I personally do not mind that apps come from. But as Magic Earth is a system app and e.foundation as some kind of agreement with them, wouldn’t it be possible to get it directly from MagicEarth - as Google, Amazon and Apple are doing? That could even allow /e/ to appear on their website as source for their app (see attached mockup).
I am not a tech person but if this would be possible other app developers could deliver their apps as well directly.
So my question would be: Would that be feasible without too much technical effort?
People can upload altered apps to Apkpure which means they could be infected with a nefarious payload or backdoor. APK Pure might tell you if the signature is different from the actual app but it will still let you download an altered app. I do get the need to use third party app stores at times but I try to at least limit my use to only when needed.
If you want trusted apps use: F-Droid Aurora - From F-droid. It downloads directly from the PlayStore.
Do you know Exodus Privacy? It shows a list of trackers and permissions of many Android apps. Wonderful organisation.
MagicEarth has zero trackers. Not bad!
MagicEarth received good data protection analysis results on a site called mobilsicher too. Otherwise it’s good to check apps from time to time - not only MagicEarth - with Checkey. Open Checkey, tap on the App and submit it to VirusTotal (with the symbol similar to SUM, three dots, open in browser) and check the details there. It works fine here with MagicEarth. Only sometimes e.g. with Delta.Chat it shows “Item not found”. Those hashes help to assure that it’s a known apk and nobody tampered with that “in between”.
I managed to get the trackers in an app in iOS changed by searching on ExodusPrivacy and mentioning their Google trackers in a review of this iOS app. And pleading for open source. Many iOS apps have Google trackers too. They changed their trackers into two MS trackers.
Not ideal either, but no Google.
If you’re going to accuse people of criminal conspiracy you’d better (a) state what criminal laws they’ve conspired to break, and how – say UK laws (and bearing in mind UK libel law) – and (b) report the conspiracy so as not to be complicit.
