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Google reverses course after blocking Nextcloud Files app

58 points by bundie 1y ago

PaulKeeble 1y ago
The problem is Google will probably do it again once the press has moved on. Nextcloud directly competes with a bunch of Google's own offerings and clearly its very popular given the amount of users of the app. They will restrict this again in the future. I moved to F droid and now my app works as its meant to and I don't see much reason to move back to Play store updates.
- jqpabc123 1y ago
  They will restrict this again in the future. Or they could restrict F-Droid and mandate Play store in future releases of Android. "Security" would be a good candidate for justification. Corporate greed has no limit.
  - hollow-moe 1y ago
    They won't directly "mandate" the use of Playstore since it would be an obvious abuse of monopoly to regulators. Instead they can (and do) allow developpers to enable various checks with the Play Integrity API to ensure the app comes from playstore and is running on an "unmodified" android aka maintream OEM android and not custom ROM.
    - jqpabc123 1y ago
      They won't directly "mandate" the use of Playstore since it would be an obvious abuse of monopoly to regulators. Unlike what they did to NextCloud? Unlike what Apple does?
      - hollow-moe 1y ago
        They didn't force Nextcloud to distribute through PlayStore, and Apple is under scrutiny for malicious compliance on allowing third party stores in Europe
  - poincaredisk 1y ago
    I'm pretty sure EU would love to hammer them with fines for that. Unless they ban F-Droid in the US but not in the EU - similar things have happened in the past, but nothing of this scale yet.
- crossroadsguy 1y ago
  It's a dangerous precedent if people just move to something else. Because very soon Google might start creating problems for these alt app stores as well and tightening the screw on this. In fact they might still start blocking such apps that they want to block. With every Android release - it becomes less and less open.
  - MaxikCZ 1y ago
    So its dangerous to use open ways, because if a lot of people use open way, google will close it? So people should worry to use the open way out of fear of being punished if they do? I dont even know how to express myself about this style of argumenting...
    - crossroadsguy 1y ago
      Oh I believe you when you say that you don't know how to express yourself about this line of argument. Because the way is to not let Google do any of this. That is the root of the problem - allowing Google and Apple slowly closing these doors and start seeking rent in some cases. But that's hard.
- justsomehnguy 1y ago
  > Nextcloud directly competes with a bunch of Google's own offerings N. is a drop in the bucket compared to G. market. It's not about the revenue, it's about the control. BTW it was somewhat amusing to look at the OwnCloud financials
- Gigachad 1y ago
  Googles own Drive app doesn’t request these permissions. There isn’t really a good reason for an app to have full files access without user prompting.
palata 1y ago
To all those people on the previous HN discussions that were saying that Nextcloud was responsible because they did not use the Android APIs properly... seems like Google proved you wrong: > Andy Schertzinger, Director of Engineering at Nextcloud, confirmed this to The Register, saying, "Google has decided to restore the permissions to our Android app so we can bring back the full file syncing functionality."
- izacus 1y ago
  I'm one of those people and I went through enough app publishing that I can already tell you that it's very likely it'll get rejected again in future updates. We went through this song and dance for actual file explorers more times than I can count. It usually "sticks" for a few updates before the rejections start again. The policy hasn't changed. It also doesn't change the fact that they demand access to every single personal photo, media item and document on device instead of using an API that allows user to have control over what they share with the app - it's the same behaviour as Facebook, Instagram and other companies showed before the policy was enacted. Instead of respecting the user, they demand the user gives them access to everything with "trust us, we won't do anything bad" attitude while refusing to do better.
  - daedalus_j 1y ago
    The problem is that I WANT to give an app access to everything. I don't want my OS to think of "photos" vs "documents". I want a filesystem, and I want apps to be able to share access to it. Google and apple are the ones "not respecting the users" by focusing exclusively on lowest common denominator users and pushing to increase their monopoly controls. The day Android stops letting Syncthing have access to my entire filesystem is the day Android becomes entirely useless to me. I agree that this access is indeed exploited by Facebook and the like, but the solution simply can't be to remove the capability entirely.
    - whatifitoldyou 1y ago
      Problem is syncthing already lost that access. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-androi... I was browsing this thread to try to find a workaround. There seems to be a fork that you either have to install through fdroid or as an apk. https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android/issues/1149#issuecomment-2427757474 https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android/issues/1149#...
jqpabc123 1y ago
"a more privacy-aware replacement" The irony, audacity and hypocrisy of Google objecting based on "privacy" just reeks.
- homebrewer 1y ago
  jwz submitted a very nice privacy policy for xscreensaver, which Google accepted, thus agreeing with everything written there: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/google.html
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    Its kinda funny how a picture of an id is starting to become this generations social security number. You're just verifying the photo! That isn't real verification, it's easier to make a fake photo than a fake id!
eqvinox 1y ago
And how many other, smaller apps didn't get the media attention and are still getting screwed over by Google? Maybe the EU DMA will have some effect on this bullshit but I'm a bit of a cynic at this point.
rkagerer 1y ago
Google - if you're out there - thanks. (Followup to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43971677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43971677)

