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 19:41:

[...]

Unfortunately, developers are seduced by the Adam's apple that Google
offers them, which contains at least three serpents, as listed below.
 
1. GSF (Google Services Framework) <com.google.android.gsf>
2. GMS (Google Mobile Services) <com.google.android.gms>
3. Google Firebase & Google Services Firebase App Indexing

No, developers are not "seduced". It's about software companies who need
to solve their problems and these problems are not just technical, but
also include things like:

- "how can we measure which feature in our apps is used most?"
- "how can we make sure, notifications to our users get delivered?"
- "how can we make sure, users don't loose all data when they change the
device and reinstall the app on another device?"

Of course you can re-invent the wheel everytime and try to come up with
your own solution to do application usage metrics or trying to convince
users to give you feedback (which usually does not work - BTDT). You can
also try to implement your own cool message sending system on your own
servers or invent another way of backing up data instead of using the
existing infrastructure in Android.

But in the end this leads to apps which are often insecure due to badly
implemented code or badly maintained servers which have outdated
certificates for HTTPS or bad privacy policies.

All the stolen account information in the last 5-10 years did usually
not come from Apple, Google or Microsoft but from servers maintained by
people who though they are bright enough to handle such business. Even
Adobe had it's hard time to learn that maintaining private user data is
not a simple task.

So it became more or less best practice not to try to invent the wheel
again but just use the services of the platform you develop software for.


--
Arno Welzel
https://arnowelzel.de