Google have suspended Element in the Play Store without notifying us; we’re reaching out to find out what’s going on. Apologies for the inconvenience; in the interim there’s https://f-droid.org/en/packages/im.vector.app/ but it’s a few versions behind. We’ll post updates here.
If they run their own F-Droid repo or support F-Droid directly, updates could arrive faster.
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updates could arrive faster
It is because of the part I reference. It seems it is mostly outdated a big part of the time in comparison with Goolag Play release.
Love to hear what their excuse is.
“The big social media companies paid us to do it”
UPDATE, seems like the app will be back shortly:
It got restored already.
Also, could you post Nitter links instead of Twitter directly?.
I think that could be better for opt-in to privacy and freedom by pointing first to the good link and then let the use choose if they prefer check the bad link but always the good first.
I was actually thinking “should I post a twitter link…”, but since I forgot about Nitter at that moment, I decided to post it. Will change to Nitter next time!
:3
I think I will adopt this mindset when sharing my videos :)
This is the only issue I can find on their github: https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/2737
I’m asking them to host their own f-droid repo, would be a really good idea.
But it’s in official f-droid. Is it too out of date that you’re asking for a custom repo? If using a custom repo, I’d hope they keep the f-droid policy though, removing all google and proprietary stuff…
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I wonder if anybody at google realizes that removing element doesn’t block the content because there are other matrix apps available in the store…
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Did they? I saw fluffychat but I didn’t check further. I wonder what is different about this particular app then.
I saw it mentioned that f-droid version won’t be able to do notifications. Anybody know regarding that?
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Me too, and I didn’t remove power optim… One can configure how often to sync…
I use the f-droid version, and have been getting notifications.
oh good to know
You get notifications, but there is some sort of difference yes. Maybe it uses a more powerhungry way of fetching/pushing notifications?
yeah it might have to resort to polling
There’s also a Progressive web app frontend if you use a supporting browser if you’re looking for a lightweight option for messaging, hopefully this means they roll their own Fdroid repo going forward.
A web frontend for an end to end encrypted messaging service is a bit of a joke.
End to end encryption is worthless if the server can update the code you are running at anytime without you being made aware of it.
It was mainly based around seeing people not wanting to use the Fdroid repos/version on a Mastodon thread - for whatever reason being a few builds behind seemed like it was worse than not using the service at all, in case anyone was like that here I thought it worthwhile to share (Edit: especially if encryption is not on their priority list and they just wanted a quick way to login).
I have a mixed view on Matrix in general but agree with your assesment of the web portal.
it’s a few versions behind
Automated builds are works of the devil, right?
Fluffy unfortunately is way behind in terms of features with regard to element.io… It doesn’t support voice/video calls for example. I created an issue about that, and they just closed with the criteria that it would break very old phones… I really got disappointed. I do think there’s still no gnu/linux neither android matrix client at the same level of features than element.io. Hopefully that’ll change, specially on the desktop side, where electron is really a pain, but so far that’s not happening…
Voice/Video calls via Element are shit, anyway. You can just use Jitsi for that one which is basically the same, but in a separate app.
I do think there’s still no gnu/linux neither android matrix client at the same level of features than element.io.
Yes, that’s right. But it’s great that there’s a possibility to have different clients. Element is getting better day by day and if you need its features, there’s nothing wrong with using it. It’s pretty good software, it just doesn’t fit my use case of simple mobile communication.
Yeah, I was just saying is not 1:1 features alternative. A pretty good one for just for text chatting though. And I’m still hoping other alternatives catch up in terms of features. I’d like a Qt alternative on the desktop, and also an android alternative from the community, and not element.io…
A good alternative for mobile is Fluffy Chat which is a lot more responsive and has a smoother UX in my opinion. The developers of Fluffy are also VERY fast to fix bugs and they don’t cram their client with all the features, only the features which are really needed and don’t break the UX.
Of course Element can’t be good because it’s a reference client, but that’s also not its primary objective. The primary objective Element seems to have is to cater to each and everyone with all the features to catch attention and make shareholders happy.
That sounds pretty bad but I’m happy Matrix and Element exist and that they both have an active and helpful community.
The problem I saw with Fluffy was using non-free parts as Google Play services when I tested it not so much ago even with their custom F-Droid repository.
did they not go after Mastodon apps last year? For a company behind Chrome, you would expect they understand that the software is not responsible for the content that can be accessed (as I assume that’s the issue)
did they not go after Mastodon apps last year?
Yeah, they did, I think it was because some Mastodon clients allowed access to Gab and other Alt-right social networks. AFAIK they just warned them, and never ended up deleting them. Here it seems that they haven’t even warned them.
thanks for reminding me of the details.
