- Microsoft ending support for Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)
- WSA designed to run Android apps from Amazon Appstore on Windows 11
- Support for WSA will end on March 5, 2025; no impact on Windows Subsystem for Linux.
Did Microsoft just pull a Google on a Google product? Mind blowing.
Must’ve gotten infected when eating the Android sweets.
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Microsoft’s really trying to steal Google’s thunder with that move.
It’s interesting that you should say that. Maybe they had to cancel it because they realized there were some legal implications and that the new antitrust enforcement environment would keep them from being able to really follow through with the WSA.
The amazon app store didn’t have a complete app store and it was a big workaround to get apps to run that are not on the amazon store.
They halfbaked the release and killed it becuase of that.
My exact reaction lol. These companies are so focused on the short term it’s ridiculous.
If they hadn’t locked into amazon appstore, I feel like they could have made it work.
Either cough up money for Playstore or better yet just make windows store compatible with android and easier to use.
TIL there’s an Amazon app store.
Lol. Yeah, they’ve got quite the wall around their garden. It’s hell getting the play store running on their hardware.
Have you ever tried using aurora instead of the play store for devices that don’t natively have it?
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Nope. Never had enough trust. I’d sooner use a website and use virustotal to scan. At least you know what you are getting that way.
I may experiment with it on an expendable device, so thank you all the same.
I’ve since tried it on a Bliss FOSS image. Still not able to get apps working.
It works very well, I use it all the time on GrapheneOS
I recently discovered Aurora, which allowed me to easily install Firefox on my Fire HD. Lots of other stuff too (better launcher, for instance) but I found it because the web just sucks without Ublock
I mean, Waydroid works fine with Aurorastore and even Playstore. Sure that may break, but all that capitalist “we buy licenses” BS of course costs money
The Amazon app store is the most mature app store outside of Google Play. It’s not just as simple as converting the Windows store to Android because of course they would need to develop an Android version of every app in the windows store.
I meant just allowing people to publish APKs to the windows store, not converting every app.
Although WSA let you sideload apps anyway so I’m thinking maybe Microsoft just didn’t see any big profit potential which is why they’re shutting down.
Man what in the world are they doing.
Windows Subsystem for Android hasn’t been as nearly as popular as Windows Subsystem for Linux itself and its scope was limited given the focus on the Amazon Appstore for obtaining Android apps.
Sounds like no one was using it.
To the surprise of no one when it was limited by needing to use the Amazon App store
You could side load apps at least.
But I don’t think the type of person who wants to use this feature also would want the Amazon app store installed on their device.
Also, don’t google offer some functionality for testing Android apps in Windows?
Android studio has that.
But android studio sucks. Also it’s just a KVM VM so you can just make your own and save the like 20 gigs of bloat.
Exactly. I decided to check it out a couple weeks ago and needing to install the Amazon app store was an instant nope.
Was going to look into side-loading but I didn’t really have a use case to make it worth my time.
Microsoft is working hard at sucking, from what I’ve seen the past few years.
I think they’ll be happy with their OpenAI investment.
Until the AI bubble goes kaplooey
“the internet is just a passing fad”
Fad != Bubble
yearsdecades
They’re probably doubling their efforts on native ARM apps
That was quick
lol I didn’t realise it had been released
It really hadn’t rolled out across the globe yet, so no, it wasn’t even really released before getting pulled.
Lmao just another thing Linux does better anyway.
What’s the easiest way to run Android apps on Linux?
Waydroid
Waydroid
Waydroid or run Bliss OS in a VM.
BlissOS Zenith didnt boot for me poorly, and other versions are slightly outdated. But I will try another one.
Waydroidnruns a rootful LXD container I think, which is not isolated at all. An OCI image ran through Podman would be way better.
Novaspirit Tech did a decent video on setup. He is using Proxmox but there should be the same settings in KVM.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/LEyElt_yP50?si=KunfaO39wYYEgryL
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I’ve been using BlueStacks. How do those compare to BlueStacks?
I’m guessing at the very least they have less ads than blue stacks, lol.
Bluestacks is full of Ads and junk. But it has actual additions to make it work with a keyboard. Waydroid wasnt able to register multi-input for me, which makes basically any game unplayable.
But the android app smart autoclicker is the perfect replacement for bluestacks things.
Thank you! That’s a helpful comparison.
Think there’s also an official emulator from android studios but I could be wrong
Yes. Built into Android Studio. Has existed for at least five years. However I only ever used it with the apps I was developing and never even considered using it as a means to launch outside apps. That probably would have been painful.
So could theoretically install waydroid in WSL?
someone did that before microsoft had even released WSA but I don’t see anything about people doing it recently. probably someone is working on it right now though, given this news.
I knew WSL was a thing but had absolutely no idea about WSA.
WSA was.
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Damn, this was going to be my workaround for using authy now they’re discontinuing the desktop app inexplicably.
