The issue for Proton Mail inclusion is here: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/-/issues/1323
TL;DR: It uses proprietary components (Google Mobile Services and Google Firebase).
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
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So it's making those Google firebase DNS requests.
yes but netGuard blocks them :)
They should really consider ntfy.
So it still works on my degoogled phone. I assume that means the google components are integrated?
They are but they won't have the desired functionality. You won't get push notifications for instance.
Yeah i kinda like not getting notifications lol
I think, what @muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee means with "integrated", is that they're wholly part of the app and don't depend on Googley software being installed into the OS. And to my knowledge, that is not the case.
So, there's a client library which you include into your app code. That talks with the Google Play Services on your phone. And that then talks with some Google server.
I assume, that client library itself is already proprietary and that's why the F-Droid team strictly needs to have it removed. Ideally, it would be replaced by an open-source alternative, but the code could also be modified to not include this library and you'd 'only' lose e.g. push notifications. Depending on how the app is implemented, you might not get notifications at all then, though.
But they don't go lightly about modifying the code of an app. If the developer doesn't want this, they can pull all kinds of shenanigans to make this more difficult or impossible for the F-Droid team...
Won't something like MicroG allow you to use the full features without Google on your phone?
Yes but it's just as bad Micro G is still installed as a root app in the system and still uses proprietary Google code required for MicroG to work so micro G may limit the data the get but the are still getting it. I use proton mail on GOS with no sandboxed Google Play and just notifications are broke and that's fine by me.
I think saying it's just as bad is an overstatement. MicroG sends fake data or no data in the majority of data calls from Google servers and only interacts with Google when it needs to in order to make a given app function. Sending drastically less data to Google is a win and fits many people's threat model just fine.
As long as micro G is a system app in my opinion it is the same why not run it as a sandboxed app. There is probably a reason why it can't just think it would be more privacy first approach to sandbox it but that is just my opinion everyone's threat model is different I don't use Google at all anymore so non issue for me. Still better than stock Google Play true just think micro G could do more.
This interview with the developer of MicroG might be interesting if you'd like to learn more about it's benefits (or downsides) over sandboxed Google Play services. It debunks a lot of misconceptions or rumours about MicroG.
MicroG collects very little information about the user. It does less data collection than sandboxed Google Play despite it being a system app. MicroG is a more transparent, community driven piece of software that distances people from Google to a greater degree in my estimation, though I don't have developer level understanding of the software. Just basing my thoughts on interviews and published information like the video above.
Personally I prefer the privacy/open source oriented approach of MicroG, but I also run GrapheneOS so haven't been able to use it for a few years.
MicroG is a fully open source, much smaller codebase (reduced line count) vs proprietary google binaries. I wish I could run microG on graphene, but absolutely will choose microG on calyx vs sandboxed play svcs.