I may have come across an issue of SW (in)compatibility.
I wanted to install O2 Protect, which is a virus scan etc. SW. The reason why I chose this: It’s included in my cell phone provider’s contract…
Today O2 is a wholly owned subsidiary of spanish Telefonica (my contract actually dates back to good old E-Plus, that today is only a brand of Telefonica.
O2 Protect, despite the name is actually a McAfee product under the hood. You download it directly from O2/McAfee, but it’s also on the Google Playstore (which I do not have on FP Open OS).
It downloads and installs fine, but then it wants activation. To do so, it tries to send an SMS “home” with a plainly visible numeric code.
To all I can see, this works. Upon Installation the SW requests the right to access telephony API, I grant it, SMS is sent. Afterwards, it is visible in the list of all SMS messages. But despite that O2 Protect claims that there has been an errror, I should try again later. But now it failed three times on two days…
And unfortunately Telefonica/O2 ist not of much help. They do not have an e-mail address where I could open a service ticket, help center hotline is over-busy and I want to avoid the chat, because it leaves no traces…
I did enter the chat with O2, but they could not help me and opened a ticket for 2nd level support. I gave them all version numbers, patch level and kernel revision and asked them to express in the ticket, that FP Open OS is not “just” an alternative OS installed by rooting, but officially supported by Fairphone, and apart from the Google mobility suite and the playstore just a normal Android 6.01. Let’s hope for the best…
Yes. Especially without the Playstore, Fairphone Open does run a higher risk of malware infected .apk They have been found in fraudulent Playstore “alternatives”. F-Droid is unaffected, because they check, and because they got the source code. Open source is good, but not perfect. Sometimes proprietary software has it’s charms, too.
But e.g. Canon does not let you freely download Canon Print, or Minian Soft the ingenious Quickstocks. Or the best bike Navigation, Komoot.
I have no idea why their manufacturers won’t put the .apk on their web server. I speculate there is a contract with Google against doing so…
In the meantime I have received an SMS from O2 support. There they say I should give O2 Protect the right to access telephony (which I have granted) and I should only install the APK from McAfees homepage.
I started browsing on the “My O2” homepage. There under ‘contract’ is a link to download the APK of O2 Protect. This is on McAfees Homepage, so obviously this second issue from O2s SMS is also already verified in order.
That leaves only incompatibility with Fairphone Open OS as an explanation for the behaviour of this software.