Removing Anti-Features From Lichess Android App • page 1/1 • Lichess Feedback • lichess.org

Currently the Lichess app is available on F-Droid via Izzy's repository which is great, however the issue is that it includes many anti-features. Specifically Google services, such as Firebase Analytics, and Firebase Cloud Messaging.

This has been brought up previously on Github, and it seems it is mainly for push notifications. Google services however are not libre, and not privacy friendly and this goes against the general philosophy of free software. Lichess is libre, I feel it is only appropriate for the app to be as well.

I understand there being some concerns around reliable push notifications, and battery usage on Android without Google services. At minimum I think there should be work on providing an alternative build, and pushing that onto Izzy's repo alongside the other. This way users can choose.

It is chess, most of the time the user will be in the app interacting real time, so I personally cannot say push notifications are of high priority, although I understand there are game modes that push notifications would be beneficial. This brings me back to the point of choice, at minimum provide the users two versions they can easily choose between.

In an ideal situation, if notifications are not an issue, I'd say just provide the one build and remove the anti-features.

Either works.

As far as temporary workarounds go, playing on a mobile web browser such as Fennec does work, however the app would still be far more intuitive, and would be nice to see that worked on in regards to removing the anti-features.

Again, I think it's only right for the app to be truly libre, as is Lichess.

Relevant URLs:
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/org.lichess.mobileapp
https://github.com/veloce/lichobile
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/org.lichess.mobileapp/latest/

Currently the Lichess app is available on F-Droid via Izzy's repository which is great, however the issue is that it includes many anti-features. Specifically Google services, such as Firebase Analytics, and Firebase Cloud Messaging. This has been brought up previously on Github, and it seems it is mainly for push notifications. Google services however are not libre, and not privacy friendly and this goes against the general philosophy of free software. Lichess is libre, I feel it is only appropriate for the app to be as well. I understand there being some concerns around reliable push notifications, and battery usage on Android without Google services. At minimum I think there should be work on providing an alternative build, and pushing that onto Izzy's repo alongside the other. This way users can choose. It is chess, most of the time the user will be in the app interacting real time, so I personally cannot say push notifications are of high priority, although I understand there are game modes that push notifications would be beneficial. This brings me back to the point of choice, at minimum provide the users two versions they can easily choose between. In an ideal situation, if notifications are not an issue, I'd say just provide the one build and remove the anti-features. Either works. As far as temporary workarounds go, playing on a mobile web browser such as Fennec does work, however the app would still be far more intuitive, and would be nice to see that worked on in regards to removing the anti-features. Again, I think it's only right for the app to be truly libre, as is Lichess. Relevant URLs: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/org.lichess.mobileapp https://github.com/veloce/lichobile https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/org.lichess.mobileapp/latest/

pawnedge

#2

Isn’t the Android OS, itself a Google product? I mean it’s based off Linux, but it incorporates a lot of proprietary stuff too. Anyway, I could be mistaken about this, but it’s my understanding that to develop anything for Android you have to work within that only-mostly-free environment. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to push anything to an Android device without going through Google. 🤷

grravity edited

#3

No, Android itself is free and open source, the majority of devices add-on Google services and other crap. Core Android is FOSS though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
https://source.android.com/

There is no shortage of de-googled roms such as AOSP, AOSPExtended, GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, LineageOS (without microg), Replicant, etc.

There is a large amount of apps that are completely FOSS, which also infers they have zero Google services.
https://f-droid.org/

To answer your question, yes it is 100% possible. I'm not entirely sure in the context of this app-how big of a PITA it would be to migrate or setup an alternative build, but in theory from scratch it is entirely possible.

No, Android itself is free and open source, the majority of devices add-on Google services and other crap. Core Android is FOSS though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) https://source.android.com/ There is no shortage of de-googled roms such as AOSP, AOSPExtended, GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, LineageOS (without microg), Replicant, etc. There is a large amount of apps that are completely FOSS, which also infers they have zero Google services. https://f-droid.org/ To answer your question, yes it is 100% possible. I'm not entirely sure in the context of this app-how big of a PITA it would be to migrate or setup an alternative build, but in theory from scratch it is entirely possible.

unrated_player edited

#4

it already has been discussed

grravity

#5

I had looked on the forums before posting, and I only saw discussion as to getting it onto the official F-Droid repository.
It seemed to be concluded that they could not auto-build the app, which is fine. That:s a different thing from this however.

Besides that, as I stated in my original post, there is currently an issue open on Github for removing anti-features, that has been open since Feburary, and it has had small interaction and does not seem of high priority. My goal was to spread a little bit of awareness to the issue here.

But you just stated it has been discussed, were you referring to the Github issue, or something else? Is this something that is planned to be worked on?

I had looked on the forums before posting, and I only saw discussion as to getting it onto the official F-Droid repository. It seemed to be concluded that they could not auto-build the app, which is fine. That:s a different thing from this however. Besides that, as I stated in my original post, there is currently an issue open on Github for removing anti-features, that has been open since Feburary, and it has had small interaction and does not seem of high priority. My goal was to spread a little bit of awareness to the issue here. But you just stated it has been discussed, were you referring to the Github issue, or something else? Is this something that is planned to be worked on?