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posted 2019-07-17 15:23:47 +0200

[feature-request] Make Sailfish's Aliendalvik more MicroG friendly

Dear Jolla Devs,

it would be great if you could take the necessary steps to make your OS more friendly toward MicroG.

Jolla presents Sailfish OS as much more privacy-conscious than competitors (such as, e.g. Google's Android).

Sailfish also supports Android apps.

Yet, many among the most popular Android apps are absolutely dependent on the com.google.android.gms API provided by the proprietary closed source Google Play Service blob. And it's a bit a shame that users of a reportedly privacy-aware OS end up taking steps to install a blob known for slurping as much private data as possible.

Luckily, there are alternative providers of com.google.android.gms API, such as the opensource MicroG which is also better configurable and provides a good part of the missing API.

Some foundations wanting de-googled eco-system and some alternative ROMs are relying on MicroG to provide the necessary API.

As a company promising to focus on end-users' data privacy, it would be great if Jolla could spend some efforts to make less-privacy-invasive solutions for Android easier to use :

1. Signature-spoofing

In order for MicroG's GMS core to be installed, Signature Spoofing is needed.

Currently, on Sailfish OS' Aliendalvik this requires that the end-user manually patchs the JAR frameworks using specific software (available as a docker). This is cumbersome and might be off-putting for newbies who might end up avoid this alternative.

There is a better solution as Signature Spoofing can be enabled in the AOSP image. Lots of other AOSP-based images already do it , there's even an user interface so that only users who need it will enable it.

It would be great if Jolla could similarily build in the Signature Spoofing together with the settings UI to enable it, it would vastly simplify the work required for users who want to install MicroG.

2. UnifiedNLP support

Currently location works poorly under MicroG.

It fails to register (similar to this issue ). There is a known problem that starting from Android 7.0 Nougat and above, location doesn't work outside /system. There is a patch available mentionned in the MicroG's GmsCore installation instructions. But even after integrating the haystack patch into the Signature Spoofing docker, the UnifiedNLP still fails to register, and location is still flaky in most app (with the current exception of GoogleMaps and Uber) which prevents e.g. some vehicle sharing apps from working properly (Circ, Tier, Mobility swiss, etc.)

There might some conflict, e.g.: the way Jolla has implemented location sharing between Sailfish and Aliendalvik (FusedLocation) might block the copy of UnifiedNLP that is provided inside MicroG's GmsCore.

Help from Jolla dev would be needed to get Location working better with MicroG.

[feature-request] Make Sailfish's Aliendalvik more MicroG friendly

Dear Jolla Devs,

it would be great if you could take the necessary steps to make your OS more friendly toward MicroG.

Jolla presents Sailfish OS as much more privacy-conscious than competitors (such as, e.g. Google's Android).

Sailfish also supports Android apps.

Yet, many among the most popular Android apps are absolutely dependent on the com.google.android.gms API provided by the proprietary closed source Google Play Service blob. And it's a bit a shame that users of a reportedly privacy-aware OS end up taking steps to install a blob known for slurping as much private data as possible.

Luckily, there are alternative providers of com.google.android.gms API, such as the opensource MicroG which is also better configurable and provides a good part of the missing API.

Some foundations wanting de-googled eco-system and some alternative ROMs are relying on MicroG to provide the necessary API.

As a company promising to focus on end-users' data privacy, it would be great if Jolla could spend some efforts to make less-privacy-invasive solutions for Android easier to use :

1. Signature-spoofing

In order for MicroG's GMS core to be installed, Signature Spoofing is needed.

Currently, on Sailfish OS' Aliendalvik this requires that the end-user manually patchs the JAR frameworks using specific software (available as a docker). This is cumbersome and might be off-putting for newbies who might end up avoid this alternative.

There is a better solution as Signature Spoofing can be enabled in the AOSP image. Lots of other AOSP-based images already do it , there's even an user interface so that only users who need it will enable it.

It would be great if Jolla could similarily build in the Signature Spoofing together with the settings UI to enable it, it would vastly simplify the work required for users who want to install MicroG.

2. UnifiedNLP support

Currently location works poorly under MicroG.

