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Comment by kej | Hacker News Reader

To save the next person a few clicks, these are Android apps forked from the Simple Mobile Tools collection when that was sold to ZipoApps.

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I used to use many apps from Simple Mobile Tools and migrated to Fossify's forks when the whole acquisition thing happened. I just went back to check the Simple Mobile Tools to see the effect form ZipooApps' acquisition [1]. What a calamity. Most of them require way more permissions than they used to before the purchase, have trackers, ads and scam-feeling weekly subscriptions. Also probably in breach of the GPL licence they used to have, unless they have removed all the code contributed by third parties, as their GitHub [2] hasn't been updated, but the apps in the Play Store clearly have. And I seriously doubt they distribute the source code in any other way.

1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=821434617619498026...

2: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools

I switched to Goodwy. Granted they arent the best since they lock a lot of basic features behind paywall it does the job and their themes are actually decent and feel modern considering they use Material.

WEEKLY subscriptions?!

I just checked, and according to the reviews on the flashlight app the weekly subscription is $14.99 to remove ads. For a flashlight.

That's so unhinged it's almost funny again. I mean someone who pays 60$ a month for a flashlight app almost deserves it. Almost.

I assume they trick people with dark patterns and free trials so that they don't even know they are susbcribing or what's the price

Was there any setup required after switching to the forked version? There's a lot of settings I've tweaked in the SMT apps over time, and I'm sure I'd miss some if I migrated over.

they are new apps with a different name, so i don't think they would be able to access to existing settings unless there is an export/import feature.

but given that SMT apps are now effectively malware you really should switch anyways.

I've always used the ones from fdroid, so the only change I noticed was them not getting updates anymore.

Thanks.

Simple Mobile Gallery was removed from Fdroid so I wasn't getting updates.

Migrated to this.

The recorder app sucks though, which is a shame.

Agreed. I was surprised of how bad it was compared to their other apps (their calendar app). The recordings are faint/muted and it seems to have reliability issues.

Luckily there are quality options to choose from on fdroid.

Any recommendations?

I need opus at low bitrates that works in the background and haven't foud anything that really works for me on fdroid.

Thanks mate

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