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There are multiple problems here: 1. As you stated, Google forces devs to rely on presence of the Google Play Services 2. Devs don't care: I don't see why e.g

There are multiple problems here: 1. As you stated, Google forces devs to rely on presence of the Google Play Services 2. Devs don't care: I don't see why e.g. Discord should not run properly on MicroG (I get push messages after logging in, but the app itself shows all friends as offline, no servers and a "can not connect to discord" message; from what I found online, it doesn't seem to be intermittent). 3. I wouldn't even know which 3rd party app store to use (okay, besides F-Droid for FOSS and some Google Play Store Proxy)

panpanna 7y ago
> 1. As you stated, Google forces devs to rely on presence of the Google Play Services Not forcing per se. Google just provides a convenient services that devs are happy to use.
- Macha 7y ago
  That time has passed. There's functionality on Android that can only be reliably provided through play services these days (push notifications being the big one).
  - panpanna 7y ago
    You are correct, but how many applications need push notifications?
    - archi42 7y ago
      If you've an android phone, just count your apps? I did, and expected 8 of my 20 apps to use GCM. MicroG revealed it to be 11 (actually 12 due to "MicroG services core" registering with GCM as well). I might be an outlier though.
  - fulafel 7y ago
    It's just an optimization/convenience to use Google services for push notifications, no?
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Basically: Back in the day a ton of apps used their own notification servers, with each one clashing, waking the device up, etc.. Google Cloud Messaging was then set to be the only service that could wake the device up when it was sleeping. Supposedly it batches messages and sends them at optimal times to save battery.
      - fulafel 7y ago
        I'm not convinced that other network io is blocked. There seem to even be commercial competition for GCM: https://pushy.me/ https://pushy.me/
        cameronbrown 7y ago
        It's not when the device is awake or has a wakelock. But since Android's Doze (basically deep sleep battery saving state) GCM is the only service that can wake it up.
        fulafel 7y ago
        I thought the device wakes up from Doze regularly, and then you can poll for the notifications. The SDK docs sound this way too: "While the device is in Doze, apps' access to certain battery-intensive resources is deferred until maintenance windows" But it seems these maintenance windows aren't frequent enough (every 15 minutes?) for some apps.
        mflare 7y ago
        The minimum interval for periodic jobs is 15 minutes. When the device is in Doze mode, the jobs are defered to the next maintenance window. The longer the device remains in Doze mode, the greater the distance between two maintenance windows. Do you want to use a messenger or any other social media app where the worst case scenario is that it takes 15 minutes for the message to reach the recipient? Certainly not, so the app vendor is forced to use FCM to display notifications immediately even if the recipient's device is in Doze mode.
  - maple3142 7y ago
    Not really. Apps in China are mostly don't need Google Play Service, so it is totally up to developer to decide whether use it or not.
- realusername 7y ago
  That's not true anymore, for notifications it's now mandatory.
GoblinSlayer 7y ago
3. uptodown
- archi42 7y ago
  DuckDuckGo/Googling for that yields only the site, no review or some 3rd party information if it is safe to use. I mean, as a side-project, I could setup a website that pulls APKs from Google, infests [some] of them with a virus and puts them on a fancy looking website or "alternative app store"-app.

panpanna 7y ago

> 1. As you stated, Google forces devs to rely on presence of the Google Play Services Not forcing per se. Google just provides a convenient services that devs are happy to use.

Macha 7y ago
That time has passed. There's functionality on Android that can only be reliably provided through play services these days (push notifications being the big one).
- panpanna 7y ago
  You are correct, but how many applications need push notifications?
  - archi42 7y ago
    If you've an android phone, just count your apps? I did, and expected 8 of my 20 apps to use GCM. MicroG revealed it to be 11 (actually 12 due to "MicroG services core" registering with GCM as well). I might be an outlier though.
- fulafel 7y ago
  It's just an optimization/convenience to use Google services for push notifications, no?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Basically: Back in the day a ton of apps used their own notification servers, with each one clashing, waking the device up, etc.. Google Cloud Messaging was then set to be the only service that could wake the device up when it was sleeping. Supposedly it batches messages and sends them at optimal times to save battery.
    - fulafel 7y ago
      I'm not convinced that other network io is blocked. There seem to even be commercial competition for GCM: https://pushy.me/ https://pushy.me/
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        It's not when the device is awake or has a wakelock. But since Android's Doze (basically deep sleep battery saving state) GCM is the only service that can wake it up.
        fulafel 7y ago
        I thought the device wakes up from Doze regularly, and then you can poll for the notifications. The SDK docs sound this way too: "While the device is in Doze, apps' access to certain battery-intensive resources is deferred until maintenance windows" But it seems these maintenance windows aren't frequent enough (every 15 minutes?) for some apps.
        mflare 7y ago
        The minimum interval for periodic jobs is 15 minutes. When the device is in Doze mode, the jobs are defered to the next maintenance window. The longer the device remains in Doze mode, the greater the distance between two maintenance windows. Do you want to use a messenger or any other social media app where the worst case scenario is that it takes 15 minutes for the message to reach the recipient? Certainly not, so the app vendor is forced to use FCM to display notifications immediately even if the recipient's device is in Doze mode.
- maple3142 7y ago
  Not really. Apps in China are mostly don't need Google Play Service, so it is totally up to developer to decide whether use it or not.
realusername 7y ago
That's not true anymore, for notifications it's now mandatory.

GoblinSlayer 7y ago

3. uptodown

archi42 7y ago
DuckDuckGo/Googling for that yields only the site, no review or some 3rd party information if it is safe to use. I mean, as a side-project, I could setup a website that pulls APKs from Google, infests [some] of them with a virus and puts them on a fancy looking website or "alternative app store"-app.