Announcement by the creator: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002

Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version.

Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires even without doing much, if any, changes.

Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!

  • @[email protected]
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    12917 hours ago

    This is sad. Google Play should never hold this weight the self hosted community. For Android users dedicated to open source software, F-Droid is the target.

    I don’t think SyncThing users would have much issue with the app disappearing from Google. Doing away with Google is the goal.

    • @[email protected]
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      4716 hours ago

      The problem is not “Syncthing users” it is the others that we bring along with us.

      I already have F-Droid on my phone, but the dozen others that I have promoted Syncthing to over the years do not. This is going to cause a bunch of problems.

      This is much more important than what you portray here.

      • @[email protected]
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        2516 hours ago

        That and the shrinking ability to grant access to device storage. If that becomes an option only on rooted phones (which seems like the directly Google is heading) it will make the audience for such an app much smaller.

          • Bilb!
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            66 hours ago

            To apple? Linux phone experience is just trash.

            • LiveLM
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              1 hour ago

              This is my currently dilemma.
              Each year Android becomes more restrictive like iOS with none of the benefits, Rooting becomes harder as more apps tap into the Play Integrity API (and strong Integrity is on the way to kill most workarounds for it), iPhone got a little better but is still locked down as fuck, where the hell do I go to? 😒

    • @[email protected]
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      1013 hours ago

      They said somewhere that the play store thing is not the reason, it’s just one of the more recent issues.

    • @[email protected]
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      1414 hours ago

      As much as I want to use F-Droid, my work blocks all third party app stores so it’s either have access to my work stuff on one phone (via profiles) or dual wield two phones.

      I lack the patience to dual wield again. It’s very annoying.

      • Atemu
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        7 hours ago

        Is this your personal phone? If your work were to dictate what you are allowed to install on your personal phone, that’d be a serious overstepping of bounds.

        Perhaps you can sneak in f-droid via adb install and give it app installation permissions via ADB though.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 hours ago

          My primary phone belongs to my work. I get a stipend every two years that essentially allows me to buy any supported phone I want.

          The conditions are that it’s managed by them via MDM and all my work stuff is on the work profile side.

          It is a choice I make since it allows me to not carry two phones. I did that for the first two years at my company and it was annoying.

        • Bilb!
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          26 hours ago

          If “your” phone belongs to your employer that’s the choice you made. It isn’t yours.

      • Derin
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        911 hours ago

        I’m annoyed to see you getting down voted - I had a similar issue years ago with my work MacBook (couldn’t run a custom WM because any modification to the Finder was blocked without putting the machine into “unsafe” mode).

        I love OSS, but without a verifiable way to distribute it large swaths of the workforce won’t be able to use it.

        F-Droid is great, but sadly it isn’t enough.

        • @[email protected]
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          69 hours ago

          I was today years old when I learned that you can run a custom WM on a Mac.

          That’s like…the equivalent of a coca cola soda machine dispensing Pepsi.

          And in terms of down votes, I don’t really care too much. It evens out overtime.