Android Apps: Use AMDroid and Solid Explorer

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Android Apps: Use AMDroid and Solid Explorer

cage-free egghead: Mar 8, 2004

LastInLine posted:

I know I'll be writing up a comparison if my friend still hasn't committed to one anyway so I'll go ahead and do so for you too. He's got needs like having to get some older folks using it so he's sensitive to bad UI.

Here's the example that got me to just give up on Bitwarden:

I did manage to get Bitwarden to kinda work for bank details. I have a terrible banking site I have to use for my car payment that will not remember external bank details for payments, i.e. every time you have to reenter the routing and account numbers. I figured out you can make Bitwarden fill in any form with arbitrary data by inspecting the element and using the ID for that particular field. Okay, that's great but you still have to tuck the data under some entry and the account I'm drawing from doesn't have a debit card associated with it so Bitwarden didn't have a category for it so I'd have to search for it using the extension every time.

Here's the thing, if the payment data is on the main page of the extension you can click to auto fill and it works as expected. If you *search* for an item, autofill is listed but doesn't work. You have to manually copy and paste each item, searching for the item both times as it doesn't remember you just used it. According to Github that bug is nine months old.

In LastPass if you right click on a page, there's always a selection for other which leads to all your identities, bank details, and cards, and you can copypaste or try to autofill any of them at any time. Realizing that I was going to be doing this every month for years was what made me throw in the towel.

In terms of credential change detection and credential fills, Bitwarden was great. It was just a buildup of workarounds that started to irk me.

Outside of bank details would you still recommend Bitwarden? I've been on LastPass for like 5 years and have been curious about alternatives. I only need password management, I don't need banking details or CC entries.

# ? Jan 29, 2020 15:21

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 28, 2024 14:14

Echophonic: Sep 16, 2005; ha;lp; Gun Saliva

LastInLine posted:

Bitwarden really comes across as KeePass that someone cared about. It's got all the stuff that KeePass people like about KeePass, like open source and self hosting and security audits, but it's also got *just* enough polish that I think a non-nerd could use it. Instead of multiple clients written by random people for each platform there's one app that works and looks the same across all platforms. Instead of you juggling a database and managing its encryption it gives you sensible defaults and handles that for you. The whole point of using a password manager is to make it so easy to be secure using a password manager that it's easier to use than just having passwords you memorize because that's how you get regular people to have good practices. There simply isn't an argument that KeePass clears that hurdle whereas Bitwarden does.

Had it just been me and not me and my wife using LastPass I probably would've sucked it up and kept using it, faults and all. I'll admit that most of its shortcomings could be worked around with some effort.

I should say that I understand there are always people, surely over-represented in a thread devoted to talking about phone software, who insist on doing things the hard way because that's how nerds are. They're the same people who, 20 years ago, couldn't use mp3s or m4as but insisted on ogg and flac files and would never give up on the days spent organizing their music because that made them feel superior to the people who pressed the "Let iTunes handle your music" button and literally never worried about any of that for even a second. If you're one of those people then Bitwarden isn't for you, it just doesn't scratch the same itch and I'm betting more than a few KeePass users fall into that camp. If you're one of the people who let iTunes handle their music, however, I think you'll find it to be a step up.

I think you'll find there is little to lose by giving it a trial and running both side by side for a bit.

Thank you for respecting my nerdy desire to do things the hard way. :v:

You definitely make a good case for BitWarden, I'll probably give it a look when I get a chance.

# ? Jan 29, 2020 16:39

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

cage-free egghead posted:

Outside of bank details would you still recommend Bitwarden? I've been on LastPass for like 5 years and have been curious about alternatives. I only need password management, I don't need banking details or CC entries.

I too only use it for passwords and it works great, for me.

# ? Jan 29, 2020 23:22

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

Vykk.Draygo posted:

FWIW, both the article you quoted, and the article the article quotes, both say that only the G Suite version of hangouts is being shut down, but regular standard consumer Hangouts is unaffected.

Yes but as far as I know consumer Hangouts is still planned for shutdown and migration to Hangouts Chat but that announcement is over a year old, the G Suite Hangouts shutdown was punted to June 2020, and nothing's been said about the consumer version since the initial announcement. Considering they've already announced the shutdown of what they were planning to migrate to, well...

I just threw in the towel and moved to SMS/RCS for everything.

cage-free egghead posted:

Outside of bank details would you still recommend Bitwarden? I've been on LastPass for like 5 years and have been curious about alternatives. I only need password management, I don't need banking details or CC entries.

Yeah I think I would, especially if it's only for two people. Following Bitwarden's LastPass import instructions worked flawlessly. It warns about a possible substitution problem but that didn't happen for me. Total setup and transfer time was under 30 minutes for me, you can easily run side by side for a while to see what you think. The free version is all you need to know for sure if it's for you.

If you only care about credentials, compared to LastPass I think the biggest drawbacks are aesthetics and flow. One thing that bugged the hell out of me was being unable to hide the badge on the extension icon showing the number of logins for a given site so I took to hiding the icon altogether. It makes doing stuff like getting to the generator for new logins harder, which is a rare occurrence, and it means you'll use the context menu or hotkey to fill but that's easy to learn. Bitwarden does not use javascript to insert icons/shortcuts into credential fields at all.

The Bitwarden vault is every bit as useless as LastPass's but in a different way. It doesn't insist on imposing an organizational structure the way LastPass does but it's still crappy in terms of showing you things that might need more attention, like aging, leaked, and weak credentials. It's very much a different not better scenario.

I did not test out sharing but it sounds like that's a real weak point of 1Password but really nice in LastPass and decent enough in Bitwarden.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 06:04

Vykk.Draygo: Jan 17, 2004; I say salesmen and women of the world unite!

LastInLine posted:

Yes but as far as I know consumer Hangouts is still planned for shutdown and migration to Hangouts Chat but that announcement is over a year old, the G Suite Hangouts shutdown was punted to June 2020, and nothing's been said about the consumer version since the initial announcement. Considering they've already announced the shutdown of what they were planning to migrate to, well...

I just threw in the towel and moved to SMS/RCS for everything.

It would be a real shame to shut down hangouts, and I hope Google realizes this, as it's one of the last popular chat services that doesn't require a phone number. My 8 year old uses it to communicate with some of her friends, and I'm not going to get her a phone yet, so SMS/Allo/Whatsapp/etc aren't options.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 13:44

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Vykk.Draygo posted:

It would be a real shame to shut down hangouts, and I hope Google realizes this, as it's one of the last popular chat services that doesn't require a phone number. My 8 year old uses it to communicate with some of her friends, and I'm not going to get her a phone yet, so SMS/Allo/Whatsapp/etc aren't options.

I'm using Google Voice. Hangouts is basically essential for me, since it's the only way to text with that number.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 13:58

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Been using AMDroid for a few months at the recommendation of goons and I like it quite a bit. It does something weird though- whenever I walk out of the train station on my way home work, it kicks on with a pre-alarm, despite the fact that none of my active alarms are using pre-alarms. To say nothing of the fact that I don't have any alarms set for weekday afternoons. Any idea what's going on with that?

E: Also every time I restart my phone the app tells me that I "missed an alarm while your phone was off" for all of 20 seconds. That's not normal right?

C-Euro fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jan 30, 2020

# ? Jan 30, 2020 22:34

bbcisdabomb: Jan 15, 2008; SHEESH

I found the real killer problem for Bitwarden that will stall out even the die-hardiest people: Searching "bitwarden" on Google doesn't bring a link to the homepage. On a lark, I tried it on Bing and got bitwarden.com as the first link.

What the gently caress, Google?

