What will you do after Android starts restricting FOSS apps? (reddthat.com)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.

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[-] 17lifers@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

install them with adb. its a crucial feature for developers, so they won't easily get rid of it.

[-] berty@feddit.org 1 points 10 months ago

How do you get updates when installing via adb?

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 months ago

Install them via adb, probably

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 0 points 10 months ago

Is this manageable for the non-dev by chance? I can get by on a tutorial or too but if enough things break I'm feeling a dumbphone alt may be the only viable path

[-] Klajan@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago

There is also Shizuku that might be utilized in der Future to install apps (Im just speculating here)

[-] VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Yes it is.

It will probably be something similar to ios altstore. You would have an app which has a list of your non-playstore apps and repo for their releases and would notify you for upgrades that you would manually have to install (for example I suppose obtainium will implement adb), the setup will be annoying but far far less cumbersome than apple where you have to reboot your device multiple times self sign ipas and refresh once a week otherwise the apps don't load at all. This iOS experience is awful but still doable and non-dev. Android will have a better experience for sure.

[-] Kraiden@piefed.social 0 points 10 months ago

Depends on your comfort with CLI tools. Here's the process (assumes Windows):

Download and extract platform tools
Add that location to your PATH

Win + R, type "cmd", enter
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\your\path\here\ <- Temporary, just for the current session
setx /M path "%path%;C:\your\path\here\" <- Permanent

On your device, go to Settings -> About and look for Build Number it can sometimes be buried in Software Information
Tap Build Number repeatedly until a message appears You are now a developer
You should now have a new Developer options menu item somewhere in your settings. Sometimes it's top level, sometimes it's buried under Additional Settings or Advanced Settings or the like
Make sure USB Debugging is turned on
Connect the device over USB
Back on WIndows type:

adb devices
You might get a popup on the device asking if you want to allow USB debugging. Select Yes, and run adb devices again. You should see your device listed

Download the APK of the app you want to install (AAB files are a PITA, but can be installed too. Try to get APK files though)
Install with:

adb install C:/path/to/app.apk <- if adb devices only returns one device
adb -s <device_id> install C:/path/to/app.apk <- specific device

You can install updates the same way, just download the updated APK and add the -r flag adb install -r C:/path/to/app.apk

More useful adb commands

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

So no

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Most of that stuff is automatable - except the bit about activating Developer mode and USB Debugging on the device (steps 3 to 6) which only needs to be done once per device - so I expect we will soon see several nice GUI tools that automate the rest and eventually we might even just see stuff that talks directly to the phone over USB via libusb and using the same protocol as ADB, so installing the Android Platform Tools won't at all be needed.

But yeah, at this point it requires people to at the very least be familiar with using the command line.

[-] Prathas@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago

Someone suggested elsewhere (I can't remember where) that Shizuku could be messed around with to allow installation without any computer's involvement at all, to emulate adb on the phone itself. Would you know anything about this workaround?

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A quick look through its documentation shows that it instructs the user how to go through a subset of the instructions the original user provided (or an alternative set of instructions if using Android 11+ as there it can use a different mechanism) plus a few more, in order to run a Shizuku service as user "adb".

From then on, that Shizuku service can then be used by other apps to do everything the "adb" user can, including installing and updating applications.

So I guess it could be used by something like F-Droid to go around Google's new mechanism to close down app installs.

For Android < 11 it's is no more non-expert friendly than the instructions already provided by the original user, though it's better in Android 11+ as there it's all interacting with menus on the Android side (see here under Start Shizuku)