We feel your pain at Nextcloud. Our team at Everfind (unified search across Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.) has spent the past year fighting for the *drive.readonly* scope simply so we can download files, run OCR, and index their full-text for users. Google keeps telling us to make do with *drive.file* + *drive.metadata.readonly*, which breaks continuous discovery and cripples search results for any new or updated document.
Bottom line: Googles "least-privilege" rhetoric sounds noble, but in practice it gives Big Tech first-party apps privileged access while forcing independent vendors to ship half-working products - or get kicked out of the Play Store. The result is users lose features and choices, and small devs burn countless hours arguing with a copy-paste policy bot.
throw7 · 5m ago
This sounds exactly what anti-trust laws are for.
theodric · 33m ago
Sounds like it's time for an(other) antitrust lawsuit. At least Nextcloud is based in Europe, which has recently shown an appetite to stand up to tech giants on some things.
HPsquared · 10m ago
The question to ask is: do Google apps have an advantage here over others?
thombles · 1h ago
This is also why the official SyncThing Android app stopped being distributed. There is a fork but it's not available on the Play Store.
deng · 1h ago
The problem with the SyncThing Android app is that it's just a wrapper around SyncThing, which is a Go library, but SAF does not give you simple file descriptors you can use in native code. Instead, you get "content://" URLs, and you need a Java/Kotlin bridge to convert these to file descriptors. That would need to be done in SyncThing itself (EDIT: or some other trickery, because it seems like syncthing-fork made it work somehow).
However, AFAIK, this problem would not apply to the NextCloud app.
treyd · 58m ago
> and you need a Java/Kotlin bridge to convert these to file descriptors.
Do you need it in these languages or could you use anything that can make binder calls?
deng · 43m ago
To my knowledge you cannot access SAF through binder, for sure not officially.
I was a bit surprised that the official client suddenly disappeared though.
deng · 20m ago
From a very cursory look it seems like syncthing-fork uses ContentResolver and other stuff from SAF, so it seems they made it work.
The official maintainer of syncthing-fork indeed stopped publishing to Google Play, but it seems some other guy is doing that now for him.
inigoalonso · 4h ago
This is exactly why the EU's Digital Markets Act exists. And why it needs teeth. Google disabling Nextcloud's all-files access on Android, while quietly letting its own apps and big corporate players keep it, isn't about "security". It's about control. Nextcloud is a European, privacy-first alternative built on open standards and that can be fully aligned with GDPR requirements. Blocking its core functionality while favouring your own services is a textbook abuse of platform power. Android was supposed to be open, but moves like this show it (at least the Play Services verison) is just another walled garden. If the EU is serious about digital sovereignty and fair competition, this is the kind of behaviour that must be stopped. Otherwise, no European tech, no matter how compliant, open, or user-friendly, stands a chance.
jeroenhd · 2h ago
What apps in Google's ecosystem have the "all files" permission? Google Drive certainly doesn't. The "upload" button on GDrive prompts you to select a file just like NextCloud does.
The "sync just one folder" functionality exists in SAF without any high-risk permissions. Migration of existing profiles may be a pain (as the user would need to grant permission on the folder when switching to the new API).
Synchronisation of the entire virtual storage, the download folder, or any extra folders vendors like Samsung might've added to the blacklist, isn't possible with the new API, but it's also not possible with Google's own services. The DMA only requires Google not to be put in a special position; as long as they don't offer such a feature, they don't need to offer it to NextCloud.
darkwater · 4h ago
Waiting for the nitpicker crowd "you can install AOSP and/or sideload APKs easily, so there is no incumbent abuse here!", just like we had them for IE (you can install another browser) and iPhone (you can buy another brand).
Edit: oh we already have them in the other submission
geff82 · 2h ago
Just use e/os ! ;)
subscribed · 1h ago
Maybe something else instead. e/os famously leaves the bootloader gaping open after the installation (looks like relocking is only supported on Fairphones), is very late to release anything (their most recent ROM is still based on AOSP 14!), inc.securty updates.
