Re: Paid apps

Carlos E.R. wrote on Wed, 2 Oct 2024 14:51:43 +0200 :

On 2024-10-02 14:19, Andy Burns wrote:

Carlos E.R. wrote:
 

some of these apps have a free version in the Play Store, and some times another one in F-Droid; but they are not the exact same one.

 I gather google is moving to enforce install of apps from the play store if you try to sideload them, or load them from alternate stores?

 Not exactly. What I read is that you can not install one way and update the other. And developers can choose to block different install methods.

The way it has been, for a while, but it has already changed a few times,
is that if you load an app from location 1, it's signed with a certain
signature which is different than if you loaded that same app from location
2.  So if you loaded it from location 2, you have to update from location 2.
Otherwise the signatures don't match.
However... that's only the most simplistic view as Google recently allowed
developers to share the credentials among locations, so anything can be the
case for any given app.
Safest way around all that complexity is to update from the same repository
that you got your app from. I even have started inserting the repository
name into the download of the APK (since I do all my Android APK installs
from Windows).
 fdroid_name.of.apk
 github_name.of.apk
 google_name.of.apk
Let's hope Google hasn't messed with this, as I don't even have the Google
Play Store package installed on my non-rootable Android user partition.
It's never needed.