Host a vaultwarden for free somewhere
Aegis, Bitwarden (now has 2FA in free plan), KeePass…
Can confirm KeePassXC works. But Aegis is android only and Bitwarden TOTP code generation is still paid right now.
Bitwarden TOTP code generation is still paid
not if you self host
They allow it now? Last I checked even self hosted bitwarden needs a license for premium features. You could always use vaultwarden instead if you’re gonna self host.
yes it is vaultwarden that i was thinking of, not bitwarden selfhosted. my bad. i actually just spun up a new vaultwarden last night using docker compose. its got a long list of environment variables but still makes it super easy to set up in a flash
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Keepassxc works great for totp on a functional level. Keep in mind that your second factor should ideally be separated from your first, for better security. Otherwise the 2nd factor does not do much if the password database is compromised.
In case people are looking for keepassxc “clients” on android, id recommend keepassdx.
bitwarden now has free otp??
this information got to me ~2h too late. i just switched from authy to 2FAS
Bitwarden premium is worth the money. It’s literally $10/yr.
Free OTP is only on self-hosted servers.
I tried to use it for a few apps but the WSA susbsystem takes up too much RAM for me.
You could use BlueStacks. It’s a bit ad laiden, but it’s not bad.
Hard disagree. They (and most other Android emus) are sketchy as hell, I believe using them for anything authentication related would be dangerous
waydroid, idk if it works on windows, i’ve only used it linux
Your point is so good that I down voted MYSELF. Thanks! I may stop using it now. I used it back when it felt more unshitty, but it’s crept shittier and shittier and it does feel super sketchy now.
VM all the way I suppose.
/Sincere
BlueStacks is so fucking heavy though. I only have it so I can view a single camera from my desktop, but it’s amazing how much ram it gobbles up while running.
Same actually. I use it to view a cam. It takes many resources and hobbles the system.
Was it ever actually supported? I was waiting for it to be ready to switch to Windows 11 since android emulators are all extremely heavy, I just remember it being on a preview version.
It worked well. But only with Amazon AppStore apps, so nothing useful
This is what gets me. If they actually just let people install Android apps. It might have worked.
There was also nothing stopping you from sideloading apps. I used it with Auroa Store.
What about waydroid? is it heavy as well? I think vanilla OS Beta even have fdroid built-in to install android app.
In my experience, Waydroid kinda sucked. It used more resources than an Android Emulator on Windows did with less performance in games. Of course, they’re different technologies (containerized vs VM) but the experience was vastly different. It lacks so many QoL features. You can’t dynamically change resolution. Can’t bind keys by default (need to install something for it) etc Wayland requirement was also a trouble for me (It didn’t work quite well and I kept running into issues) Intel > AMD > Nvidia for Waydroid
I think if you are using hardware that has poor supports for wayland (e.g. nvidia), then poor performance of waydroid is kind of expected.
Yeah software rendering sucks a lot for Nvidia users. I’m on AMD.
I don’t know, I’m on Windows 10, was thinking of bluestacks and removed that I use to play some gachas on PC.
Oh that makes sense. I thought you were on Linux, and wondering why you want to switch to windows when waydroid is available.
I heard they now have near zero performance penalty and integrate really well with the desktop. If you really want android apps, you can probably try it out on a old computer or vm.
Nice, I actually used this to make a nice time of reading manga and comics on my surface with tachiyomi. Now I have to find a different workflow.
Btw, Tachiyomi isn’t being developed anymore after the cease and desist they got. The fork that replaced it is Mihon.
Psssst, come to the side of the funny penguins.
I recommend a silverblue-surface image from ublue.it
My lemmy app decided to not show me this reply, but that is already something I was thinking about but hadn’t looked into where to start. It looks like that will actually be perfect to just install and go so thank you!
I host my own Suwayomi server and use the web interface, bonus points that it keeps progress synced with my other devices (Using Tachij2k now that Tachiyomi is defunct)
This was my exact use case for WSA also. Guess I need to work something else out soon.
Both expected and unexpected. WSA was a major feature announcement when it was originally released, and M$ isn’t normally like Google when it comes to dropping projects.
Windows Phone, Windows Mobile, Family Room, Zune, Expression. When products don’t create enough revenue they get axed.
While absolutely true, Google has a reputation and history of killing off huge swaths of projects widely adopted by end users, even if they were theoretically profitable.
That’s not always true.
There are a few reasons as to why one would keep low/no profit or even completely unprofitable projects going.
It’s all tied to their value proposition. For example, if you can sustain a no profit project, it will bring you new customers despite creating no revenue. A glaring example of high-value yet unprofitable product would be Twitch, all because it brings in data.
Whelp, even less reason to upgrade to Windows 11 when Windows 10 is retired. Microsoft doing its best to convince me to switch to Linux full-time.
I hate this. I like wsa and it was one of the main reasons I went to w11. Well… whatever, we can’t have nice things I guess
I almost panicked and thought it was WSL until I got to the Android part. Never knew it was a thing. Still sucks for developers who depended on it.
