This is what I use, and it works well. It's very straightforward to add apps and automatically update them as new releases are pushed to Github or wherever they are hosted.
sushidev · 17h ago
Cloudflare blocked my access from
Safari ios
0xbadcafebee · 23h ago
You know what I really want? No more "app stores" or "app managers". Just let me download and run an application, like on every non-mobile computer in the world.
I hate the constant updates. I hate the end-of-life OS forks. I hate the limited programming languages. I hate that there's this complicated gatekeeping, where you have to jump through a bunch of extra hoops to install a program if it hasn't been blessed by some specific official organization. And I hate that all the mobile phones come locked up (if not to a mobile carrier, then to an operating system, only able to be maintained by a specific 3rd party, and the device becomes a useless brick once that specific 3rd party stops supporting that specific operating system on that specific device).
Regular computers work much better. A common architecture. Run any OS built for that common architecture. Run any program that has executable machine code for that common architecture. You can install a different OS when the old one is unsupported. You can keep using the hardware until the hardware dies, not just until the company who made it drops that hardware's support. Common hardware components so every OS doesn't have to support every different individual model of computer. No gatekeeping of the programs you can install. No extra hoops. Just a machine that can run whatever you want it to.
I just want a computer in my pocket. I don't want all the extra bullshit.
gavinray · 17h ago
> "Just let me download and run an application"
This is how Android works?...
You can download an ".apk" file and just install + run it, like an ".exe" or ".msi"
Padlock4543 · 15h ago
It is.
The belief that all mobile devices are this locked down is Apple's greatest trick.
I don't even think it is premeditated by the Company's leadership. But the users and ecosystem evolved in a way where this level of fandom and narrative are great for them.
dmos62 · 14h ago
Apple locks down their devices, gaming consoles are locked down, most IOT and home appliance devices are locked down: even "modular" devices like PCs (and their components) lock down their firmware and close-source their drivers. Heck, most of publicly-funded software is closed-source. Entire industries are based on software that's shitty and closed-source (see Adobe or Archicad). In each of these cases opening up the relevant systems or diverting license fees to investments into open alternatives would be a dramatic improvement to status quo, and not only for the geeks, but for the average person. But, we've not yet realised that; what we're currently doing is what makes most sense to us. Oh well.
netfortius · 12h ago
How I wish that was the case! Ever since having moved from the US to the EU, I find myself having to go to Aurora Store more than 50% of the time, as A LOT of apps with country locality are not available in downloadable apk format, from any of the major apk distribution sites or - when rarely found - they are a few versions behind, and can't be run.
xigoi · 15h ago
You have to install the app. You can’t just run it directly, as opposed to executables on desktop computers.
gavinray · 14h ago
That's because .apk's are essentially ZIP archives -- they contain assets required for the executable as well as a manifest declaring permissions.
That's a bit of a handwavy explanation, there's more to it than that, but that's the gist of why you can't "directly" run apps on Android.
black3r · 13h ago
The assets aren't extracted during installation though. The APK is copied as is, the executable files are extracted to a cache, but that can technically be done at runtime.
More important parts of the installation process is configuring the default permission set for the application, creating its linux user and it's data directories. (In Android every app runs under its own linux user, and by default only has access to a specific data directory created for that app, to access other directories you need broader filesystem permissions). But this could technically still be done at runtime.
The bigger problem requiring installation would be features where the OS needs to start the app up - notifications, or app's background processes. Although even there some kind of temporary installation at runtime could work...
treyd · 14h ago
And you kinda still can, in a terminal emulator, it just can't behave like an app since it won't integrate with the system UI.
virtue3 · 22h ago
I agree... but also that computer in our pocket has our entire life wrapped in it.
The desktop has some mitigations against this. PWNing your mobile device could completely wreck you in a lot of ways.
I switched from android to iphone because someone 0-day'd me. I'm not saying it can't happen on iOS or something; just less likely - and mostly because of these restrictions.
nolist_policy · 17h ago
Wait that? If someone burns 0-days against you, you have bigger problems and an iPhone won't save you.
hliyan · 19h ago
Can OSes offer an application sandbox feature, where I can define sandboxes within which to install applications. Applications within a sandbox only has visibility into the resources I define: some folders, no camera or mic etc. I understand that app permissions do the same, but this would be more convenient than having to define granular permissions each time you install an app.
ignoramous · 17h ago
> Applications within a sandbox only has visibility into the resources I define
Isn't that more than a typical sandbox what you're asking for?
The GrapheneOS developers said they're working on a feature where every app could be run in its own VM, like on ChromeOS: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20647
> some folders, no camera or mic etc. I understand that app permissions do the same
The "some folders" part is already true for Android. Apps can't blanket access files/folders of other apps (save for ones stored in "external storage", which has also been scoped down in the recent releases: https://source.android.com/docs/core/storage/scoped).
> more convenient than having to define granular permissions each time you install an app
It isn't Android that makes this inconvenient. It is the app developers that cause "prompt fatigue" (by showing permission requests repeatedly) or "blackmail" by refusing to work until permissions are granted. A new sandbox mechanism is unlikely to change much.
exe34 · 15h ago
> It isn't Android that makes this inconvenient. It is the app developers that cause "prompt fatigue" (by showing permission requests repeatedly) or "blackmail" by refusing to work until permissions are granted. A new sandbox mechanism is unlikely to change much.
That's why spoofing should be an option. You want GPS? Timbuktu. You want my camera? Here's a close up video of a saggy scrotum. You need access to my contacts? Here's an address book with the contact details for all the funeral services within a 50 mile radius.
Dedime · 20h ago
People keep talking about having been hacked, but it's honestly baffling to me.
I'm 28. I started using computers on a regular basis when I was ~9 years old, playing RuneScape. Since then, I've spend probably 10s of thousands of hours on the internet - downloading torrents, signing up for sketchy Russian websites, doing online banking, testing experimental software downloaded over HTTP from a .xyz domain. I graduated high school, went to a technical college for compsci, graduated, worked in helpdesk, desktop support, IT management, and more recently DevOps. I develop software using all sorts of package managers, and used hundreds of thousands of unvetted software packages that arrived as dependencies.
Not once have I, or anyone I've been responsible for, been hacked. No crypto, no viruses, nothing. What the heck are you guys doing getting your Android phones hacked???? Like I only use a modicum of common sense these days, but I guess I've just been lucky and have been the odd one out. I still enjoy reading HN arrivals about security though, so maybe I just have always been slightly more security conscience?
In any case, this is just a stream of consciousness / gut feeling comment. Don't put too much weight into it, I haven't.
OutOfHere · 20h ago
The way in which getting hacked works these days is that you as the user will never know. They will just silently exfil your data, and also use you to get to others. You will be none the wiser.
exe34 · 15h ago
If it's so secret that nobody will ever find out, then I'm okay with it.
On the other hand, it's true that some people find out their credit score is trash right before buying a house, or that their name is involved in terrorism when applying for a visa, etc.
OutOfHere · 10h ago
You should not be okay with it because they will most definitely use it to exert power over you. They are not professors or space aliens that are doing it for academic curiosity. It can be the government that wants to lock up someone, either now or in the future, or anyone that wants to steal your hard-earned crypto. It is not okay. These days they will also pass it through their AI, and potentially also use it to tune their AI.
exe34 · 8h ago
> If it's so secret that nobody will ever find out, then I'm okay with it.
The original argument was that one would never know.
OutOfHere · 6h ago
One would never know until one loses their crypto, or one has the government hurting one's freedoms, possibly even using parallel reconstruction, or one gets blackmailed. If one doesn't know that their phone could've been hacked, one will be left wondering what happened.
cosmic_cheese · 21h ago
Yep. With exception to apps that don’t interact with the internet in any way whatsoever (not even opening downloaded files), which is pretty rare, keeping up with library updates is pretty important if one doesn’t want to make them ever more of a sitting duck as time goes on.
carstenhag · 8h ago
App Stores have nothing to little to do with what you are complaining about.
As we are talking about Android:
- Play Store: makes sure developers don't do nefarious stuff with the user's data. Yes, for us power users some restrictions are simply wrong, I agree. Use an alternative store for that. But what it does well is optimizing performance: instead of 1 apk with 4 ABI supports (or 4 apk with 1 ABI support each), it can use app bundles to serve you only what your device needs. Also, the Play Store learns what parts of the app are commonly used and contributed this back to make performance improvements for all other users (I was amazed the first time I heard about this).
- F-Droid, any other store: ensures your privacy/no-restriction/etc needs are covered.
What they all have in common: your app gets updates! Do you want bugs to be there forever? Do you want to go through 100 apps and manually install updates? Please, no one wants to do that. On your Unix machine you also don't manually check all updates using your package manager, and what changelog each has.
f33d5173 · 21h ago
>Just let me download and run an application, like on every non-mobile computer in the world.
You can do that. Pretty easily. Having to manually update software is pretty annoying though, so why not automate it?
jeroenhd · 14h ago
So just download the APK from github manually, then? That's all this app does anyway.
1oooqooq · 13h ago
level down the actions you described to the intellect of the average smart phone user.
I'm not being sarcastic. the average smart phone user have been dumbed down by corporations so they don't even need to add technical walls to their walled garden, as to avoid regulation. if google don't prevent you from installing apks, they will never face the court decision apple just received. but users won't act in a way they lose their 30pct fee either.
cholantesh · 23h ago
I'm a Fedora guy through and through but...did Ubuntu Touch die on the vine? It seemed like it was approaching some approximation of this.
nosioptar · 22h ago
It's still around,but only supports a few devices. Last I looked, it didn't work with volte.
tonyhart7 · 18h ago
"You know what I really want? No more "app stores" or "app managers". Just let me download and run an application, like on every non-mobile computer in the world."
pretty sure you can do that, just use non android/ios mobile os
kali linux,ubuntu mobile os is up there, no one force you to use android/ios system
sneak · 19h ago
They make normal computers that small now. You can buy one.
Did we all forget Bonzai Buddy?
That model doesn’t work for most people. Most people want the latest version at all times, and don’t want to have to sysadmin their phone.
sigmonsays · 1d ago
I <3 obtainium, i'm not sure what unobtanium is
zem · 18h ago
you wouldn't get it
0x073 · 15h ago
What a bad name for such app, as it has nothing to do with the actual git.
aae42 · 15h ago
I've noticed this on my org as well, people refer to "putting things in git" and 75% of the time they're referring to the source forge.
rocketvole · 1d ago
sorry, I don't use android, but how is this different from unobtainium?
Cyphase · 1d ago
Unobtanium supports more sources, for one.
Cyphase · 21h ago
s/Unobtanium/Obtainium/g
noname120 · 1d ago
Unobtainium is horrible unreliable and clunky software. It's way worse than AUR and that's an under statement.
aaviator42 · 1d ago
In what ways?
No comments yet
TechnicJelle · 6h ago
Hey all, I'm the developer of this app.
This was literally my first ever Flutter app and it honestly sucks.
I made it before I found out that Obtainium exists.
Even so, I'm glad I made it, because I learnt a lot while making it.
It is unlikely that it will be finished or even worked on any time soon.
gitroom · 22h ago
man, i feel this big time - all i want is to just run what i want on my phone without all the locked down nonsense, feels like every device now is less mine than ever tbh. ever wonder who actually gains the most from all this locking down? is it just security or something else too?
noname120 · 1d ago
Hasn't been updated for 2 years. Is it feature-complete?
FloatArtifact · 15h ago
What's the closest equivalent for windows PC?
Interior · 1d ago
I'd suggest Unobtanium. This doesn't look actively maintained.
It literally doesn't. F-droid has its own repo format, whereas this app gets releases from github releases directly.
iggldiggl · 7h ago
As also pointed out in a sibling thread, there's https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/ though, which is somebody's curated collection of apps with Github releases in the form of an F-Droid repository.
yesbut · 1d ago
F-Droid
Cyphase · 1d ago
F-Droid requires a compatible repository; it doesn't work with GitHub releases.
yesbut · 1d ago
should have used gitlab
freeamz · 1d ago
or forgejo
chneu · 20h ago
I was thinking that one could "roll their own repository" that scrapes githubs and then just throw that into f-droid.
Probably already exists.
mook · 12h ago
IzzyOnDroid is basically this already; it's a third-party repository that's maintained by some person that does updates.
sneak · 19h ago
Aka how to give anyone who can legally compel Microsoft RCE on your device.
We all put far too much faith in the github.com TLS cert.
philipwhiuk · 11h ago
Is that any different from compelling an F-Droid maintainer or Google Play?
sneak · 5h ago
Microsoft and Google do this sort of stuff for their government all of the time. I imagine the F-Droid people aren’t in the habit and would make noise about it.
https://obtainium.imranr.dev/
https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium
I hate the constant updates. I hate the end-of-life OS forks. I hate the limited programming languages. I hate that there's this complicated gatekeeping, where you have to jump through a bunch of extra hoops to install a program if it hasn't been blessed by some specific official organization. And I hate that all the mobile phones come locked up (if not to a mobile carrier, then to an operating system, only able to be maintained by a specific 3rd party, and the device becomes a useless brick once that specific 3rd party stops supporting that specific operating system on that specific device).
Regular computers work much better. A common architecture. Run any OS built for that common architecture. Run any program that has executable machine code for that common architecture. You can install a different OS when the old one is unsupported. You can keep using the hardware until the hardware dies, not just until the company who made it drops that hardware's support. Common hardware components so every OS doesn't have to support every different individual model of computer. No gatekeeping of the programs you can install. No extra hoops. Just a machine that can run whatever you want it to.
I just want a computer in my pocket. I don't want all the extra bullshit.
You can download an ".apk" file and just install + run it, like an ".exe" or ".msi"
The belief that all mobile devices are this locked down is Apple's greatest trick.
