FairEmail Developer Calls It Quits After Google Falsely Flags App As Spyware (ghacks.net) 78
"The developer of the open source email client FairEmail pulled all of his applications from Google Play and announced that he would stop development," reports gHacks. The announcement comes shortly after the developer received an email from Google stating that they believed the app was spyware. From the report: FairEmail was a popular email client for Google's Android operating system that was free to use. It was privacy-friendly, had no limitations in regards to email accounts that users could set up in the app, supported unified inbox, conversation threading, two-way synchronizing, support for OpenPGP, and a lot more. Marcel Bokhorst, the developer of the application, announced major changes to the project yesterday on XDA Developers.
Earlier that week, Bokhorst received a policy violation email from Google stating that Google believed that the FairEmail application was spyware. The full statement has not been published, but Bokhorst believes that Google might have misinterpreted the use of favicons in the app. He resubmitted a new version of the application that had the use of favicons removed. The appeal he received as a response "resulted in a standard answer". While the content of the answer is unclear, it appears to have been a generic answer that Google Play Store developers have been frustrated with for a long time. Bokhorst decided to pull the application and all of his other applications from the Google Play Store. The apps won't be maintained and supported anymore according to the info.
Other factors played a role in Bokhorst's decision, including the discrepancy between answering thousands of support questions per month and the application's revenue, and the inability to do something against unfair reviews in the Google Play Store. He considered keeping the applications on GitHub, but this would result in an 98% loss of audience. Google also recently forced Total Commander's developer to remove the ability to install APKs from the File Manager.
If you're looking for an alternative email client, gHacks recommends the open-source app K-9 Mail.
Earlier that week, Bokhorst received a policy violation email from Google stating that Google believed that the FairEmail application was spyware. The full statement has not been published, but Bokhorst believes that Google might have misinterpreted the use of favicons in the app. He resubmitted a new version of the application that had the use of favicons removed. The appeal he received as a response "resulted in a standard answer". While the content of the answer is unclear, it appears to have been a generic answer that Google Play Store developers have been frustrated with for a long time. Bokhorst decided to pull the application and all of his other applications from the Google Play Store. The apps won't be maintained and supported anymore according to the info.
Other factors played a role in Bokhorst's decision, including the discrepancy between answering thousands of support questions per month and the application's revenue, and the inability to do something against unfair reviews in the Google Play Store. He considered keeping the applications on GitHub, but this would result in an 98% loss of audience. Google also recently forced Total Commander's developer to remove the ability to install APKs from the File Manager.
If you're looking for an alternative email client, gHacks recommends the open-source app K-9 Mail.
Alternative email client? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well, we had Blackberry and FireFoxOS, but they weren't cool enough...
We could punish Google in other ways. Switch to FireFox, use a different search engine, treat Google docs like .pages files and refuse to accept them, etc.
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Manjaro has nice builds that can run on Android hardware via Halium. Same with Droidian (debian for Android hardware).
If you want something that sucks more than Manjaro, but sucks less than Android, UBPorts is still around for your Ubuntu Touch kick. Ubuntu Touch was never bad, but it does silly stuff like a read-only rootfs that gets completely overwritten on system updates.
If you don't care about freedom, SailfishOS is pretty nice.
Is this the same company? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this the same company? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only four things from Google you can really rely on:
- Gmail
- Google Search
- Google Maps
- YouTube
Everything else may disappear tomorrow.
Re: Is this the same company? (Score:3, Interesting)
Have ditched almost all Alphabet products a long time ago and have zero regrets. The only I cannot find a solid replacement is YouTube. Not because of what it does but because of the content creators that are there. There are alternative search engines not profiling me. There are other map apps I can trust will not try to sell me. I host my own email systems and do not need to scan myself for advertisement.
I understand paying a premium for a product, but paying a premium and continuing to be their product i
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I wish Odysee went with a better name. Imagine telling someone, verbally, to look up your content online. They will search Odyssey, unless you also explain the spelling, which has the same effect as skipping the entire exchange.
I'd like to see some real competition to YouTube but CS/Nebula won't even let me sign up with my preferred email.
Re:Is this the same company? (Score:5, Interesting)
You actually can't really rely on most of that.
Gmail? Well just hope they don't randomly flag your account for "extra" authentication that even when you jump through all the hoops and do everything right they still lock you out of your account permanently.
Search? Well, only if they don't flag your system as trying to access via anonymous methods. They really hate that and block nearly everything that would give you any semblance of privacy.
Maps? OK, maybe.