Doesn't sound like a serious project.
em-bee · 32m ago
what else?
i'd rather have secure, stable and slow. i don't know about locking the bootloader (do you have a reference to that? i'd like to read up on it). but i don't care that their rom is always the most recent one.
what matters is that e/OS is the only rom i am aware of that combines usability with security. graphene OS doesn't count because it is only available on pixel phones and therefore very limited in applicability. others i don't know.
raverbashing · 3h ago
Yeah it's the "less space than a Nomad" people
I know, I used to be one of those
Hilift · 2h ago
Mobile is a second class operating system platform. A browser or OS you use on a desktop can easily be configured to block/filter things. Mobile users are exposed to popups/malware/DNS hijacking daily. If they didn't, mobile would not be the gravy train of clicks for advertisers.
jeroenhd · 2h ago
> SAF cannot be used, as it is for sharing/exposing our files to other apps
SAF can be used. There are reasons why this wouldn't be a good fit for NextCloud (you can't share your entire internal storage, your download folder, or the root of an SD card, for instance), but I don't think NextCloud's statement makes sense.
lozenge · 2h ago
The point of their app is to backup an entire folder. Sharing from one app to Nextcloud doesn't provide ongoing access to backup later versions of the file.
jeroenhd · 2h ago
Which they can do, using SAF, without the "access to everything everywhere" permission that they want.
sirdvd · 50m ago
> permission that they want
"they", in my case it's me. With on my own Nextcloud server, on my own LAN.
It's me that want "access to everything everywhere".
Difficult for me to think that is not about gate keeping from Google.
Google's former motto, "Don't be evil," was a key part of their corporate code of conduct, emphasizing ethical and transparent business practices. In 2015 the motto was removed, since then we are in their clutches. Now they are like Microsoft, that's the reason Nextcloud was created!
gitroom · 1h ago
damn this hits hard, i always feel locked out when stuff gets taken away like that - you ever wonder if tech shifts like this actually give us more control or just pull it away?
tacker2000 · 25m ago
Google abusing their power, as usual. I guess Google Drive doesnt have these restrictions, does it?
It's time the Europeans move together against these blatant antitrust violations.
yard2010 · 3h ago
Goddammit Pichai. We had something mediocre, why enshitify it to the oblivion?
Bottom line: Googles "least-privilege" rhetoric sounds noble, but in practice it gives Big Tech first-party apps privileged access while forcing independent vendors to ship half-working products - or get kicked out of the Play Store. The result is users lose features and choices, and small devs burn countless hours arguing with a copy-paste policy bot.
However, AFAIK, this problem would not apply to the NextCloud app.
Do you need it in these languages or could you use anything that can make binder calls?
I was a bit surprised that the official client suddenly disappeared though.
The official maintainer of syncthing-fork indeed stopped publishing to Google Play, but it seems some other guy is doing that now for him.
The "sync just one folder" functionality exists in SAF without any high-risk permissions. Migration of existing profiles may be a pain (as the user would need to grant permission on the folder when switching to the new API).
Synchronisation of the entire virtual storage, the download folder, or any extra folders vendors like Samsung might've added to the blacklist, isn't possible with the new API, but it's also not possible with Google's own services. The DMA only requires Google not to be put in a special position; as long as they don't offer such a feature, they don't need to offer it to NextCloud.
Edit: oh we already have them in the other submission
Doesn't sound like a serious project.
i'd rather have secure, stable and slow. i don't know about locking the bootloader (do you have a reference to that? i'd like to read up on it). but i don't care that their rom is always the most recent one.
what matters is that e/OS is the only rom i am aware of that combines usability with security. graphene OS doesn't count because it is only available on pixel phones and therefore very limited in applicability. others i don't know.
I know, I used to be one of those
SAF can be used. There are reasons why this wouldn't be a good fit for NextCloud (you can't share your entire internal storage, your download folder, or the root of an SD card, for instance), but I don't think NextCloud's statement makes sense.
"they", in my case it's me. With on my own Nextcloud server, on my own LAN. It's me that want "access to everything everywhere". Difficult for me to think that is not about gate keeping from Google.
https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/d...
This was discussed yesterday:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43970959
But yes this is shitty regarding google.