Discontinuing syncthing-android
forum.syncthing.net
Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version. Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires ...

Announcement by the creator: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002

Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version.

Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires even without doing much, if any, changes.

Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!

    • imsodin@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      Oh don’t worry to much, mine too: If there wasn’t an alternative for syncthing on android, I might have kept it on lifesupport :)

        • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          Syncthing-fork. Both show if you search for Syncthing in fdroid. Since imsodin seems to be OP Dev maintainer for Syncthing, i think he is referring to the fork.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.ccEnglish
            1·
            10 days ago

            Ooh.

            Thanks.

            I’ve been running the fork for a long time but somehow figured it was a soft-fork and maybe not really viable without upstream development from syncthing.

            Now @imsodin@infosec.pub 's comments are making a lot more sense.

            This whole thing is more or less a non-issue then?

      • Atemu@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        What’s the history behind this? Why could the changes be done upstream, necessitating a fork?

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          Sounds like the original maintainer is tired of maintaining it, and the amount of community support wasn’t enough to justify continuing to put in the effort. And then Google’s packaging process pushed it over the edge, hence retiring the project.

          The fork is just another person deciding to take up maintenance of the project.

  • Churbleyimyam@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    10 days ago

    I’ve installed it from F-droid but still. Fuck google. They really do need breaking up.

    I heavily rely on Syncthing. Does anyone know what the outlook is for Syncthing-fork, or what the likelihood is of someone taking on maintenance of this version?

  • xodoh74984@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 days ago

    This is sad. Google Play should never hold this much weight in the self hosted community. For Android users dedicated to open source software, F-Droid is the target.

    I don’t think SyncThing users would have much issue with the app disappearing from Google. Doing away with Google is the goal.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      As much as I want to use F-Droid, my work blocks all third party app stores so it’s either have access to my work stuff on one phone (via profiles) or dual wield two phones.

      I lack the patience to dual wield again. It’s very annoying.

      • Derin@lemmy.beru.coEnglish
        1·
        10 days ago

        I’m annoyed to see you getting down voted - I had a similar issue years ago with my work MacBook (couldn’t run a custom WM because any modification to the Finder was blocked without putting the machine into “unsafe” mode).

        I love OSS, but without a verifiable way to distribute it large swaths of the workforce won’t be able to use it.

        F-Droid is great, but sadly it isn’t enough.

        • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          10 days ago

          I was today years old when I learned that you can run a custom WM on a Mac.

          That’s like…the equivalent of a coca cola soda machine dispensing Pepsi.

          And in terms of down votes, I don’t really care too much. It evens out overtime.

      • Atemu@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        Is this your personal phone? If your work were to dictate what you are allowed to install on your personal phone, that’d be a serious overstepping of bounds.

        Perhaps you can sneak in f-droid via adb install and give it app installation permissions via ADB though.

        • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          My primary phone belongs to my work. I get a stipend every two years that essentially allows me to buy any supported phone I want.

          The conditions are that it’s managed by them via MDM and all my work stuff is on the work profile side.

          It is a choice I make since it allows me to not carry two phones. I did that for the first two years at my company and it was annoying.

    • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
      0·
      11 days ago

      The problem is not “Syncthing users” it is the others that we bring along with us.

      I already have F-Droid on my phone, but the dozen others that I have promoted Syncthing to over the years do not. This is going to cause a bunch of problems.

      This is much more important than what you portray here.

      • tychosmoose@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        11 days ago

        That and the shrinking ability to grant access to device storage. If that becomes an option only on rooted phones (which seems like the directly Google is heading) it will make the audience for such an app much smaller.

            • LiveLM@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              10 days ago

              This is my currently dilemma.
              Each year Android becomes more restrictive like iOS with none of the benefits, Rooting becomes harder as more apps tap into the Play Integrity API (and strong Integrity is on the way to kill most workarounds for it), iPhone got a little better but is still locked down as fuck, where the hell do I go to? 😒

  • SolidGrue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    11 days ago

    For the F-droid enabled users, it seems there’s a Syncthing app in the Termux repos:

    ~ $ apt show syncthing
Package: syncthing
Version: 1.28.0
Maintainer: @termux
Installed-Size: 26.4 MB
Homepage: https://syncthing.net/
Download-Size: 7857 kB
APT-Sources: https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-main stable/main aarch64 Packages
Description: Decentralized file synchronization
  • imsodin@infosec.pubEnglish
    1·
    10 days ago

    I am not the creator, funnily that is/was one of the Lemmy creators: Nutomic :)
    I am a syncthing co-maintainer that kept the android app on life support since a while.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      THANK you for the hard work! Your app is part of my phone photo and appdata backup.

      Side question: Will you continue with a fork for f-droid?

      • imsodin@infosec.pubEnglish
        1·
        10 days ago

        As the statement says I wont - it will be fully discontinued. This statement applies to the official app only. It doesn’t say anything about other apps or forks - any existing once can and hopefully will continue to exist. Also all the code is free.

  • ma1w4re@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    11 days ago

    OH NO, I hope the fork will continue for a bit otherwise I’m so cooked 🥶🥶🥶

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    Hoping it remains viable for a long time without updates. Syncing my KeePass database is really key for me. I need to fluidly add and read passwords from at least 3 devices.

    • stepan@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      With today’s BitWarden drama, I planned to use KeePass with SyncThing for like an hour before seeing this :(((