I don't even think it is premeditated by the Company's leadership. But the users and ecosystem evolved in a way where this level of fandom and narrative are great for them.
That's a bit of a handwavy explanation, there's more to it than that, but that's the gist of why you can't "directly" run apps on Android.
More important parts of the installation process is configuring the default permission set for the application, creating its linux user and it's data directories. (In Android every app runs under its own linux user, and by default only has access to a specific data directory created for that app, to access other directories you need broader filesystem permissions). But this could technically still be done at runtime.
The bigger problem requiring installation would be features where the OS needs to start the app up - notifications, or app's background processes. Although even there some kind of temporary installation at runtime could work...
The desktop has some mitigations against this. PWNing your mobile device could completely wreck you in a lot of ways.
I switched from android to iphone because someone 0-day'd me. I'm not saying it can't happen on iOS or something; just less likely - and mostly because of these restrictions.
Isn't that more than a typical sandbox what you're asking for?
The GrapheneOS developers said they're working on a feature where every app could be run in its own VM, like on ChromeOS: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20647
> some folders, no camera or mic etc. I understand that app permissions do the same
The "some folders" part is already true for Android. Apps can't blanket access files/folders of other apps (save for ones stored in "external storage", which has also been scoped down in the recent releases: https://source.android.com/docs/core/storage/scoped).
> more convenient than having to define granular permissions each time you install an app
It isn't Android that makes this inconvenient. It is the app developers that cause "prompt fatigue" (by showing permission requests repeatedly) or "blackmail" by refusing to work until permissions are granted. A new sandbox mechanism is unlikely to change much.
That's why spoofing should be an option. You want GPS? Timbuktu. You want my camera? Here's a close up video of a saggy scrotum. You need access to my contacts? Here's an address book with the contact details for all the funeral services within a 50 mile radius.
I'm 28. I started using computers on a regular basis when I was ~9 years old, playing RuneScape. Since then, I've spend probably 10s of thousands of hours on the internet - downloading torrents, signing up for sketchy Russian websites, doing online banking, testing experimental software downloaded over HTTP from a .xyz domain. I graduated high school, went to a technical college for compsci, graduated, worked in helpdesk, desktop support, IT management, and more recently DevOps. I develop software using all sorts of package managers, and used hundreds of thousands of unvetted software packages that arrived as dependencies.
Not once have I, or anyone I've been responsible for, been hacked. No crypto, no viruses, nothing. What the heck are you guys doing getting your Android phones hacked???? Like I only use a modicum of common sense these days, but I guess I've just been lucky and have been the odd one out. I still enjoy reading HN arrivals about security though, so maybe I just have always been slightly more security conscience?
In any case, this is just a stream of consciousness / gut feeling comment. Don't put too much weight into it, I haven't.
On the other hand, it's true that some people find out their credit score is trash right before buying a house, or that their name is involved in terrorism when applying for a visa, etc.
The original argument was that one would never know.
As we are talking about Android:
- Play Store: makes sure developers don't do nefarious stuff with the user's data. Yes, for us power users some restrictions are simply wrong, I agree. Use an alternative store for that. But what it does well is optimizing performance: instead of 1 apk with 4 ABI supports (or 4 apk with 1 ABI support each), it can use app bundles to serve you only what your device needs. Also, the Play Store learns what parts of the app are commonly used and contributed this back to make performance improvements for all other users (I was amazed the first time I heard about this). - F-Droid, any other store: ensures your privacy/no-restriction/etc needs are covered.
What they all have in common: your app gets updates! Do you want bugs to be there forever? Do you want to go through 100 apps and manually install updates? Please, no one wants to do that. On your Unix machine you also don't manually check all updates using your package manager, and what changelog each has.
You can do that. Pretty easily. Having to manually update software is pretty annoying though, so why not automate it?
I'm not being sarcastic. the average smart phone user have been dumbed down by corporations so they don't even need to add technical walls to their walled garden, as to avoid regulation. if google don't prevent you from installing apks, they will never face the court decision apple just received. but users won't act in a way they lose their 30pct fee either.
pretty sure you can do that, just use non android/ios mobile os
kali linux,ubuntu mobile os is up there, no one force you to use android/ios system
Did we all forget Bonzai Buddy?
That model doesn’t work for most people. Most people want the latest version at all times, and don’t want to have to sysadmin their phone.
No comments yet
This was literally my first ever Flutter app and it honestly sucks.
I made it before I found out that Obtainium exists.
Even so, I'm glad I made it, because I learnt a lot while making it.
It is unlikely that it will be finished or even worked on any time soon.
It literally doesn't. F-droid has its own repo format, whereas this app gets releases from github releases directly.
Probably already exists.
We all put far too much faith in the github.com TLS cert.