Basically, what the title says. Do you use any app, that is proprietary, but either has no OSS alternatives or they’re all not good enough? If there is an alternative, what keeps you from switching?

    • onlooker@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      And mine. And probably everyone else’s since the only banking app I can find on F-Droid is something called Varengold.

  • lemmy_eat_world@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Bitwarden. Most people think that their application is open source, but more and more of their code has shifted from the GPL/AGPL licensed code to code in their SDK, which is under a proprietary license. This led to their new Android app being disqualified from being hosted in F-Droid repos.

    Keyguard was supposed to be an open source Bitwarden client, but the dev chose to use a custom proprietary license, so that is source available as well.

  • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    Pedantic, but Google Messages’ RCS. And it’s all Google’s fault because they are holding the API hostage, probably because they want to create familiarity with the app so that people don’t switch once they finally open up.

    • lemmy_eat_world@lemmy.world
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      Not pedantic at all. Google lied about RCS being an open standard.

      The pedantic point would be saying that RCS, the protocol, is technically open, but the specific implementation that Google is pushing and being adopted is proprietary 🤓

      So yeah. Totally fair point and fuck Google for their RCS bait-and-switch.

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      For anyone wondering:

      RCS

      Rich Communication Services. It is a protocol designed to enhance traditional SMS. RCS allows users to send messages that can include high-resolution images, videos, audio messages, and group chats, as well as features like read receipts, typing indicators, and location sharing.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      I’m glad Google is exposing how crappy RCS is.

      It’s been fifteen years, and all they have is a “protocol” that’s still completely dependant on a phone number.

      What good is that? Why would I want that?

      There are numerous systems that don’t rely on a phone number, e.g. XMPP did everything RCS is trying to do, in 2010 (I ran it on my phone then, with a desktop client that kept in sync).

      Teleguard works on every platform, no phone number required, as does MATRIX, Simplex, Wire, Threema, etc, etc.

      Not to mention the issues people have with it. It’s unreliable.

      • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 months ago

        RCS is not another chat app.

        It’s the NEW SMS. That is why it is so important, and that is why it works ONLY IF YOU HAVE A PHONE. Because that’s literally the point.

        Having your mom, grandpa, and everyone automatically use encrypted, modern comnunication just because they have a phone is extremely important.

        Realise that in places where SMS has been historically free, SMS is the standard.

        XMPP, Matrix or whatever will obviously still have its place for more “incognito” conversations. But having a phone number should also give you access to a better alternative than SMS.

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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          2 months ago

          as I understand a phone number “gives you access to” RCS as much as it does to Signal. at that point it’s just about what was pre-installed

          • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 months ago

            RCS is supposed to be a distributed protocol, just like SMS, but using data. It is not the same as Signal. Tho, currently, Google is the main provider for almost all phone companies.

    • TonyOstrich@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Not just that, but they are actively hostile and hypocritical about it. Every 1-3 months they prevent RCS from working on rooted phones or phones running alternate ROMs. The fact that they spent so much time complaining that Apple wouldn’t comply with the “open” standard while limiting users’ options on their own platform is very frustrating.

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      The issue is that the digital tap-to-pay cards are actually reissued cards with their own unique numbers. They also require significant security measures to protect from cloning attacks.

      So banks need a party that they can safely issue a digital card to, knowing that the card data will be stored safely.

      Even a FOSS app that covers all the user’s needs is going to have a lot of trouble actually getting a card loaded into it under current standards.

      I hate to say it, but crypto wallets are likely the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a FOSS tap-to-pay system. Banks are inherently corporate and capitalist, so it’s not really in their nature to make things open source.

      Perhaps if there were an industry standard for issuing digital cards, instead of banks partnering with centralized wallet apps, we could procure our own digital cards to load onto our phones and watches, or integrate into other devices. But that’s a whole other battle that nobody is fighting right now.

      • logging_strict@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        A FOSS app for digital payments, must have a company front to sign deals with country retail store chains. Although customer kyc can be avoided, the payments from the front company to retail chains would be thru a corporate structure.

        … maybe convenience is the wrong path

        The advantages of PoW crypto, over digital (and PoS), it’s possible to force between seller and buyer:

        • communication with end-to-end encryption
        • privacy oriented marketplaces

        With the goal of fostering our own private communities. Over time, might spawn a sub-culture, identity, and ultimately people hood.

    • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      MicroG works really well

      A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.

      • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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        MicroG works well if you let it leak some data to Google.

        I would like a free-as-in-free-from-Google Google Play Services reimplementation that lets me use any app that depends on it without hitting any Google server.

          • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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            Free software (not open-source, it’s really free software that’s important) that depends on a single for-profit vendor is not free.

            MicroG is open-source but it’s not free. It fails to address two problems:

            • What do I care looking at the source code of a Google Play Services replacement when Google still holds my cellphone by the balls for certain critical functions?
            • Why do I need permission from Google for apps to function properly on my cellphone?

            I don’t think OP cares about getting the source of the apps they run so much as the apps being free-as-in-libre in his original question. Many people mistake open-source for free software and MicroG is not truly free.

            • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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              (I reread ops question and I can only see the term open source 2 times, but whatever, I understand what you say, and I don’t want to debate about semantics.)

              The point with microG is it’s still the best way if you want to use android. The other options are:

              • Play services (GMS), or Huawei has some similar solution because of US trade embragoes.
              • You can use android without play services but notifications won’t work for most apps, even if you can open them. (UnifiedPush tries to solve notification part) Wifi and cell based location won’t work
              • I see microG as an acceptable middle ground. I still have to give up something to goog, but it’s not much compared to GMS, and I can use all available apps
              • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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                2 months ago

                The point with microG is it’s still the best way if you want to use android.

                btw I’m perfectly fine without even MicroG. When I was installing my phone it asked whether I want that too, said no, and didn’t fell the need to then it on yet

                • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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                  2 months ago

                  Huh? Which rom asks this? Usually you have to go through hoops to get microg, and only a handful of roms have it builtin. It can only ask if you want to enable microg not installing it or not, microg to correctly work it should be installed in /system/priv-app, to do that after boot on device, you have to be root.

                  Do you use any app from aurora or outside fdroid? If your answer is no, than you can use android without a GMS package.

                  Also as I wrote, location won’t work for you underground or inside concrete buildings. If you are fine with these kind of limitations than you can obviously.

                  Marwin (the main developer of microg) said in some interview that he doesn’t want microg to exist, and in a perfect world we shouldn’t need such workaround. I would be also happy if android wouldn’t depend this muhc on google

              • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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                2 months ago

                And maybe tomorrow we’ll see UP grow up, removing one more piece from google. And the day after, another piece.

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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    Dating apps.

    We need an open source completely free dating app.

    No paying for matches, no limits …just they’re in your town, you look at their photos, you can talk, anyone can block anyone.

      • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I’m honestly pleasantly surprised to see that this project seems to be rather actively developed.

        Which is completely separate from having a meaningful user base (near you), so 🤷

        • fossphi@lemm.ee
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          Which is completely separate from having a meaningful user base (near you), so 🤷

          Yep, this unfortunately seems to be a much hard problem

    • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’m with you, but see a million obstacles (aka. reasons for why things require payments).

      You would need some form of moderation, to weed out illegal content as well as simply bots, spam, and dead profiles. Also for message content. I’ve given it some thought and suspect it can be crowd sourced to some degree, but also needs counter balances. Instead of limiting a profile to be live/banned, you could have a percentage score of peer-reported subjective legitimacy (ditto for message responses, heck you could even have a section of outright reviews of the person’s behaviour - although that, again would be subject to abuse and moderation).

      Hosting, traffic, etc. would be an unavoidable cost, but can be mitigated with low resolution photos (VGA should be “good enough” for an initial impression, no?)

      For sure, an open source solution would offer way more fine grained filtering.

    • filister@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Great, but creating such an app would require someone to foot the bill for hosting user data, the web app and this can easily amount to quite a substantial sum. Not to mention that supporting this app would also be quite time consuming.

          • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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            I don’t think it would be easier, I think it’s my answer to the question asked. Look at the post again.

            It’s nothing personal dude, it’s just someone’s question on the Internet. The question isn’t about whether it would be easy.

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 months ago

            i will never understand why people think this is a sensible response, just because someone says “it’s not an unsolvable problem” doesn’t mean they think it’s trivial for a toddler to implement in an evening.

        • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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          Legal waiver (no one under 18) and six picture limit, you can only change your pictures once a week.

    • chebra@mstdn.io
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      2 months ago

      @DarkCloud create a Mastodon instance, write your instance rules, moderate. That’s it. Plus you’ll be connected to the whole fediverse, existing client apps will work.

  • superkret@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    A keyboard with swipe typing, multilingual autocorrect and speech to text support that actually works.

    Other than that, my only proprietary apps are from commercial services I use and pay for (banking, Spotify, Carsharing and public transport). I’d love for them to become open source, but it’s probably not ever gonna happen, cause they rely on verifying my identity.

      • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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        X2. I don’t like it, but I still use that libswype Google blob to get swipe-writing. I wish they could produce their own in the future.

    • FuryMaker@lemmy.world
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      I went with FUTO Keyboard. It’s the only keyboard that ticks all my boxes to replace GBoard so far.

      I wish the swiping predictions were a bit better though.

        • Treeniks@lemmy.ml
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          It is not. FUTO calls it “source first” which just means “open source but with rules against bad actors”. Certainly far from proprietary.

          • JustMarkov@lemmy.mlOP
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            If the license doesn’t meet the OSD and does not protect four freedoms, then it is not open-source.

              • JustMarkov@lemmy.mlOP
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                Jokes aside, I find that attitude not very healthy.

                Calling a source-available license “not proprietary”, this is what not very healthy.

                “Source-first” or “fair code” are just a fancy ways to say “proprietary”.

              • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
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                FUTO changing the definition of open source to suit their business model is like that time US Congress decided that pizza was a vegetable because it has tomato sauce.

                FUTO’s EULA may superficially resemble a true free software license (and may be good enough for you, personally) but it fundamentally undermines core tenets of the free software movement in order to preserve their business interests. All pseudo-FOSS licenses (whether of the “ethical” or the “business” variety) do this, because they prioritize the interests of the rightsholder above those of the community and the user. If important free software projects like Linux and Firefox were released under this license the free software world as we know it would not be possible.

                As proprietary licenses go, it’s certainly far from the worst.

      • lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Does the futo keyboard allow you to paste content yet?

        I briefly used it but found the lack of content pasting too much of a hindrabce.

        • FuryMaker@lemmy.world
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          Has options for pasting, and even a clipboard history feature? Although have not enabled that or tested it.

          • lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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            By pasting content, I meant pasting images. I’ve just checked it and it doesn’t do it yet. I often will take a screenshot but only copy the image because saving it pointless.

  • enix@reddthat.com
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    2 months ago

    I’m not sure if this fits but here is mine:

    I want to get away from Samsung but the “Sound Assistant” app let’s me control the volume of every app, kind of like a mixer. Sometimes an app doesn’t have a mute option, I can set the volume of that app to 0 without effecting the volume of whatever music I’m listening to.

    I also like to listen to my local police scanner and music at the same time. I can set the volume of the scanner app low enough to not really bother the music but loud enough that if something happens I can still hear it and pause the music.

    I can’t believe Samsung and their app is the only way, but I haven’t found an alternative.

    • Kelly@lemmy.world
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      This is something I’ve taken for granted as per app volume control is integrated into the OS on Motorola phones and I’ve been using mid range Motorolas since the Moto G 4 in 2016 (they offer a reasonable price, reasonable performance, microSD card and headphone jack).

      Then I was setting up a Samsung tablet last weekend and was horrified to see I had to use the Samsung store to download Sound Assistant for something I had just assumed was a standard OS feature for close to a decade.

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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      2 months ago

      I’m using audio changing Magisk mods on my phone, and recently stumbled upon an issue (already fixed by a setting) that made me realize that audio mods work on an app-by-app basis.

      The reason I wanted to tell this is if you are fine with tweaking your phone a little, an audio mod could do what you need.
      A quick search has shown me these: