I’m pissed that I bought simple gallery pro because it respected my privacy, then because the dev sold his soul for a ton of money, it now rapes my privacy

  • Presi300@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    fyi, don’t use simple mobile tools anymore, it’s basically adware now, the project has been forked and renamed to fossify

    • TheEntity@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      Judging by what OP was searching for, they’re probably aware. And the scammers are too.

    • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com
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      5 months ago

      OP searched for Fossify - the Simple fork. That’s the point here - the new owner of Simple has added the keyword ‘fossify’ so they turn up in the search results, which no doubt prioritises apps with higher install counts.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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    5 months ago

    This is my general method to find and install apps:

    • First hit F-Droid

    • If F-Droid doesn’t have it, hit the Play Store through Aurora. Carefully assess each and every candidate returned by the Play Store search by searching for feedback on DDG, as I treat anything served up by Google as adware / spyware even if the Play Store says it’s free of ads, doesn’t need permissions or it’s open source.

    • If the Play Store doesn’t have it (an older version of an APK I specifically need for instance) hit APKPure or Aptoide. Download each promising APK manually, unzip it, look for sketchy things in the archive manually, then run the APK through Hypatia before sideloading it, because I treat anything served up by APKPure or Aptoide as malware.

    • Kostyeah@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      I only use the play store to keep critical apps (banking and security) updated. Everything else comes from Aurora.

  • JonnyJaap@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Fossify is not even in the play store. I searched for it online and found the GitHub repo, it’s only available via f-droid and IzzyOnAndroid, so yeah, you can’t find it in the Google play store.

  • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com
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    5 months ago

    I switched to using using Obtainium to install directty from dev repos as much as possible, and am adding Fossify’s projects as they release. IMO, It’s the best way to ensure you get the app you want, without letting middle-men push their agenda or mine your data.

    • M500
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      5 months ago

      It has nothing to do with third party app stores.

      Someone made an app that was genuinely very good. Then a company wanted to buy the app. The developer sold the app. The company loaded it with whatever spyware they wanted and pushed it in an update.

      Now the app is garbage. Sadly it happens all the time. It happened to me right after I bought a year subscription to private internet access.

      But to be clear this can happen on any platform or App Store official or not.