Canon Print wanted

Hi,

I would like to team up my Fairphone 2 with Fairphone Open OS to my Canon MX 925 multifunction printer. Canon does have an Android app to do so, but as far as I could find out they only have it on the Playstore, but not for direct download from their website.

UpToDown does not carry it (they do have Epson…), but as long as I do not have my antivirus up and running (other thread - possible incompatibility of FP open with O2 Protect/McAfee Live Safe) I do not just want to google some private download site. APK from unknown sources might be infected with malware…

Does anyone know a reliable source for the Canon app, like an undocumented download URL from Canon themselves?

I wonder why Canon does not give the App for free download. They used to have terrific open source (i.e. Linux) support…

Thanks
Oliver

You could download it with Yalp Store like described here (Level 3):

Yalp Store works for non-paid as well as for paid apps, but can’t support in app purchases.

1 Like

Thanks. Question is: Is it secure?

Normally, yes as it download apps directly from google servers. But it is not as much trust-able as google-play app.
There a Q/A in the project main page : GitHub - yeriomin/YalpStore: Download apks from Google Play Store and a thread about this subject if you want to dig in : Security concerns about Yalp store · Issue #240 · yeriomin/YalpStore · GitHub

Please note that by default, it works without your google account. You can also login with your own login / pass but it violates the official “term of use” of google (as explained in the project main page).

Thanks. But I take it that one has to have a Google account? Which would enable Googles tracking… So what would be the benefit over a Playstore Installation?

No, as long as you just want to download free apps, you don’t.

You don’t need a Google account according to the Q&A linked above. (Read ‘How it works’)

Even if you would need a google account (which you won’t as @BeMiGro and @Johannes already pointed out) it would still be better than installing the google playstore app (aka “OpenGapps”). Playstore runs as system app and can do whatever it wants with your phone without you even realizing it. It’s not Open Source so you have no chance of knowing what it actually does.

Yalp store on the other hand is open source so everyone is free to check the code for what it actually does. It also doesn’t need System App rights (just normal app rights will do just fine).

1 Like

IMHO it is even much more trustworthy compared to the original playstore app.
After all Yalp is open source and cames without any advertising or user-tracking features. Nobody can tell anything like this on the Playstore. It’s neither open source, nor does anyone know in which way it tracks on what you do use your phone for.

I wrote a note to Canon support, asking whether they have a download link for me, and in this mail I mentioned that Epson’s app is available via UpToDown. And voilà. now Canon Print is also available via UpToDown… Note that support is different than Epson’s. While Epson has one on app for printer driver and scan facility, Canon has both. One pure print driver (if you do not want to scan or printer ist not equipped with a scanner, than this is all you need). And there is a full-blown app for both printing and scanning…

I tried both. Note that the pure driver does not show up in the app list, but when you have a doc open and start the print dialog, your Canon becomes a target for printing, and it works. The full-blown app just does all the tricks and equals the one from Epson, and does show up in the app list.

2 Likes

Canon Print is available via Yalp, I checked that out… And it works without a Google account, thanks.