It fails to register (similar to this issue ). There is a known problem that starting from Android 7.0 Nougat and above, location doesn't work outside /system. There is a patch available mentionned in the MicroG's GmsCore installation instructions. But even after integrating the haystack patch into the Signature Spoofing docker, the UnifiedNLP still fails to register, and location is still flaky in most app (with the current exception of GoogleMaps and Uber) which prevents e.g. some vehicle sharing apps from working properly (Circ, Tier, Mobility swiss, etc.)

There might some conflict, e.g.: the way Jolla has implemented location sharing between Sailfish and Aliendalvik (FusedLocation) might block the copy of UnifiedNLP that is provided inside MicroG's GmsCore.

Help from Jolla dev would be needed to get Location working better with MicroG.

[feature-request] Make Sailfish's Aliendalvik more MicroG friendly

Dear Jolla Devs,

it would be great if you could take the necessary steps to make your OS more friendly toward MicroG.

Jolla presents Sailfish OS as much more privacy-conscious than competitors (such as, e.g. Google's Android).

Sailfish also supports Android apps.

Yet, many among the most popular Android apps are absolutely dependent on the com.google.android.gms API provided by the proprietary closed source Google Play Service blob. And it's a bit a shame that users of a reportedly privacy-aware OS end up taking steps to install a blob known for slurping as much private data as possible.

Luckily, there are alternative providers of com.google.android.gms API, such as the opensource MicroG which is also better configurable and provides a good part of the missing API.

Some foundations wanting de-googled eco-system and some alternative ROMs are relying on MicroG to provide the necessary API.

As a company promising to focus on end-users' data privacy, it would be great if Jolla could spend some efforts to make less-privacy-invasive solutions for Android easier to use :

1. Signature-spoofing

In order for MicroG's GMS core to be installed, Signature Spoofing is needed.

Currently, on Sailfish OS' Aliendalvik this requires that the end-user manually patchs the JAR frameworks using specific software (available as a docker). This is cumbersome and might be off-putting for newbies who might end up avoid this alternative.

There is a better solution as Signature Spoofing can be enabled in the AOSP image. Lots of other AOSP-based images already do it , there's even an user interface so that only users who need it will enable it.

It would be great if Jolla could similarily build in the Signature Spoofing together with the settings UI to enable it, it would vastly simplify the work required for users who want to install MicroG.

2. UnifiedNLP support

Currently location works poorly under MicroG.

It fails to register (similar to this issue ). There is a known problem that starting from Android 7.0 Nougat and above, location doesn't work outside /system. There is a patch available mentionned in the MicroG's GmsCore installation instructions. But even after integrating the haystack patch into the Signature Spoofing docker, the UnifiedNLP still fails to register, and location is still flaky in most app (with the current exception of GoogleMaps and Uber) which prevents e.g. some vehicle sharing apps from working properly (Circ, Tier, Mobility swiss, etc.)

There might some conflict, e.g.: the way Jolla has implemented location sharing between Sailfish and Aliendalvik (FusedLocation) might block the copy of UnifiedNLP that is provided inside MicroG's GmsCore.

Help from Jolla dev would be needed to get Location working better with MicroG.

[feature-request] Make Sailfish's Aliendalvik more MicroG friendlyfriendly [released in 3.1.0.11]

Dear Jolla Devs,

it would be great if you could take the necessary steps to make your OS more friendly toward MicroG.

Jolla presents Sailfish OS as much more privacy-conscious than competitors (such as, e.g. Google's Android).

Sailfish also supports Android apps.

Yet, many among the most popular Android apps are absolutely dependent on the com.google.android.gms API provided by the proprietary closed source Google Play Service blob. And it's a bit a shame that users of a reportedly privacy-aware OS end up taking steps to install a blob known for slurping as much private data as possible.

Luckily, there are alternative providers of com.google.android.gms API, such as the opensource MicroG which is also better configurable and provides a good part of the missing API.

Some foundations wanting de-googled eco-system and some alternative ROMs are relying on MicroG to provide the necessary API.

