Google reverses course after blocking Nextcloud Files app

https://www.neowin.net/news/google-reverses-course-after-blocking-nextcloud-files-app/

58•bundie•8mo ago

Comments

PaulKeeble•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo ago

Problem is syncthing already lost that access. 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#...

Melatonic•8mo ago

Seems to me there must be some middle ground here - maybe Google decides to keep this functionality around for apps that need it (and punish those who exploit it) and add some type of additional user interaction before an app can get full file system access. I know in MacOS, for example, the built in finder hides a lot of system files until you flip a switch manually to enable them. Could have something similar (with a warning).

izacus•8mo ago

This is already the case. The apps in practice abuse this and refuse to start until the user gives them all the personal data if no store enforcement exists.

anonzzzies•8mo ago

But I want to be able to, being well informed hopefully, to give an app access to everything. It is (well...) my data and phone, screw these companies.

jqpabc123•8mo ago

"a more privacy-aware replacement"

The irony, audacity and hypocrisy of Google objecting based on "privacy" just reeks.

homebrewer•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo ago

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

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Google reverses course after blocking Nextcloud Files app

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