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:16

Rooted Vegetable: Jun 1, 2002

[: Seaquote="bbcisdabomb" post="502086506"]
"bitwarden" on Google doesn't bring a link to the homepage.
[/quote]

Bitwarden.com is my first result on Google.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:29

Squatch Ambassador: Nov 12, 2008; What? Never seen a shaved Squatch before?

bbcisdabomb posted:

I found the real killer problem for Bitwarden that will stall out even the die-hardiest people: Searching "bitwarden" on Google doesn't bring a link to the homepage. On a lark, I tried it on Bing and got bitwarden.com as the first link.

What the gently caress, Google?

Bitwarden.com is the first result I google it in both regular and incognito tabs. Followed by the Wikipedia entry, their twitter, Chrome extension page, Apple App Store page, etc. All of those pages have direct links to their main website, and those results are followed by reviews that also have links to Bitwarden's website.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:31

vyst: Aug 25, 2009

Google search has been sliding since they haven't really been doing a good job of mitigating link farms and recycled content sites. Not that they probably care since those sites are probably piped with google ads.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:40

bbcisdabomb: Jan 15, 2008; SHEESH

I saw bitwarden with the Twitter logo underneath and managed to gloss the two together in my head. Whoops!

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:45

Skarsnik: Oct 21, 2008; I...AM...RUUUDE!

So i can now add an assistant routine to alarms again. Nothing has updated so must have been a switch broken somewhere server side

I am taking full credit as I sent an email (and didn't get even an automated reply back )

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:49

Squatch Ambassador: Nov 12, 2008; What? Never seen a shaved Squatch before?

bbcisdabomb posted:

I saw bitwarden with the Twitter logo underneath and managed to gloss the two together in my head. Whoops!

Yeah, it's not presented very well and easy to miss. The result for their main website is literally just "bitwarden.com" without any of the text and such you normally look for in a non-advertisement result.

# ? Jan 30, 2020 23:51

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

C-Euro posted:

Been using AMDroid for a few months at the recommendation of goons and I like it quite a bit. It does something weird though- whenever I walk out of the train station on my way home work, it kicks on with a pre-alarm, despite the fact that none of my active alarms are using pre-alarms. To say nothing of the fact that I don't have any alarms set for weekday afternoons. Any idea what's going on with that?

E: Also every time I restart my phone the app tells me that I "missed an alarm while your phone was off" for all of 20 seconds. That's not normal right?

I'd use the in-app support channel to ask the devs but are you using the location feature in the app? If so does disabling it change anything?

# ? Jan 31, 2020 02:37

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

LastInLine posted:

I'd use the in-app support channel to ask the devs but are you using the location feature in the app? If so does disabling it change anything?

I am not.

# ? Jan 31, 2020 21:23

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

LastInLine posted:

What's your screen time out and snooze intervals set to?

It was the dumbshit Samsung Screensaver thing I never bothered disabling. :v:

AMdroid snooze works great now.

# ? Jan 31, 2020 22:56

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

C-Euro posted:

I am not.

Yeah I'm out of ideas. Do the train station alarms show in the history? I don't even know if pre-alarms that get disabled show in history.

Quick fix would be to assign silence as the pre-alarm tone. I'd really like to know if you get it properly diagnosed, every aspect is confusing.

# ? Feb 1, 2020 05:46

Vykk.Draygo: Jan 17, 2004; I say salesmen and women of the world unite!

C-Euro posted:

Been using AMDroid for a few months at the recommendation of goons and I like it quite a bit. It does something weird though- whenever I walk out of the train station on my way home work, it kicks on with a pre-alarm, despite the fact that none of my active alarms are using pre-alarms. To say nothing of the fact that I don't have any alarms set for weekday afternoons. Any idea what's going on with that?

E: Also every time I restart my phone the app tells me that I "missed an alarm while your phone was off" for all of 20 seconds. That's not normal right?

This is a long shot because it would be too big of a coincidence, but I seem to remember that sometimes connecting to certain wifi APs could change your time zone. Perhaps your phone is briefly being changed to a time zone where your alarm would be getting ready to go off.