As a company promising to focus on end-users' data privacy, it would be great if Jolla could spend some efforts to make less-privacy-invasive solutions for Android easier to use :

1. Signature-spoofing

In order for MicroG's GMS core to be installed, Signature Spoofing is needed.

Currently, on Sailfish OS' Aliendalvik this requires that the end-user manually patchs the JAR frameworks using specific software (available as a docker). This is cumbersome and might be off-putting for newbies who might end up avoid this alternative.

There is a better solution as Signature Spoofing can be enabled in the AOSP image. Lots of other AOSP-based images already do it , there's even an user interface so that only users who need it will enable it.

It would be great if Jolla could similarily build in the Signature Spoofing together with the settings UI to enable it, it would vastly simplify the work required for users who want to install MicroG.

2. UnifiedNLP support

Currently location works poorly under MicroG.

It fails to register (similar to this issue ). There is a known problem that starting from Android 7.0 Nougat and above, location doesn't work outside /system. There is a patch available mentionned in the MicroG's GmsCore installation instructions. But even after integrating the haystack patch into the Signature Spoofing docker, the UnifiedNLP still fails to register, and location is still flaky in most app (with the current exception of GoogleMaps and Uber) which prevents e.g. some vehicle sharing apps from working properly (Circ, Tier, Mobility swiss, etc.)

There might some conflict, e.g.: the way Jolla has implemented location sharing between Sailfish and Aliendalvik (FusedLocation) might block the copy of UnifiedNLP that is provided inside MicroG's GmsCore.

Help from Jolla dev would be needed to get Location working better with MicroG.

[feature-request] Make Sailfish's Aliendalvik more MicroG friendly [released in 3.1.0.11]

Update 2017-07-18 : released in 3.1.0.11, howto available here. Big thanks to jolla and all the devs involved behind the scene.


Dear Jolla Devs,

it would be great if you could take the necessary steps to make your OS more friendly toward MicroG.

Jolla presents Sailfish OS as much more privacy-conscious than competitors (such as, e.g. Google's Android).

Sailfish also supports Android apps.

Yet, many among the most popular Android apps are absolutely dependent on the com.google.android.gms API provided by the proprietary closed source Google Play Service blob. And it's a bit a shame that users of a reportedly privacy-aware OS end up taking steps to install a blob known for slurping as much private data as possible.

Luckily, there are alternative providers of com.google.android.gms API, such as the opensource MicroG which is also better configurable and provides a good part of the missing API.

Some foundations wanting de-googled eco-system and some alternative ROMs are relying on MicroG to provide the necessary API.

As a company promising to focus on end-users' data privacy, it would be great if Jolla could spend some efforts to make less-privacy-invasive solutions for Android easier to use :

1. Signature-spoofing

In order for MicroG's GMS core to be installed, Signature Spoofing is needed.

Currently, on Sailfish OS' Aliendalvik this requires that the end-user manually patchs the JAR frameworks using specific software (available as a docker). This is cumbersome and might be off-putting for newbies who might end up avoid this alternative.

There is a better solution as Signature Spoofing can be enabled in the AOSP image. Lots of other AOSP-based images already do it , there's even an user interface so that only users who need it will enable it.

It would be great if Jolla could similarily build in the Signature Spoofing together with the settings UI to enable it, it would vastly simplify the work required for users who want to install MicroG.

2. UnifiedNLP support

Currently location works poorly under MicroG.

It fails to register (similar to this issue ). There is a known problem that starting from Android 7.0 Nougat and above, location doesn't work outside /system. There is a patch available mentionned in the MicroG's GmsCore installation instructions. But even after integrating the haystack patch into the Signature Spoofing docker, the UnifiedNLP still fails to register, and location is still flaky in most app (with the current exception of GoogleMaps and Uber) which prevents e.g. some vehicle sharing apps from working properly (Circ, Tier, Mobility swiss, etc.)

There might some conflict, e.g.: the way Jolla has implemented location sharing between Sailfish and Aliendalvik (FusedLocation) might block the copy of UnifiedNLP that is provided inside MicroG's GmsCore.

Help from Jolla dev would be needed to get Location working better with MicroG.