YouTube? As long as you don't post anything that goes against whatever secret magic narrative they are pushing. If you do then you get silently shadow banned and silenced or your videos get stolen. Most people don't even realize when they get banned. The interesting thing is that direct links to comments still work even if you're blocked. Someone should set up a site that collects all these comments and can show the world how biased, nonsensical, and evil this company is.
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Maps used to have a My Maps app which has now been discontinued. You can use the mobile web version but it's pretty crappy, and seems to be abandoned as it's not had updates in a decade or so. It still uses the old tiles based maps instead of the new vector based ones that the main Google Maps uses.
Google Maps itself is weirdly incomplete in some places. You can make custom lists of places, but can't change their icons, and can't import or export them. Even via Google Takeout you can't get them. I'm current
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What makes it more frustrating is that Google's various offerings are ostensibly linked. "One account, all of Google", they say. Problem is, it doesn't really work like that. Google obviously knows if you're still an active user of their services, and yet they're still more than happy to flush your number down the virtual toilet if you haven't remembered to sign into that specific service in awhile. It's also surprisingly difficult to even find information on what their official number retention policy
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You forgot Google Ads, you can rely that being put in your face everywhere.
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Not so sure about that. /whole/ Google account might be blocked forever with no recourse, if you make a mistake with one of a zillion of trap questions, unwittingly allow Google to upload all your pictures to their cloud, and they find a picture of your little son having a bath or so.
Your
On top of that, scores of complete YouTube accounts and playlists have been disappeared since forever, with an apparent recent uptick to support the western anti-Russia war-propaganda.
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Scratch gmail from that list.
I have been unable to discover what changes I will need to make to Thunderbird/linux when google changes its login security from x to y on May 30. Google says NOTHING. It's as if they only give a shit about phone users. Even relying on the kindness of strangers has resulted in varying and possibly conflicting advice.
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If that meets your definition of evil
That's just being pedantic. When Google had "don't be evil" as their motto, it wasn't because they ever expected to be grappling with issues like war crimes and global catastrophes. It essentially meant don't be customer hostile, and that's the standard by which their "evilness" should be judged. The fact that there are greater actual examples of "evil" in the world is a strawman.
Re: Is this the same company? (Score:3)
Google arenâ(TM)t customer hostile: they do everything they can to leverage their users and their data to benefit their customers
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I work in electronics, and have had email clients that work just fine since the 90's
Why doesn't he make it a paid app (Score:2)
I mean, make the freeloaders pay!
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Actually, I did pay for the extras - from memory it was calendar invites and something else that you get over the top of the regular (free) app.
I suspect if it was a paid app, Google would have thought more carefully because it would be their revenue they were jeopardising too. My guess is they're more trigger happy with free apps because, well, they don't really care.
I use FairEmail (Score:5, Interesting)
I use and like FairEmail. The only slightly annoying thing about it is how incredibly careful it is to protect your privacy. Instead of just showing stuff, it makes you click an authorization that you wanted to see the stuff. This is praising with very faint criticism.
Google calling FairEmail "spyware" is a travesty. I'm trying to think of something comparable... this is like pulling Tesla out of an ESG index for not having a plan to reduce CO2 emissions, while making Exxon a top-10 in the same index.
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https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
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I hadn't heard of this. If it's true then it's surprising that no other stories have come out from other women. (After the first accusation came out about Bill Cosby it was like a dam breaking. Cosby wronged so many women over so many years.)
If he's actually guilty of what she alleged, I'm glad she got paid $250K.
Of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the effect of Tesla on global CO2 levels, or FairEmail.
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If he's actually guilty of what she alleged, I'm glad she got paid $250K.
He's guilty of many things, including nonsensical statements and temper tantrums [businessinsider.com]. It's why he recently claimed he's voting Repubilcan because Democrats are too divisive [bizpacreview.com].
No, really. Democrats are too divisive according to Musk.
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The only thing mildly surprising about that statement from Musk was that he ever ostensibly voted Democrat. Whenever he opines on something, he's always seemed like a pretty hard core Republican or even Libertarian.
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Elon Musk has several large companies that actually do things. This forces him to deal with government, and he has a much dimmer view of government than the average college student. I think back when he was a college student himself he might very well have been a straight-up Democrat.
There's an old saying: a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. The state of California repeatedly mugged Tesla and Elon Musk got tired of it.
I'd like to count Elon Musk as a libertarian, being a libertarian myself.
Re:I use FairEmail (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk was recently complaining about how American workers aren't willing to burn the 3AM oil for him, while Shanghai workers are.
It's not really about politics, it's just billionaire asshattery. He thinks he works hard because he goes around on his private yet and doesn't keep regular hours. Because he's rich it doesn't matter, he has people to look after his homes, do the grocery shopping, and raise his kids.
He has no idea what it's like for the ordinary, non-billionaires who work for him, and he doesn't care.
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Musk was recently complaining about how American workers aren't willing to burn the 3AM oil for him, while Shanghai workers are.
You are misrepresenting his comments. He said that we should expect lots of EV startups to come out of China because workers there are willing to burn the 3AM oil while American workers in general are not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfyrQVhfGZc&t=3506s [youtube.com]
On multiple other occasions, he has praised the people who work for him. In particular, when Tesla survived its "Productio
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Some guy on Twitter is claiming that Business Insider has published shady accusations before, and there is a suspicious large PUT on $TSLA now. I have no expertise to evaluate these claims... I can only say again that if the claim is true I am glad the woman got some compensation.
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1527429692768194560 [twitter.com]
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this is like pulling Tesla out of an ESG index for not having a plan to reduce CO2 emissions
Technically true, the CO2 emissions of current model tesla vehicles have not decreased from the earlier models, whereas other vehicle manufacturers have been steadily reducing CO2.
Although on a more serious note, you should consider not just the impact of the vehicle while being driven, but also the initial production and eventual scrapping of the vehicle.
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you should consider not just the impact of the vehicle while being driven, but also the initial production and eventual scrapping of the vehicle.
According to Tesla:
https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2021-tesla-impact-report.pdf [tesla.com]
The EPA agrees that electric cars have lower CO2 emissions, even taking into account that some power stations make power by burning stuff. Se
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Err what? That you don't understand ESG makes it in no way compatible to the shit going on here.
Since you weren't paying attention in the last thread let me repeat: ESG has zero to do with emissions of a product generated by customers.
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ESG has zero to do with emissions
Zero, huh?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-19/tesla-s-removal-from-s-p-index-sparks-debate-about-esg-ratings [bloomberg.com]
Apparently it's better to be an oil company and say that you have a low-carbon strategy, than to be a company whose whole strategy is to transition the entire world to zero-carbon.
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They accuse others of doing what they are doing.
Like Putin accusing others of being Nazis or Trump accusing others of being dishonest or trying to steal an election.
F-Droid? (Score:5, Informative)
Why not keep it on F-Droid and encourage users to move away from the Play store?
Re:F-Droid? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've only ever used the Fdroid version (and sent anonymous donations).
Too bad, really. He updates it all the time. He should definitely try getting it to somebody who is willing to monetize it. K9 was more frustrating, especially for attachments.
This is another example of why Google shouldn't be able to shut out competition on app stores. FDroid can only do updates if you have root.
F-droid is fine, FairEmail on it is not (Score:3)
I use F-droid, and also used FairEmail from F-Droid.
1. F-Droid does updates just fine without root - I have phones with and without root, but I haven't given root to F-Droid with any phone, so F-Droid doesn't know I have root.
2. FairEmail has serious problems with the F-Droid version.
2A. Gmail login doesn't work properly because API key of FairEmail is not set in the F-Droid version (this one is not even FairEmail's fault, Google gives trouble with the regular IMAP login).
2B. In F-Droid version and free ver
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I use F-Droid without root and it updates just fine. There are no restrictions on 3rd party app stores doing updates, never have been.
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The f-droid version states that office365 is not allowed by Microsoft from the f-droid version. That is why I installed the Github version, even if al other software on my phone comes from f-droid. Alas the company I work for uses office365, which can hardly be described as e-mail, as it violates so many aspects of e-mail servers.
That said, I do not know of any other open source e-mail client that can access office365.
Re: F-Droid? (Score:2)
I agree. only reason imo for him to not put it on fdroid is that it actually is Spyware like Google says it is.
Google Play is insufferable... (Score:4, Interesting)
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At the end of the day though, you can still just sideload. It's a far bigger pain when Apple pulls something from their App Store, since sideloading App Store apps requires all the same steps as outright piracy (even the "free" apps are DRM protected).
Re:Google Play is insufferable... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not that you cannot sideload, (for now), it's that end users are trained to consider that dangerous / suspicious. Go ask Joe Idiot to sideload something and you're going to get one of two responses from him:
1. "What's sideloading? If it's not on the Play Store / App Store / Steam / Windows Store I don't need it."
2. "YOU ARE TRYING TO MAKE ME INSTALL A VIRUS!!!!"
They've been trained like the good little dogs that they are to cons
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Used to like K-9 Mail (Score:3)
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and last I checked, it couldn't use imap push, while Fair Email sort of figured out a way around it
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In related news .. (Score:2)
Spyware
.. pot calls kettle black.
screw Google (Score:2, Troll)
Google can keep their crap. Talk about spyware...
