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Alternative app that's not encumbered by the Play Store's rules: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghostsq.commander/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghos

by branon 4y ago

Alternative app that's not encumbered by the Play Store's rules: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghostsq.commander/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghostsq.commander/

sam_lowry_ 4y ago
Its functionality is hindered by Google in that it can not download and install updates in background as Google Play does. One has to root the phone and loose access to banking and SSO apps to get enough permissions for F-Droid. EU anti-competition monkeys should have looked at that a long time ago.
- TheMatten 4y ago
  Android 12 supports background updates: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/12/features#automatic-app-updates https://developer.android.com/about/versions/12/features#aut...
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    Yes, but f-droid et al cannot update in the background. That's a problem.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Animats 4y ago
      I consider that a good feature. I decline about half the updates. Some of those "simple" family tools have had "updates" that add nagging and attempts to get you to upgrade to a paid premium version.
      - oliwarner 4y ago
        Being able to selectively turn auto-updates off is a feature. Not having a choice is not a feature.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
      That's on F-Droid though...
      - oliwarner 4y ago
        And they try, but Google makes you root your device to install a service level apps to handle that stuff in the background. Sorry if I'm appearing snarky but that's the whole point of this thread. Google obstructs third-party app stores. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged...
        tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
        This used to be true, but as the comment you've responded to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31424242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31424242) explicitly explains, since Android 12 you don't need to root your device and install the service level app. There's a new API specifically to allow apps like F-Droid to update apps they've installed, F-Droid just didn't get around to using it yet: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/2316 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/2316
        oliwarner 4y ago
        Well that's very silly of me.
        oliwarner 4y ago
        On further reading, that new API seems to only allow updating apps which also support that new API. There might be a good technical reason for that, but it's a barrier to entry that Google doesn't have as a first party.
        tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
        I think the apps don't have to explicitly support that specific API, they just have to target a modern Android version. Google technically doesn't have that restriction, but nevertheless imposes the same restriction on the Play store. (Not saying it's appropriate to impose the "devs must update apps for each Android version" requirement this way.)
- gonzus 4y ago
  My OnePlus 6 is rooted (with Magisk) and I do banking with it all the time.
- dhc02 4y ago
  I use something called Insular[1] to install some apps in a work profile so they don't have access to my personal contacts and activity. A nice unexpected benefit has been that Insular does background installations and updates of APKs. When I click "update" in f-droid, I now choose Insular as the handler and it happens in the background. It's much more reliable than however f-droid does it internally. [1] https://secure-system.gitlab.io/Insular/ https://secure-system.gitlab.io/Insular/
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  Is this something that only happens with some banks? I have GrapheneOS on my Pixel 6 with F-droid, and the banking app of ABN AMRO from the Play store just works.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    In my experience the ING NL app also works perfectly fine on rooted devices. You can usually apply a working Magisk Hide plugin relatively easily for apps that don't support it. I suspect that some banks use a whitelist rather than a blacklist for certain phones.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      Some also check for other signals indicating root - for example, if Samsung Knox shows up as enabled in the build properties, but accessing it fails with an exception, the phone was rooted at least once (even if you re-flash an official firmware and re-lock the bootloader, the Knox Secure Enclave stays dead). Tricking out these detections is a nightmare.
      - jeroenhd 4y ago
        Yeah, Samsung is pretty bad (or good, depending on your point of view) when it comes to this stuff. I would never root a Samsung phone because of this mess.
        mschuster91 4y ago
        The problem is you're effectively stuck with either Google or Samsung if you want decent performance, update availability, spare part support and the security of not having Chinese spyware embedded on order of the Chinese dictatorship. And Google is known for delivering absolute lemons as hardware, with next to zero support to make stuff worse.
    - sam_lowry_ 4y ago
      KBC and Itsme are hard to trick into working with a rooted phone. I tried and dropped the ball at some point.
- CWuestefeld 4y ago
  My Pixel 5a is not rooted, and I have F-Droid running on it, from which I've installed several apps.
  - zufallsheld 4y ago
    Do theses apps automatically update in the background without you having to do anything?
  - asddubs 4y ago
    yes, but you have to manually update those apps
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Which is a huge pain because you can’t just spam click update or “update all”. You have to one by one wait for them to download and for the android UI to come up and then wait for the install to finish before starting the next one
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  According to https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-stores-update-apps-background/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st..., it could do it, it's just not implemented. Given that trying to update a package from the notification just yields an error and this issue hasn't been fixed for 5 years (https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/669 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/669) and the F-Droid repository is known to update so slowly that most devs recommend adding their direct channel, F-Droid doesn't really feel like a usable alternative. I think unfortunately the best bet here is to wait for some commercial player to step in and make a decent alternative.
badsectoracula 4y ago
You can also download the Total Commander APK from its own site[0] which includes that functionality, as mentioned in the forum post linked by the article this is only for the Play Store version. [0] https://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=76644 https://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=76644
- teknopaul 4y ago
  Dev should publish TC via Fdroid. I always check for Fdroid versions first. Fdroid are more honest about app perms and policies than Google are.
  - thrtythreeforty 4y ago
    Total Commander isn't open source. Since it's freely available, Ghisler could set up an Fdroid repository. I for one would pull it from there if that were an option. Fdroid is very close to being the "brew" or "apt" of the Android world, being able to pull updates from multiple sources.
    - qart 4y ago
      Is there a directory of such sources available online somewhere? The only sources I know are Fdroid itself, Guardian Project and IzzyOnDroid.
      - lymph 4y ago
        https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721 https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721
planede 4y ago
Ironically, Ghost Commander is also available on the Play Store.
jeroenhd 4y ago
I had to root my phone and install Magisk with the F-Droid module to get F-Droid to auto-update like Google Play does, though. That could be an issue that Android 12 resolves, but I won't be getting that update on this phone.

by branon 4y ago

Alternative app that's not encumbered by the Play Store's rules: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghostsq.commander/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.ghostsq.commander/

sam_lowry_ 4y ago

Its functionality is hindered by Google in that it can not download and install updates in background as Google Play does. One has to root the phone and loose access to banking and SSO apps to get enough permissions for F-Droid. EU anti-competition monkeys should have looked at that a long time ago.

