[OpenSource] Privacy and Analytics

[IzzySoft]

It looked promising – until I saw Crashlytics and Firebase, which somehow contradicts "privacy" and is not "open source". Are the two really necessary?

[Mercandj]

Thks,

• 1/ No crashlytics is not "really necessary" and will be removed in mid 2019 (as it should be for any project).
• 2/ Yes Firebase is really necessary and it's impossible to find "open source" equivalent. For "small" dev like me that do not want to develop server in production, tools provided by firebase are huge. ABTest to know what's the best feature to add, notification push to notify user that there is a problem, remote config to dissociate "APK updates" and "new feature release", crash monitoring, performance issues detection, real time and schemless database...

[IzzySoft]

Full ack to 1. – but doubts for 2.: we're talking about Firebase Analytics as well here. Maybe that was enabled accidentally? See Exodus. As for the remaining Firebase parts: I'm no dev, so I cannot say what replacements there might be (maybe ask at SoftwareRecs with naming your requirements?), but it's not FOSS and stores data at Google's end, which always raises an eyebrow on a privacy focused project. It would also be a show-stopper when trying to get your app listed at F-Droid.

Please let me know when Crashlytics is gone at least (just ping me here in this issue). Then, if you'd like, I could list your app via my repo – which holds several apps that for one reason or the other didn't make it into the official repo. Of course: if you find a replacement for Firebase and get rid of that as well, I happily assist you to bring your app to the official repo 😉