Question about a difference in APK between App Lounge and F-Droid for the same version of Thunderbird

Using /e/OS
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1

Hello,

I am trying to better understand some internal mechanisms of /e/OS, particularly regarding app stores and APK installation. I noticed that there was a difference between the App Lounge and F-Droid APKs for the same version of the Thunderbird mobile app.

AppLounge

  • v10.1
  • Size: 20,79MB

applounge
applounge1116Ă—2484 403 KB

F-Droid

  • v10.1
  • Size: 10,5MB

f-droid
f-droid1116Ă—2484 332 KB

From what I understand about how App Lounge works, the APKs should be identical. Does anyone have an explanation for this difference? Could it be a display issue in App Lounge?

I can notice the same difference with Thunderbird Beta for Testers (F-Droid: 11 MB - AppLounge: 22,59MB)

Furthermore, I notice that the latest version available on F-Droid is not offered by App Lounge yet. I read this « Till date, the only issue we have seen have been some outdated packages. Nevertheless, we ask our users to report any issue with packages delivered by CleanAPK. » Could this possibly be a CleanAPK issue here?

Thanks :slight_smile:

2

thunderbird publishing / packaging is multi config, by flavor (“full” vs “foss”), format (“aab” vs “apk” - what the size difference is) and even the older k9mail branding.

What you see at F-Droid should be the plain apk, while on playstore it ships the .aab bundle (of apks).

I don’t know why the AppL query favors the playstore version atm, by logic F-Droid appid gets prio over the same appid in the playstore. The Cleanapk API doesn’t have the F-Droid thunderbird package in its response atm (if I query by hand), that should be the reason the aab versions are currently offered through AppL

3 Likes
3

Thank you @tcecyk this is very interesting!