Add Signal

[Tobi823]

[TPS]

@Tobi823 Would you also be interested in some FOSS, but otherwise 100%-compatible forks?

• [ ] Signal-FOSS

  • HomePage: https://www.twinhelix.com/apps/signal-foss/
  • F-Droid repo: https://fdroid.twinhelix.com/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=7b03b0232209b21b10a30a63897d3c6bca4f58fe29bc3477e8e3d8cf8e304028
  • GitHub releases https://github.com/tw-hx/Signal-Android/releases

• [ ] Molly FOSS

  • HomePage https://molly.im/
  • F-Droid repo https://molly.im/fdroid/foss/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=5198daef37fc23c14d5ee32305b2af45787bd7df2034de33ad302bdb3446df74
  • N.B.: Molly has also a non-FOSS version, but still includes the add'l hardening. That's interspersed below.
  • GitHub releases https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android/releases

[myuseraccount]

I would consider this to be feature creep. There is another app with a more generalized update goal called Obtainium, maybe that would be more suitable than this?

[TPS]

The learning curve to using Obtainium isn't simple. FfU does what it does very simply.

[DrDustwolf]

I think obtainium is better for this purpose.

Also Signal and it's forks aren't so great after all: https://www.freie-messenger.de/warumnicht/signal/

[myuseraccount]

I looked at Obtainium, and I agree it's a bit user-unfriendly; the documentation doesn't actually show you how to add an app source, but I haven't actually installed it and tried. It seems designed to handle apps on Github, so Signal ought to work without custom tinkering.

What I use personally on my phone for Signal is the F-Droid app, with the Guardian Project's repository added. I like the suggestion by @TPS as well, to use other ready-made forks of Signal that are in the primary F-Droid repository. F-Droid on its own is possibly even more convenient than FFUpdater.

[TPS]

to use other ready-made forks of Signal that are in the primary F-Droid repository.

@myuseraccount To be clear, these forks aren't allowed by F-Droid policy to be in the main repo, so each has its own dedicated repo. Those are already linked above.

[DJCrashdummy]

I looked at Obtainium, and I agree it's a bit user-unfriendly; [...] but I haven't actually installed it and tried. It seems designed to handle apps on Github, so Signal ought to work without custom tinkering.

usually just pasting the URL of a (supported) app source is enough... so no big deal. if there are multiple APKs for a release, it tries to find the correct one for your device or you can also filter it manually, use regex and the like. as an alternative or perhaps even as a first point of contact (especially if you don't want to bother with more than pasting a link), there is https://apps.obtainium.imranr.dev/. it is a collection of apps/files which need more configuration than simply pasting an URL, no matter if it is just because of more than one APK per release (e.g. Molly) or even plain HTML downloads (e.g. Signal). -> so both are pretty easy to obtain via Obtainium. 😉

[TPS]

That's still a lot of user config vs FFU's model. Why use Obtainium?

[DJCrashdummy]

IMHO it is not much of a difference between choosing a browser via FFU and install it or via https://apps.obtainium.imranr.dev/ and tap "add to Obtainium".

if you ask me personally @TPS, i use it for a few different apps which which got kicked out of the PlayStore (or were never published there) and for whatever reason also aren't available via F-Droid. yes, some of these apps also provide their own updater (similar to FFU for Firefox/Browsers) but if i would go this route, i would have >5 apps installed, which are only there to check for updates. and if they don't work automatically or have some issues, i have to check them manually. -> that feels like going back to workflows of Windows98 or the like where you had to update every program on its own. ...not to mention that this costs unnecessarily more battery, RAM and storage. so a long story, short: as i hardly use any apps from the PlayStore, i only need 2 apps (F-Droid & Obtainium) regularly checking for updates.