The Play Store does not deserve quality apps based on the way Google treats developers.
Yay, ... (Score:2)
FairEmail Developer Calls It Quits After Google Falsely Flags App As Spyware
Mission accomplished.
Google Play Random Termination (Score:5, Informative)
In June last year I received a surprise, rude, email from Google Play telling me they’d terminated my developer account and not to come back for breaking their Play store rules. ..."
No reason given just "REASON FOR TERMINATION: Prior violations of the Developer Program Policies and Developer Distribution Agreement
I'd had no warnings or any communication that I'd done anything I shouldn't have.
It's just one App that I publish on Play which makes about $10 a month. I don't update it often as it doesn't need much maintenance. Maybe twice a year.
So only thing I was losing was the time I'd put into making it. Not exactly income limiting.
I appealed to Google Play, asking what I had done and after waiting a week for a reply, they re-instated my account.
Again I asked them what I had done, so I wouldn’t do it again, to which I got the reply “we can’t tell you, just read the rules and don’t do it again”.
Eh?
I don’t believe Google cares at all about its Play app store and after that experience I'm not writing another App for the Play store.
Why would I risk doing all that work just to have it randomly terminated without reason?
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“we can’t tell you, just read the rules and don’t do it again”
In other words, a tyranny. 'arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.'
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Sounds like an automated spam bot got you. A few people were hit by that a couple of years ago with Gmail. Some flaw in the bot they use to prevent spammers creating accounts ended up flagging a load of legitimate ones.
It's almost impossible to get a human response from Google. It's a major issue when you come to rely on any of their services. I use Gmail but I've been keeping it regularly synced to Thunderbird and backed up, just in case I need to switch in a hurry.
So it was a false flag (Score:2)
This is pure evil on Google's part (Score:2)
I am truly disgusted with this action by Google. Fairemail is certainly not spyware.
It is purely abusive actions like this which guarantee an eventual need to end store monopolies.
Please don't be evil Google and undo this travesty.
Programming (Score:1)
FairEmail is absolutely superior (Score:2)
Google is evil. Plain and simple.
FairEmail is utterly superior in every way imaginable.
This is a deliberate attempt to get rid of competition. This is the standard Google playbook.
K9email is in no way a substitute.
By way of disclosure, I paid the FairEmail fee. Its worth every cent.
Not spyware? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm no fan of Google, but I am kind of concerned that nobody here is actually considering the possibility that this email client may have at some point contained a spyware component. There are many ways that could happen, many of them not even requiring the developer from willingly introducing one in his app (supply chain attacks come to mind).
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> but Bokhorst believes that Google might have misinterpreted the use of favicons in the app
This right here, having to guess what google doesn't like.
Google doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
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I'm no fan of Google, but I am kind of concerned that nobody here is actually considering the possibility that this email client may have at some point contained a spyware component.
Ordinarily I might be inclined to agree with you...but Marcel Bokhorst's prior work includes XPrivacy, a permissions manager for Android that predates Google implementing them, and that did it in a way that didn't require all the API changes - it fed apps false information. Deny the Samsung Gallery location permissions, and the app refuses to load. Deny it location data with Xprivacy, and it works just fine.
If this were a random dev, I might give credence to the possibility of there being a spyware componen
Shoot In Their Foot (Score:1)
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Probably because it's opensource and the dev doesn't need your data as much as "big tech companies".
It's a little bit like asking why you are using linux instead of a big corp OS which has a lot of security/privacy employees.
Similarities. (Score:1)
Google (and othet big chunks of the Internet) looks more and more like a totalitarian bureaucracy, the kind you see in movies like "1984" or "Brasil".
A lot of other ones need to be banned. (Score:2)
If I take google spyware definition, then many other mails apps need to be banned, for example, those who fetch the mails for you on their own servers (transmitting login/password) like outlook does.
That's bad (Score:2)
Ironic... (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's entire business is spyware.
For any Pixel owners, I recommend https://grapheneos.org/ [grapheneos.org]
my app too (Score:1)
What?!? Bought it after upgrading from K9, now SOL (Score:1)
I was a fan of K9, but it was aging badly, so I had to look for something more up-to-date yet just as powerful and with local offline storage. FairEmail was it! After testing it out, I gladly paid for it. All of the privacy annoyances... er... features... can be fine-tuned or turned off in the settings. I can't stand the dumbed-down interface of GMail or other "modern" e-mail apps, so I'll just keep my orphaned copy of FairEmail (yes, I have a backup), until it ages out as well.