Re: Why do so many people confuse Google's Firebase (cloud API) with Google Services Google Firebase App Indexing (search results)?

Andrew, 2024-06-23 09:18:

Arno Welzel wrote on Sun, 23 Jun 2024 02:58:16 +0200 :
 

Andrew, 2024-06-22 20:48:
>

Why do so many people (including myself, at first) confuse Google's
Firebase (cloud API) with Google Services Google Firebase App Indexing
(search results)?
>
Firebase (cloud related):
 <https://firebase.google.com/firebase-and-gcp>
 "Firebase and Google Cloud share three products: Cloud Firestore,
  Cloud Functions, and Cloud Storage. These are the same products
  that exist in Google Cloud, simply exposed for client-side
  developers via Firebase. You can access the same data from the
  server SDKs (Google Cloud) and the client SDKs (Firebase),
  so your frontend and backend teams can work in concert."

>
Firebase App Indexing was part of Firebase and not a separate product:
<https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-indexing?hl=en>

 
The question I asked is a very difficult question to answer.

No, it's quite simple:

"Firebase" is a mostly cloud based platform with a number of services
provided by Google: messaging, storage, usage analytics, indexing and so on.

"Firebase App Indexing" is one single feature of that and not a separate
product.

[...]

If you don't trust Google, don't use their products!

 
That's terrible advice. For a whole bunch of reasons. Don't get me wrong
though, as I know what you're saying (i.e., you're saying Google is evil).
 
However, one reason it's terrible advice is we're just trying to UNDERSTAND
what's going on; and to say don't use any product if you want to understand
how it works, is just about the worst advice possible, IMHO.
 
However, another more pragmatic reason that's terrible advice is there are
only two practical choices for cellphones: Android & iOS.

No, there are also "dumb" phones out there which don't use any "smart"
operating system at all or are at least very limited:

<https://www.thelightphone.com/>

And there is the Librem 5 which does not use Android or iOS either but
its own "PureOS":

<https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/>

And since Android is open source, there are also Android versions like
e/OS/ or devices by Murena *without* any Google services at all:

<https://e.foundation/e-os/>
<https://murena.com/products/smartphones/>

And LineageOS can also be used without any Google services at all:

<https://lineageos.org/>

And using F-Droid you can get many apps as well. Of course if you *must*
use a smartphone as a second authentication factor for your bank account
or similar applications, you may just get a cheap device which is only
used for that purpose and nothing else.

Given we're not an iOS group (for different reasons), we are all using
Android. Now, you could be talking about rooting & using AOSP... but...

See above.

Given my Samsung Galaxy A32-5G baseband is unrootable, I'm forced to use
some version of Android so I'm stuck using Google products de jure.

No, you can just buy a different device.


--
Arno Welzel
https://arnowelzel.de