Are the F-Droid and Google Play releases identical?

MasterOne · April 3, 2021, 4:17am

I’m asking because nightlies are available in two versions (gplay and fat) , which have slightly different file sizes.

link2xt · April 3, 2021, 8:23am

They are functionally identical, but F-Droid releases are built on the F-Droid servers according to the recipe available at https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/blob/master/metadata/com.b44t.messenger.yml

I don’t know why gplay and fat variants have this size difference, they should differ only in the applicationId:

github.com

deltachat/deltachat-android/blob/4f31e90b6eae3ca2f2339a945dae9281439a0d8d/build.gradle#L171


        // so exceptions are needed and have to be maintained.
        // (see git-history and https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-android/issues/905 )
        //
        // nb: it is highly recommended to use the same settings in debug+release -
        // otherwise problems might be noticed delayed only
        minifyEnabled false
        signingConfig signingConfigs.release
    }
}

productFlavors {
    fat {
        dimension "none"
    }
    gplay {
        dimension "none"
        applicationId "chat.delta"
    }
}

android.applicationVariants.all { variant ->

I guess the difference in size is caused by the ZIP compression of APKs and is more or less random. Sometimes fat is larger than gplay, sometimes gplay is larger than fat (here: Index of /android/nightly/2021-03-30/).

F-Droid is a fat version, but built by F-Droid servers and signed with F-Droid key.

MasterOne · April 7, 2021, 4:14am

Not sure what fat version means, but if an app is available on both F-Droid and Google Play Store, I will always prefer to use F-Droid for installation and updating, unless there really is a difference in functionality that may matter (like with Nextcloud Talk, which has GCM integration in the Play Store version, but not in the F-Droid version).

code1234 · October 5, 2021, 4:10pm

Okay, but besides the fdroid and play store versions,
which is the different instead of the two versions under the nightly folder?

I mean, why are there FAT and GPLAY versions ?

Both have Android Debug as LDAP name, so I assume that FAT doesn’t refer to fdroid, right ?

And why they change apk signature every day?
This makes them non-upgradeable

code1234 · October 5, 2021, 4:24pm

And I would also ask:

for nightlies, at this point is it worth installing the builted apk every day if the version remains the same instead?

darhma · October 5, 2021, 4:39pm

Sorry for the OT, but to get notifications from nextcloud talk in the f-droid version you can install NextcloudServices from f-droid.