Posts about android
DigID APK voor Android beschikbaar stellen
TL;DR: Beste rijksoverheid / digid / logius, maak de digid app a.u.b. als APK download beschikbaar (dat kan vrij eenvoudig) en idealiter daarna ook als open source beschikbaar. Verder overweeg HOTP en TOTP (in combinatie met FreeOTP) als vervanging van SMS voor 2FA.
TL;DR2: Beste mede-burger, laat digid weten dat je ook een APK beschikbaar wilt hebben. Stuur hiervoor via Twitter een berichtje naar @digidwebcare of een e-mail naar info@digid.nl . Voor het gemak, een voorbeeld tweet/email: "Beste Digid, graag zou ik Digid app via een Android APK download willen installeren. Zou u die beschikbaar willen stellen? #digidandroid"
Android's best kept secret
TL;DR: Android has a secret which, apparently, is still not well known. It is... the 'skip' button, because you do not need a Google account to use your Android smartphone.
Recently my wife switched over to a new mobile phone ( Fairphone ). During the setup, I showed her the 'skip' button. With that, you can skip the Google registration of your phone (which most people believe is mandatory, but is actually optional). So you are not required to agree to Google's Terms of Service.
After skipping the registration and entering Google account credentials, you will be presented with an Android phone. The things you'll likely notice to be 'missing' is the Google Play Store, Google's Youtube etc... After installing F-droid, an open source marketplace, you'll be able to find and install many useful applications. If you still need some proprietary apps, most of them are also available as an APK download from the website of the vendor (example: Signal and Whatsapp).
If a vendor only provides their app via the Google Play Store, contact them about it. Of course you can download the APK via a 3rd party website, but that can be insecure. It would be much better if the vendor would publish the APK (or even better, make the application open source).
Local OsmAnd and Geo URL's
Earlier this year I went on a long holiday to Japan and China. I have an Android phone and am a very big fan of OpenStreetMap. So I used OsmAnd (which uses OpenStreetMap data) to navigate through those countries. I made a spreadsheet with LibreOffice, which included a few links to certain location which are hard to find or do not have an address. Then I exported that .ods to a .pdf and was able to click on the links, which then openend perfectly in OsmAnd.
Signal Private Messenger
Finally I switched solely to Signal Private Messenger today. Signal has an Android and iPhone app and even a Desktop version (for Linux, Mac and Windows) and they work well. They also feature voice and video chat, so basically I'm not missing any features. It is also Open Source and even Bits Of Freedom is positive about it.
Android without a Google account
My girlfriends phone broke this week and I gave her my spare (old) Samsung Galaxy S4, which I had replaced due to glitches (like not seeing the SIM card regularly). But it worked most of the time and a simple reboot would fix the issue. At the end of the next day she told me that her mobile internet was not working and I was surprised. I did not modify anything, so the Telfort configuration must have come from the network. On their website you are able to find the correct settings, but you have to follow a terribly inefficient, phone specific wizard and are guided step-by-step (e.g. user friendly) to correctly configure the settings. The settings basically boil down to:
APN: internet MCC: 204 MNC: 12 Accesspoint type: default,supl
Then I simply saved and enabled this and all was well again.
For those who are interested, a proxy server (with port) was configured and encryption was enabled.
Fixed Telfort mobile internet on my girlfriends phone
My girlfriends phone broke this week and I gave her my spare (old) Samsung Galaxy S4, which I had replaced due to glitches (like not seeing the SIM card regularly). But it worked most of the time and a simple reboot would fix the issue. At the end of the next day she told me that her mobile internet was not working and I was surprised. I did not modify anything, so the Telfort configuration must have come from the network. On their website you are able to find the correct settings, but you have to follow a terribly inefficient, phone specific wizard and are guided step-by-step (e.g. user friendly) to correctly configure the settings. The settings basically boil down to:
APN: internet MCC: 204 MNC: 12 Accesspoint type: default,supl
Then I simply saved and enabled this and all was well again.
For those who are interested, a proxy server (with port) was configured and encryption was enabled.