Or maybe it's just a weird bug from losing signal on the train.

# ? Feb 1, 2020 14:56

sleepwalkers: Dec 7, 2008

LastInLine posted:

I did not test out sharing but it sounds like that's a real weak point of 1Password but really nice in LastPass and decent enough in Bitwarden.

I don�t know if it�s new but you can share access to vaults in 1Pass now.

Also for anyone who hasn�t discovered it, when your password manager fails to pick up a login/password field, long press it and tap �autofill� et voila.

# ? Feb 1, 2020 15:25

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

sleepwalkers posted:

I don’t know if it’s new but you can share access to vaults in 1Pass now.

That's what I've read and understood but one has to admit that's a lot less useful than just being able to arbitrarily share any password with anyone at any time which is how LastPass works. I think in practice it's not a big deal, one would just edit the password to be in the shared vault, but it's a less intuitive mental model.

As a reference, Bitwarden works the 1Password way except they call shared vaults "collections" and while unintuitive to me, a LastPass user, it wasn't difficult to figure out.

# ? Feb 1, 2020 19:21

Rooted Vegetable: Jun 1, 2002

LastInLine posted:

.

As a reference, Bitwarden works the 1Password way except they call shared vaults "collections" and while unintuitive to me, a LastPass user, it wasn't difficult to figure out.

Agreed that collections was one of the harder things to get the hang of, but once I did it was fine. Effectively the password record goes into the collection and that collection owns it. Each user is added to the collection and can see it all.

# ? Feb 1, 2020 19:50

Ham Equity: Apr 16, 2013; The first thing we do, let's kill all the cars.; Grimey Drawer

I use Google News and Brave Browser. I'd like Google News to open all stories I open in Brave; Brave is my default browser. I can get it to open in Brave by selecting "view original website" after opening a story, but I can't find a way to get it to do it by default. Anyone know if there's a way to get it to do that?

# ? Feb 2, 2020 05:47

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Thanatosian posted:

I use Google News and Brave Browser. I'd like Google News to open all stories I open in Brave; Brave is my default browser. I can get it to open in Brave by selecting "view original website" after opening a story, but I can't find a way to get it to do it by default. Anyone know if there's a way to get it to do that?

Is it using WebView within the news app? Trying to understand what you mean. Android has a minimal chrome browser that can open links within apps without opening a whole browser app.

You can see in developer options here:

# ? Feb 2, 2020 07:31

Sneeze Party: Apr 26, 2002; These are, by far, the most brilliant photographs that I have ever seen, and you are a GOD AMONG MEN.; Toilet Rascal

A while ago, I posted in this thread that AMDroid would turn my screen on and go to the home screen if the Night Clock was on, about 10 minutes prior to an alarm. Someone mentioned that it might have to do with notification priority. I couldn't fix the problem. Finally, I e-mailed AMDroid support and they got back to me. Turns out that it is a known behavior. This is the response I got from support:

quote:

Indeed, on Android 10 the night clock screen stops 10 minutes prior to the alarm for technical reasons. I took a note and we'll try to look into this and come back with a fix so it won't show the bright screen, thank you!

I wonder why this behavior is intended?

# ? Feb 2, 2020 17:25

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Is there any way to get Maps to stop putting a red dot on the "for you" icon on the bottom?

# ? Feb 2, 2020 19:02

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

hooah posted:

Is there any way to get Maps to stop putting a red dot on the "for you" icon on the bottom?

Visit it?

# ? Feb 2, 2020 19:56

Ham Equity: Apr 16, 2013; The first thing we do, let's kill all the cars.; Grimey Drawer

CLAM DOWN posted:

Is it using WebView within the news app? Trying to understand what you mean. Android has a minimal chrome browser that can open links within apps without opening a whole browser app.

