For anyone using any Simple Mobile Tools app be aware that they were sold few days ago (4 dec 2023) to a very privacy unfriendly company:
https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241
Is suggested to remove them or stop updating them.
BTW the company is an israeli publisher that buys apps and fills them with ads asking weekly fees to avoid them…
Someone has made an alternatives list: https://libreddit.nullnet.services/r/SimpleMobileTools/comments/18929pq/simplemobiletools_was_sold_alternatives/
One of the dev of SMT has forked them: https://github.com/FossifyX
And another group of dev announced a fork too: https://github.com/goastian
News Source on Telegram: https://t.me/Libreware/1210
OP is correct but the wording is a little confusing. FossifyX was made by a developer originally from the project.
The other fork is made by a completely unrelated group, a for-profit called Astian. I’m a little concerned by them, as they have services to sell and they also acquired Midori, turning it into “a different browser”
that ditched WebKit for Google’s Chromium enginein the process.They did not ditch WebKit for Blink, they ditched it for Gecko (Firefox), which is a good thing IMO.
True. I’m still very suspicious of them, but I was completely wrong about that bit.
Once the fossify apps are on fdroid i will be moving to them
Same.
I use simple calendar widget’s agenda and monthly planner. Glad to hear they are being forked.
FFS, I moved from Quickpic for the same reason and now Simple Gallery Pro.
Ugh
Aves is really good. Used Simple Gallery Pro for years and it was great. But switching to Aves is painless for me.
Yeah, exactly the same here. Oh well, time to switch again.
FWIW, QuickPic Pro ad-free is available by Cheetah Mobile the company who bought it. Also a modded fork of the last verion before it was bundled with ads is available from github.
Cheetah Mobile aren’t exactly well known for their business ethics. Partly why a lot of folks bailed.
Anyone knows what F-Droid will do? Will they switch over to a fork? Maybe the people who installed it via F-Droid don’t have to switch at all. @fdroid
I don’t think they need to do anything. As long as an app meets the F-droid rules it should be fine. Only time will tell of the F-droid version becomes unmaintained
They stoped the updates That is enough for now
name was changed
Israeli, why I’m not surprised?
Because you seek to inject politicized drama into every aspect of your life?
Or bacause I actually read the news
Lmao, like any of us can avoid this topic, particularly online…