Please read from top and click on the links provided, and do some reading
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Fork = For open source projects (where the code is available) anybody can download it, modify it and release it under a new name. It’s what “open source” means (to simplify)…
In this case it means somebody else took the original code and re-released the app under a new name.
Is it good or bad? Well, we’ll only know for sure after testing it. In this case, as you can read further up, the “Simple …” app suite was sold to an “untrustworthy” company, and people who had bought it (me included) were looking for a replacement. This new “fork” (version) might be the solution we’re looking for.
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And things seem to be as expected/feared.
To see what happens, I kept esp. the play store version of the original dialer - until today, that is. Now with today’s update, the dialler took it’s time trying to fire up, and NetGuard showed it wanted to establish a bunch of connections, including yandex-dot-ru (!).
Looking through recent comments at Google for some of the apps, it seems about the same happened (at least) with the messsenger app the other day already.
So it is indeed finally time to get rid of the “originals” and switch over to the Fossify versions (or at least use the “last known good” F-Droid variants and set them to locked).
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Thanks for the hint, although I had the F-Droid Versions installed with Fossify in parralel so far working fine.
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Fossify seems to be doing well as an alternative and is available in the play store 
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Not all apps are available in the Play Store: Gallery for instance isn’t.
Others are labeled “Early Access”, whatever this might mean (but I’d rather not use a beta program to handle my work contacts on my work phone!.. 
)
Beta would def not be in the Playstore and with Aurora I only see initial release, so no idea what you fear from those open source apps…
Well, they don’t actually say “beta”, they say “Early Access: This app is still in development. Be one of the first to try it and provide feedback.” 
Open source has nothing to do with it, I’m not afraid of some sneaky info stealing, I’m afraid of simple bugs… 
As you can read
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I haven’t looked at the play store versions, but with the ones (except for the calendar, I’m using aCalendar+) curr. on F-Droid I am quite satisfied - and enough to finally wipe the “originals”.
For that “little” information sneaking: The recently updated “original” phone app didn’t even want to start here (at least not w/in reasonable time) w/o network access, and it tried to connect to both the new owners and Yandex.
For my own part, I (and definitiely my contacts as well 
) got a MUCH bigger problem with that than with a few potential bugs.
Edit: Hesitations are of course ok. But note the Fossify stuff is not a reinvention of some wheel but a decent fork.
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Personally I don’t really understand how it can be a fork of a fully functioning app and still be considered Early Access. Maybe the developer is just super cautious?
I’ve been using Gallery from F-Droid for quite some time now. It’s basically the SMT version except green by default.
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Maybe just. a weird translation, because I dont see something about early access using Aurora store its just labeled
And thats what it is.
Okay, when I check it on the Play Store with my phone (Google account), I get the “Early Access” tag for all 5 of the available “Fossify” apps.
When I check it on the Play Store with my computer (without being logged into Google), I do not get the “Early Access” tag, only an “initial release” one like you.
Best guess is that it depends on Play Store knowing your phone’s/tablet’s exact specifications, but I could be wrong, and I definitely don’t have the time to check this out right now.
Even if it is a simple fork, it seems that there may be some small problems when making the transition from SimpleMobileTools to Fossify.
Here you can find the updated release status for fossify.org alternatives.
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