal trouble and the media advertises Signal. Preaching about significance of interoperable protocol and suggesting apps which use them is beyond the capacity of even those media.
- afiori 5y ago
  The solution is always the same, focus on a stellar UX.
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    Stellar UX are always welcomed, But the network effects of a chat application are too high of a variable for to just rely on stellar UX to be successful. Case in point: There was a chat app called Hike[1] in India run by the son of the leading Telecom Billionaire. It had more features(free SMS, Stickers) and arguably better UX than WhatsApp according to its users(100M). But it could never gain over WhatsApp's initial market size in India(Why change what works?). Final nail on the coffin for Hike was when WhatsApp was made available on the 4G feature phone released by a competing Telecom operator and loads of people got to experience WhatsApp on their first ever Internet enabled compute device. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hike_Messenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hike_Messenger
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      That's a very good example of why net-neutrality and anti-monopoly principles are important. Thanks for bringing it up

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

Yes it's a shame that Signal is not on F-Droid, but there's a self updating apk available[1] for side-loading which doesn't use Google Push Notifications if not available and as for why it's not there on F-Droid here's their official response[1], Which IMO makes some reasonable (against forks using their servers) and unreasonable (against normalizing side-loading) justifications. [1] https://community.signalusers.org/t/wiki-signal-android-app-on-f-droid-store-f-droid-status/28581 https://community.signalusers.org/t/wiki-signal-android-app-...

southerntofu 5y ago
> some reasonable (against forks using their servers) (...) justifications How is that reasonable in a centralized client-server model? That's precisely what we find unreasonable with Twitter and others shutting down or making life hard for 3rd party clients. Why would it be more acceptable from a free-software service? The network effect says a centralized protocol like Signal has "zero" value without reusing the same servers. All this because Signal maintainers have an ideological argument against decentralization, which received many great responses including this one from a Jabber/XMPP client developer: https://gultsch.de/objection.html https://gultsch.de/objection.html In all cases, Signal servers control who has an account, what permissions and what can be posted. You can't just extend the protocol to enrich your client by abusing Signal's servers, but you can make your client compatible with Signal protocol (interoperability). Preventing that is rather user-hostile.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  You are asking some very pertinent questions. The reason why I felt there's some reason to Signal's stand on forks was because forks not standing up Them having their own F-Droid repository is to the quality standards, not adhering to feature parity while consuming their resources might not go well with their funders. Signal having its own repo on F-Droid is the viable solution for them but they don't seem have any intention of doing it. I don't agree with Moxie's reasoning against federated technologies, TBH I prefer email over any real-time communication due to its federated nature.

dmm 5y ago

If you install signal from the apk they(moxie, signal) provide it works without google play services and it will update itself automatically, just requiring you to click a confirmation every few weeks. Calyxos ships with Signal installed. I think it's an install time option? And it updates in an identical fashion.

enriquto 5y ago
> it will update itself automatically is it possible to disable the auto-update? i'd rather see signal stop working than auto-update behind my back.
- dmm 5y ago
  By auto-update I mean it opens a prompt asking you to update. If you choose not to update it eventually stops working because they change the protocol periodically.
- klyrs 5y ago
  I use lineage, and the signal apk from the website, and signal nags me to upgrade -- that doesn't happen automatically as far as I can tell. I've disabled the "install unknown apps" permission, but I don't know precisely what "unknown" means in this context.

m4rtink 5y ago

You need to manually update apps from Fdroid due to artificial limitations introduced by Google for third party app stores - only Google Play and possibly device vendor apps stores can update apps automatically on non-rooted device.

autoexec 5y ago

FDroid has Silence and Jami which is what I switched to after signal started collecting and permanently storing user data in the cloud.

southerntofu 5y ago
Silence is great but needs more contributors. Advertise it to your privacy-friendly friends and Android devs you know :) Anecdote i learned recently about Silence: it's maintained by a jurist who works for a pro-privacy non-profit in France (La Quadrature Du Net)