58 points by bundie 1y ago

The problem is Google will probably do it again once the press has moved on. Nextcloud directly competes with a bunch of Google's own offerings and clearly its very popular given the amount of users of the app. They will restrict this again in the future. I moved to F droid and now my app works as its meant to and I don't see much reason to move back to Play store updates.

jqpabc123 1y ago
They will restrict this again in the future. Or they could restrict F-Droid and mandate Play store in future releases of Android. "Security" would be a good candidate for justification. Corporate greed has no limit.
- hollow-moe 1y ago
  They won't directly "mandate" the use of Playstore since it would be an obvious abuse of monopoly to regulators. Instead they can (and do) allow developpers to enable various checks with the Play Integrity API to ensure the app comes from playstore and is running on an "unmodified" android aka maintream OEM android and not custom ROM.
  - jqpabc123 1y ago
    They won't directly "mandate" the use of Playstore since it would be an obvious abuse of monopoly to regulators. Unlike what they did to NextCloud? Unlike what Apple does?
    - hollow-moe 1y ago
      They didn't force Nextcloud to distribute through PlayStore, and Apple is under scrutiny for malicious compliance on allowing third party stores in Europe
- poincaredisk 1y ago
  I'm pretty sure EU would love to hammer them with fines for that. Unless they ban F-Droid in the US but not in the EU - similar things have happened in the past, but nothing of this scale yet.
crossroadsguy 1y ago
It's a dangerous precedent if people just move to something else. Because very soon Google might start creating problems for these alt app stores as well and tightening the screw on this. In fact they might still start blocking such apps that they want to block. With every Android release - it becomes less and less open.
- MaxikCZ 1y ago
  So its dangerous to use open ways, because if a lot of people use open way, google will close it? So people should worry to use the open way out of fear of being punished if they do? I dont even know how to express myself about this style of argumenting...
  - crossroadsguy 1y ago
    Oh I believe you when you say that you don't know how to express yourself about this line of argument. Because the way is to not let Google do any of this. That is the root of the problem - allowing Google and Apple slowly closing these doors and start seeking rent in some cases. But that's hard.
justsomehnguy 1y ago
> Nextcloud directly competes with a bunch of Google's own offerings N. is a drop in the bucket compared to G. market. It's not about the revenue, it's about the control. BTW it was somewhat amusing to look at the OwnCloud financials
Gigachad 1y ago
Googles own Drive app doesn’t request these permissions. There isn’t really a good reason for an app to have full files access without user prompting.

palata 1y ago

To all those people on the previous HN discussions that were saying that Nextcloud was responsible because they did not use the Android APIs properly... seems like Google proved you wrong: > Andy Schertzinger, Director of Engineering at Nextcloud, confirmed this to The Register, saying, "Google has decided to restore the permissions to our Android app so we can bring back the full file syncing functionality."

izacus 1y ago
I'm one of those people and I went through enough app publishing that I can already tell you that it's very likely it'll get rejected again in future updates. We went through this song and dance for actual file explorers more times than I can count. It usually "sticks" for a few updates before the rejections start again. The policy hasn't changed. It also doesn't change the fact that they demand access to every single personal photo, media item and document on device instead of using an API that allows user to have control over what they share with the app - it's the same behaviour as Facebook, Instagram and other companies showed before the policy was enacted. Instead of respecting the user, they demand the user gives them access to everything with "trust us, we won't do anything bad" attitude while refusing to do better.
- daedalus_j 1y ago
  The problem is that I WANT to give an app access to everything. I don't want my OS to think of "photos" vs "documents". I want a filesystem, and I want apps to be able to share access to it. Google and apple are the ones "not respecting the users" by focusing exclusively on lowest common denominator users and pushing to increase their monopoly controls. The day Android stops letting Syncthing have access to my entire filesystem is the day Android becomes entirely useless to me. I agree that this access is indeed exploited by Facebook and the like, but the solution simply can't be to remove the capability entirely.
  - whatifitoldyou 1y ago
    Problem is syncthing already lost that access. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-androi... I was browsing this thread to try to find a workaround. There seems to be a fork that you either have to install through fdroid or as an apk. https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android/issues/1149#issuecomment-2427757474 https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android/issues/1149#...

jqpabc123 1y ago

"a more privacy-aware replacement" The irony, audacity and hypocrisy of Google objecting based on "privacy" just reeks.

homebrewer 1y ago
jwz submitted a very nice privacy policy for xscreensaver, which Google accepted, thus agreeing with everything written there: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/google.html
- lesuorac 1y ago
  Its kinda funny how a picture of an id is starting to become this generations social security number. You're just verifying the photo! That isn't real verification, it's easier to make a fake photo than a fake id!

eqvinox 1y ago

And how many other, smaller apps didn't get the media attention and are still getting screwed over by Google? Maybe the EU DMA will have some effect on this bullshit but I'm a bit of a cynic at this point.

rkagerer 1y ago

Google - if you're out there - thanks. (Followup to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43971677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43971677)