TheMatten 4y ago
Android 12 supports background updates: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/12/features#automatic-app-updates https://developer.android.com/about/versions/12/features#aut...
- oliwarner 4y ago
  Yes, but f-droid et al cannot update in the background. That's a problem.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Animats 4y ago
    I consider that a good feature. I decline about half the updates. Some of those "simple" family tools have had "updates" that add nagging and attempts to get you to upgrade to a paid premium version.
    - oliwarner 4y ago
      Being able to selectively turn auto-updates off is a feature. Not having a choice is not a feature.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    That's on F-Droid though...
    - oliwarner 4y ago
      And they try, but Google makes you root your device to install a service level apps to handle that stuff in the background. Sorry if I'm appearing snarky but that's the whole point of this thread. Google obstructs third-party app stores. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged...
      - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
        This used to be true, but as the comment you've responded to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31424242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31424242) explicitly explains, since Android 12 you don't need to root your device and install the service level app. There's a new API specifically to allow apps like F-Droid to update apps they've installed, F-Droid just didn't get around to using it yet: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/2316 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/2316
        oliwarner 4y ago
        Well that's very silly of me.
        oliwarner 4y ago
        On further reading, that new API seems to only allow updating apps which also support that new API. There might be a good technical reason for that, but it's a barrier to entry that Google doesn't have as a first party.
        tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
        I think the apps don't have to explicitly support that specific API, they just have to target a modern Android version. Google technically doesn't have that restriction, but nevertheless imposes the same restriction on the Play store. (Not saying it's appropriate to impose the "devs must update apps for each Android version" requirement this way.)
gonzus 4y ago
My OnePlus 6 is rooted (with Magisk) and I do banking with it all the time.
dhc02 4y ago
I use something called Insular[1] to install some apps in a work profile so they don't have access to my personal contacts and activity. A nice unexpected benefit has been that Insular does background installations and updates of APKs. When I click "update" in f-droid, I now choose Insular as the handler and it happens in the background. It's much more reliable than however f-droid does it internally. [1] https://secure-system.gitlab.io/Insular/ https://secure-system.gitlab.io/Insular/
Freak_NL 4y ago
Is this something that only happens with some banks? I have GrapheneOS on my Pixel 6 with F-droid, and the banking app of ABN AMRO from the Play store just works.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  In my experience the ING NL app also works perfectly fine on rooted devices. You can usually apply a working Magisk Hide plugin relatively easily for apps that don't support it. I suspect that some banks use a whitelist rather than a blacklist for certain phones.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Some also check for other signals indicating root - for example, if Samsung Knox shows up as enabled in the build properties, but accessing it fails with an exception, the phone was rooted at least once (even if you re-flash an official firmware and re-lock the bootloader, the Knox Secure Enclave stays dead). Tricking out these detections is a nightmare.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      Yeah, Samsung is pretty bad (or good, depending on your point of view) when it comes to this stuff. I would never root a Samsung phone because of this mess.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        The problem is you're effectively stuck with either Google or Samsung if you want decent performance, update availability, spare part support and the security of not having Chinese spyware embedded on order of the Chinese dictatorship. And Google is known for delivering absolute lemons as hardware, with next to zero support to make stuff worse.
  - sam_lowry_ 4y ago
    KBC and Itsme are hard to trick into working with a rooted phone. I tried and dropped the ball at some point.
CWuestefeld 4y ago
My Pixel 5a is not rooted, and I have F-Droid running on it, from which I've installed several apps.
- zufallsheld 4y ago
  Do theses apps automatically update in the background without you having to do anything?
- asddubs 4y ago
  yes, but you have to manually update those apps
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Which is a huge pain because you can’t just spam click update or “update all”. You have to one by one wait for them to download and for the android UI to come up and then wait for the install to finish before starting the next one
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
According to https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-stores-update-apps-background/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st..., it could do it, it's just not implemented. Given that trying to update a package from the notification just yields an error and this issue hasn't been fixed for 5 years (https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/669 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/669) and the F-Droid repository is known to update so slowly that most devs recommend adding their direct channel, F-Droid doesn't really feel like a usable alternative. I think unfortunately the best bet here is to wait for some commercial player to step in and make a decent alternative.

badsectoracula 4y ago

You can also download the Total Commander APK from its own site[0] which includes that functionality, as mentioned in the forum post linked by the article this is only for the Play Store version. [0] https://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=76644 https://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=76644

teknopaul 4y ago
Dev should publish TC via Fdroid. I always check for Fdroid versions first. Fdroid are more honest about app perms and policies than Google are.
- thrtythreeforty 4y ago
  Total Commander isn't open source. Since it's freely available, Ghisler could set up an Fdroid repository. I for one would pull it from there if that were an option. Fdroid is very close to being the "brew" or "apt" of the Android world, being able to pull updates from multiple sources.
  - qart 4y ago
    Is there a directory of such sources available online somewhere? The only sources I know are Fdroid itself, Guardian Project and IzzyOnDroid.
    - lymph 4y ago
      https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721 https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721

planede 4y ago

Ironically, Ghost Commander is also available on the Play Store.

jeroenhd 4y ago

I had to root my phone and install Magisk with the F-Droid module to get F-Droid to auto-update like Google Play does, though. That could be an issue that Android 12 resolves, but I won't be getting that update on this phone.