Re: The growing insistence of Mobile Services Manager (DT Ignite) on Android devices

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

Em 02/05/2022 12:32, Paul Sutton via libreplanet-discuss escreveu:
> On 01/05/2022 22:08, Kaio Duarte Costa wrote:
>> Since a few weeks ago, I've been dealing with the annoyance of the
>> Mobile Services Manager (the famous DT Ignite, with a "nicer" name),
>> which practically forces android device users to install proprietary
>> applications, with abusive advertisements, when it does not install them
>> without the user's permission (since it has abusive permissions to
>> install and uninstall applications, as a system application).
>>
>> What was once a periodic annoyance has now become almost daily, as
>> Digital Turbine (in partnership with Samsung) is increasing the
>> insistence on 'marketing' the device's notifications tab with an
>> annoying advertisement called "find the next ideal app for you".
>> Furthermore, it is impossible to remove the advertisement from the
>> notification tab, only by deactivating the app (which evidently does not
>> seem to be effective).
>>
>> Those who dare to click, even if accidentally, will encounter a white
>> full screen, which forces the user to click next, forcibly encouraging
>> them to install the apps from the screen, or deselect a giant list of
>> apps not to be installed. Furthermore, these are installed as "silent
>> notifications", so the user is only aware of their existence when he
>> sees them on the device.
>>
>> I believe, that thousands of users are annoyed by this forced
>> advertising, which violates the users' freedom and reinforces the need
>> for our fight. Therefore, I would like to assess with you what we can do
>> about it, from complaints to campaigns, I believe that any manifestation
>> of society about this abuse to the user, is of great value!
>>
> 
> Whole campaigns are good, perhaps we need to also:
> 
> * Find out what people use / need their phones for
> * Assess if alternative, Android based operating systems for mobiles can
> help
> * Assess if alternative phones are an option for people
> * Help people make the transition
> 
> There are some good resources to promote f-droid for example.
> I made a post on alternative mobile systems back in January,  and got
> some of the info from the fsf website. I have sorted out the different
> replacements in to Android derived and other
> 
> https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/mobile-devices
> 
> We need to raise awareness, but at the same time help people who are
> shackled in to the current eco system,  I think RMS said he had issues
> trying to book covid test or vaccination due to the need of non free apps.
> 
> Perhaps rather than telling people what the issue is,  we can promote
> the alternatives and why we feel they are better for privacy, user
> freedoms etc.  Make sure the alternatives work for people too.
> 
> 
> I still have no idea, given the number of replacement systems, if there
> is a full set of applications ported, most people don't want the
> nonsense of
> 
> App X is on replacement system x
> App y is on replacement system y
> app z is on replacement system z
> 
> So a user needing to run all 3 of these applications can't as no one
> replacement (which we claim is better) will run what they want,
> replacemetn OS may be better for freedom but if that gets in the way of
> their work,  we won't get people to move.
> 
> E,g a lot of transit systems have apps for tickets, so unless that app
> is available they won't move system.
> 
> 
> 
> Just a thought
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> 
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> 

Note: replying again, this time to the mailing list. No changes made to
the message.

I do agree that outlining a plan is good and, speaking of software, I
hope that F-Droid fixes their FSDG-uncompliance issues, the Replicant
project has more details. Meanwhile, I think that it is good to follow
the Freedom Ladder ([1]), with F-Droid as middle step and, as final
goal, have Replicant (no F-Droid) with ADB installing apps known to be
free/libre and also FSDG-compliant (since there are rare cases in which
these don't mean the same thing).

# References

[1]: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Freedom_Ladder

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