Alternative download source

[IzzySoft]

Would you mind providing an alternative place to obtain the app, outside of playstore? Maybe attaching the APK (preferably a tracker-free one, i.e. without Google Analytics) here to releases/ – or even bring it to F-Droid? Thanks in advance!

[johnjohndoe]

Thank you for bringing up the topic @IzzySoft.

By now I have done any step to publish the app anywhere outside of Google Play. I could easily share any APK if this help you. I have no plans to attach the APK to the GitHub releases page because I try to keep the project loosely coupled to any hosting platform such as GitHub.

I could imagine to publishing the app on F-Droid although I have not checked if this would work without changes or requires a separate product flavor to build an APK without Google Analytics.
Would you be interested in working out the task?

As a side note: Please know that you can disable Google Analytics in the app settings as a user.

[IzzySoft]

I'm no Android dev, so I cannot work on the app itself. F-Droid wouldn't accept it with proprietary components (though GA could possibly be patched out, which has been done in the past).

What I could offer is taking the app into my repo – but for that I'd need a place to fetch the APK from – not only manually, but preferably automatically. My updater script runs once a day to check the ~400 apps in my repo for updates – and understands e.g. Github/GitLab releases and repos as well as "fixed URLs" (a la https://example.com/latest.apk) if the web server sends the LAST_MODIFIED header. I can also offer assistance bringing your app to the official F-Droid repo (for which mine sometimes is the "staging area": more than 100 apps went that way in the past).

As for disabling GA: how can you be sure that stops data collecting – and not just hides collected data from you? AFAIK that library isn't open source 😉

[johnjohndoe]

Thank you for your kind offer. I will leave your issue as a task on my personal TODO list. Please mind, that I like to finish other issues first e.g. #29 as my time allows. I will come back to your request later.

With regards to Google Analytics - you might be true about this. One does never know.

[IzzySoft]

Of course "in due time" – it's you who sets priorities for this app! I'm glad to know you consider my suggestion. Just let me know when it is soweit 🤣

[Poussinou]

@Umweltzone Any possibility to have an APK in the releases section now?

[johnjohndoe]

Google Analytics has been dropped a while ago. This fact might qualify to include the app in F-Droid. I guess you can tell better than me. It would be great if you could take action to prepare the F-Droid entry.
With regards to GitHub releases the reason stated above remains.

[IzzySoft]

@johnjohndoe I can give the scanner another go once I have an APK to run through it (I'm still no Android dev, so I cannot build the app nor run any dependency checker on the code – and if I'm not mistaken, the same applies to @Poussinou). But from a quick look at the build.gradle it seems not yet acceptable for F-Droid (but might for my repo – which again would need the APK, signed and ideally attached to releases):

apply plugin: "com.google.android.gms.strict-version-matcher-plugin"
// things starting with "com.google.android.gms." are usually proprietary. The following two definitely are:
    implementation "com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:$playServicesBaseVersion"
    implementation "com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:$playServicesMapsVersion"

Further: versionCode and versionName in build.gradle need to be literals, or each new version must be added manually as the update checker has no way to evaluate.

[johnjohndoe]

Thank you for the kind offer.

I won't be able to remove Google Maps aka. Play Services from the app due to time constraints given by the fact that this is still a hobby project of mine.

Therefore, I don't see any easy way to continue here. Regarding the APK: @Poussinou I am happy to send you the latest - just drop be an email.

[IzzySoft]

@johnjohndoe inclusion criteria in my repo are a little easier than with "F-Droid proper". So if it's really just the 2 deps I figured from the build.gradle (i.e. GMaps and GServices Base, with the latter most likely including that "version matcher"), and the size does not exceed the limits of 30M, that would be acceptable. My updater would just need a way to find new releases automatically – which is easiest done by having them attached to the proper tag. I understand you don't want to expand dependency on GH – but attaching the APK won't do that anymore as it currently is: just the always latest APK is interesting for end-users, so once my updater has fetched that it wouldn't matter if it disappears because you move to e.g. Codeberg.org (where you could start again attaching the latest APK).

No pressure though, it's just an offer. I'll of course accept a "No" as well (though we all hope for a "Yes" – as though your app uses GParts, not having to rely on GPlay is a step many privacy-focused users welcome and further gives you a "second leg" as well, see here which 💩 happens there to some FOSS devs from time to time; as the APK in my repo is signed by you, you then still can push out updates to a secondary, well known place (not as well known as Play, but just search for "IzzyOnDroid" and "repo" 😉).

[Poussinou]

The APK I was asking for is not for me, rather for people needing it (I do not live in Germany) and for Izzy repo. This repo is a way for people to easily get your app (and update it) via a F-Droid client.