Privacy switch: Distinction between dodgy Play Store apps and trustworthy F-Droid apps

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Hi Jolla peeps!

i am very excited for anyone who is going to the launch party tomorrow! I wish I could be there.

But I am excited to receive my 1st batch phone in the coming days (fingers crossed).

I hope someone can help me with my question below.

On the new Jolla 2026 phone, when I plan to use the privacy switch to switch off connectivity for the AppSupport apps, I’m really only interested in switching off connectivity for dodgy apps like Spotify and Whatsapp. I don’t want to switch off connectivity for apps which i have downloaded from places like f-droid. Can i make this distinction when configuring the privacy switch?

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If you build it yourself anything is possible. But that seems extremely unlikely to be standard functionality.

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Thinking about how one could build this themselves. You’d need to find a way of getting the install source of an app from the Android layer to the SailfishOS layer (assuming it’s always Sailfish that controls the switch).

Android does keep track of what installed an app, but this isn’t baked in to the APK or anything. You’d have to extract it from Android somehow.

I don’t own a Jolla phone (or any phone with SailfishOS) yet, but once it arrives this sounds like a fun project to start with.

3 Likes
4

Im 1958 or something in the first batch too and exited to get a notification its on is way but for me will probably tage some more weeks before they reach my number

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5

Thanks for your reply!

Or even if it’s configurable per app. If you could just tell it: “I want all comms cut off for Spotify and Whatsapp but not for any other apps”.

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This script allows you to block access to certain apps:

You could probably adapt it to do what you want

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Thank you! I will try this script once I have my new phone :grinning_face: