- Android customers now can not add all recordsdata to Nextcloud, simply because Google revoked a permission
- Nextcloud says Google is punishing smaller competition whilst protective its personal apps from restrictions
- Nextcloud customers now get a worse app revel in, no longer on account of failure, however gatekeeping
The skill to seamlessly add all kinds of recordsdata from Android to the cloud has grow to be a baseline expectation for contemporary customers, particularly those that depend on products and services like Nextcloud to regulate their information.
In a transfer that has sparked a backlash, Google has blocked complete record add functions within the Nextcloud Files Android app, mentioning “security concerns.”
This unmarried coverage exchange has considerably affected how customers engage with one of the vital main cloud garage products and services to be had as of late, elevating broader questions on equity, energy, and pageant within the virtual ecosystem.
Nextcloud claims unfair remedy below the guise of safety
While customers can nonetheless add media recordsdata corresponding to pictures and movies, a core characteristic for any individual in the hunt for the very best cloud garage for pictures, Nextcloud has been pressured to disable uploads for all different record varieties on Android.
According to Nextcloud, the problem stems from Google’s refusal to grant an crucial record permission that the app has used since 2011. This is the “All files access” permission, which permits an app to learn and write all recordsdata on a tool’s shared garage, no longer simply media recordsdata.
“To make it crystal clear: All of you as users have a worse Nextcloud Files client because Google wanted that. We understand and share your frustration, but there is nothing we can do,” the corporate mentioned in a press unlock.
Nextcloud argues that this isn’t simply a technical factor however a strategic one. The corporate claims it’s being boxed out, no longer for safety causes, however as it poses a aggressive risk to Google’s personal cloud ecosystem.
“Google owning the platform means they can – and are – giving themselves preferential treatment,” the corporate states, noting that Google’s personal apps, in addition to the ones from different Big Tech avid gamers, proceed to revel in the similar permissions that Nextcloud has now been denied.
Google’s advice to make use of choice frameworks just like the MediaStore API or SAF has no longer solved the problem. Nextcloud explains that those choices don’t meet its necessities, and reviewers have misunderstood their capability.
The scenario echoes Microsoft’s previous ways in restricting WordPerfect’s get admission to to Windows APIs, a ancient parallel that Nextcloud readily invokes.
Under the guise of person protection, Nextcloud claims, Google is making it more difficult to compete, in particular for smaller builders providing privacy-focused cloud backup answers.
While regulators are tasked with addressing such issues, Nextcloud notes that development is sluggish. A collective criticism filed in 2021 along 40 different organizations for the same factor has but to obtain a reaction.
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