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Comment on Google Play Store listing apps installed from F-Droid that it cannot update

Norgur@fedia.io ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Even if it's new behavior, there is really no reason to assume that this was done to evoke some dark pattern or other. It just shows that Google will not think about 3rd party stores when they do anything with their services and that is hardly news, is it? Besides: I kinda get it honestly. If they'd take all the stuff out there for android into account before they did anything, nothing would be done at all.

So the question becomes less why that's there, but more what stores like Samsung do to prevent this issue and if F-Droid can adapt the same behavior.

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NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Maybe that’s true, but then:

They previously had code to prevent this, why did they remove it?

Why won’t they fix it now? I’ve reported this twice already and I’m not the only one, this is affecting a huge number of users, why are they ignoring it? I refuse to believe they’re not aware of it. And if they aren’t aware of it that points to an even bigger issue of having absolutely no idea the repercussions of that they do even when thousands/millions of users reach out to tell them.
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- Norgur@fedia.io ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think you massively overestimate the amount of users that are
  a) affected by this
  b) reporting it
  When seeing the overall picture, this might mlbe a rather fringe issue in Google's eyes.
  
  Furthermore, you might be exaggerating the impact as well. The "impact" is that an app update fails. That's it. That might be annoying, but isn't the grave and evil thing you make it out to be.
  
  Besides, have you ever thought about that this stems from a rather bad practice on F-Droid/app developer side? They use the same package name for a software with a different signature. That's just not ideal to begin with. All packages with the same name should have the same signature for any given version of the package. That's how security works. If they don't follow that, how is a user/security software supposed to check if the signature is authentic or of the package was tampered with?
  
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  - NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    AFAIK F-Droid allows using the same signing key as in PS. The choice is up to the developer. But as I said, if they use the same key then PS will overwrite the app, which is 100% unwanted behaviour.
    
    What do you suggest about package names? So you think there should be org.wikipedia.playstore, org.wikipedia.fdroid, org.wikipedia.galaxystore to use a different package name per store? Or should just F-Droid get the special name?
    
    Do you think it’s okay when e.g. play store and galaxy store update apps installed by the other store? This happens with various apps, especially some Samsung and Microsoft apps. (Obviously only when using the same keys)
    
    And specifically do you think that’s okay when F-Droid is thrown into the mix? I think absolutely not, especially since F-Droid often removes proprietary libraries, ads and tracking that are present in the other sources.
    
    Honestly I can warm up to the idea that F-Droid builds should have a unique package name (call it a flavour, even if it’s 1:1 with the play store release). But the Play Store and Galaxy Store overwriting each others’ apps already reeks of idiocy to me, and F-Droid has nothing to do with it.
    
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joewilliams007@kbin.melroy.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Samsung just says:

Can't auto update Installed from Google play store.
And Can't auto update Installed from Aurora store.

You can easily see from what store an app has been installed in android.

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