You can see in developer options here:

Yeah, that's the functionality I'm talking about, I didn't know what it was called, thank you. Is there a way to get Google News to use the default browser instead of WebView? Disabling WebView just makes it crash whenever I click on a story.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 20:03

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Thanatosian posted:

Yeah, that's the functionality I'm talking about, I didn't know what it was called, thank you. Is there a way to get Google News to use the default browser instead of WebView? Disabling WebView just makes it crash whenever I click on a story.

I did a brief check of the News app and it doesn't look like that's an option. Sorry!

# ? Feb 2, 2020 20:27

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

LastInLine posted:

Visit it?

I have, several times. It just keeps reappearing.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 20:44

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

hooah posted:

I have, several times. It just keeps reappearing.

Visit it every day, or better multiple times a day. Never close it. Become one with the "For You" tab. The algorithm demands it.

Seriously it's obvious the dot will show up all the time to help their engagement stats. You can ignore it, but that's the limit to your control over it.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 21:01

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

LastInLine posted:

Visit it every day, or better multiple times a day. Never close it. Become one with the "For You" tab. The algorithm demands it.

Seriously it's obvious the dot will show up all the time to help their engagement stats. You can ignore it, but that's the limit to your control over it.

Ugh. I figured as much, but hoped there was a way to shut it up.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 21:15

Ham Equity: Apr 16, 2013; The first thing we do, let's kill all the cars.; Grimey Drawer

CLAM DOWN posted:

I did a brief check of the News app and it doesn't look like that's an option. Sorry!

That's what I figured, just hoping someone had a hack. Thanks.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 21:30

Teeter: Jul 21, 2005; Hey guys! I'm having a good time, what about you?

What are some of the better alternatives to Instagram/Facebook for cross-platform video messaging these days? I deleted my accounts to those a while ago but could really use a good solution for sending 10 second videos of my puppy to SO's iPhone.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 21:51

Skarsnik: Oct 21, 2008; I...AM...RUUUDE!

Teeter posted:

What are some of the better alternatives to Instagram/Facebook for cross-platform video messaging these days? I deleted my accounts to those a while ago but could really use a good solution for sending 10 second videos of my puppy to SO's iPhone.

If you just want to do that, Google photos. Or you you talking live video?

# ? Feb 2, 2020 22:01

Teeter: Jul 21, 2005; Hey guys! I'm having a good time, what about you?

Skarsnik posted:

If you just want to do that, Google photos. Or you you talking live video?

Not live like video calls e.g. Facetime, but a text messaging app that can also support short in-line videos. We used to use FB messenger but have been left with regular sms ever since deleting my account and that can't really do video. I'm mostly curious if there are any current alternatives or if I'm best off making a dummy FB account solely for messenger.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 22:18

Uthor: Jul 9, 2006; Gummy Bear Heaven ... It's where I go when the world is too mean.

Whatsapp, Snapchat, I think you can use Messenger without an account, Signal, linking to Photos or OneDrive or Dropbox, sending email.

# ? Feb 2, 2020 22:33

Maker Of Shoes: Sep 4, 2006; AWWWW YISSSSSSSSSS
DIS IS MAH JAM!!!!!!

Just link to Google Photos. it drops you right at a page with a play button

# ? Feb 2, 2020 23:09

seravid: Apr 21, 2010; Let me tell you of the world I used to know

Is there a way to lock settings with a password or actually disable them? I'd like to turn off stuff like Data and Wi-Fi and keep them off. One of those parental controls apps, maybe?

# ? Feb 3, 2020 01:38

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 28, 2024 14:14

Skarsnik: Oct 21, 2008; I...AM...RUUUDE!

Teeter posted:

Not live like video calls e.g. Facetime, but a text messaging app that can also support short in-line videos. We used to use FB messenger but have been left with regular sms ever since deleting my account and that can't really do video. I'm mostly curious if there are any current alternatives or if I'm best off making a dummy FB account solely for messenger.

Photos actually has a chat thing in it now that you can share photos and videos in so that might actually work for you

# ? Feb 3, 2020 05:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Android Apps: Use AMDroid and Solid Explorer

«‹›336 »