Support push notifications for systems without Google Play Services

[nathan-sain]

Would it be possible to add support for push notifications using services other than F/GCM which requires Google Play Services?

For example, Pushy works on platforms which do not have Google Play Services installed. The Fastmail Android app uses Pushy on systems without support for F/GCM.

Although Pushy is a commercial service it is based upon MQTT, which is an open standard. There are open source libraries, servers, and clients available for MQTT which could allow Nextcloud administrators to run their own push notification message broker.

[mario]

There is already a discussion here about this: #58

As for the actual push infrastructure - sure, you could NOT rely on Google, but you'd also need to do changes to Nextcloud and the way it does push. Keep it mind very minimal amount of data is sent via push message, and it's all encrypted anyway.

I'll close this issue as there's already so much said about it in the issue mentioned above.

[nathan-sain]

That make sense. We can keep the discussion on #58. I did want to note that the Google Play Service isn't just a push notification service. It provides a large number of other services for the android platform that many of us are not comfortable with installing, regardless of the security of the F/GCM messages. For that reason IMHO it's worth having an alternative push option.

[mario]

@nathan-sain I completely understand. For now, you can install MicroG which allows you to use push while NOT having Google services installed.

[Joeviocoe]

Just to be clear, MicroG cannot just be "installed". It requires a custom ROM and possibly rooting\unlocked bootloader.

It's like trying to close one door, and another opens.

[ghost]

microg works yes, either by patching or by using a ROM that already supports microg.
I am using that regularly.

But the issue is not the privacy of data, which is ensured.

The issue is the reliance on google servers.

[05nelsonm]

Orbot Push Notifications that uses Tor hidden services.

guardianproject/orbot-android#282