As announced earlier, App Manager community channel will be discontinued in favour of App Manager community organisation currently hosted in GitHub. You can find these particular instructions in the issues section of Tips and Tricks repository for now. In the future, there will also be a community website. Benefits of this approach:
1. Better searching experience than Telegram
2. Accessible to anyone around the world, not just to the Telegram users
3. Ability to comment on each instruction
4. More community involvements.

Original announcement for community: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AppManagerChannel/145

In addition, we’re also looking for community maintainers and contributors. If you’re interested, you can leave a comment here.

#alpha #unstable #release
App Manager v4.0.0-alpha02

For contributors: Building App Manager now requires Java 17 (or later).

Main page
- [Batch ops] Added an option to create a new profile in the “Add to profile” dialog
- [Batch ops] Fixed saving APKS with dependencies

App Details page
- Improved loading performance
- Fixed setting mode for some app ops
In the app ops tab, the toggle button as well as the long click options attempts to alter the associated permission too if it exists. To bypass this behaviour, use “Set custom app op” from the three-dots menu instead.

App Info tab
- Added an option to create a new profile in the “Add to profile” dialog
- Improved performance by loading UI contents in the background
- Hide data usage for other users
Data usage section is hidden if the following conditions are true:
1. OS is Android 6.0 onwards
2. The app does not belong to the current user, and
3. Self or remote UID is not system UID.
- Fixed displaying wrong information regarding blocked trackers
- Prevented the app from crashing on attempting to enable battery optimisation of restricted apps
Battery optimisation cannot be enabled for system restricted apps.

Debloater
- Display a loader in details dialog to avoid freezing issues

Editor
- Check if the file is writable during “Save and exit”
- Prevented erroneous display of “Read only” warning for files that support writing

File Manager
- Display “Loading...” as the subnoscript instead of showing previous folder info
- Display only the filename in the “Open with…” dialog
- Display progress for batch rename, delete and paste operations
- Improved listing files in a directory, especially Storage Access Framework (SAF)
- Fixed displaying search bar in the “Open with…” dialog
- Fixed retrieving files if a folder contains thousands of files
- Prevented looping indefinitely when an inaccessible file is a symbolic link

Installer
- Fixed installing APK files queued in the background
- Fixed installing some signed APK files
Some signed APKs could not be installed due size mismatch.

Interceptor
- Added a few intent filters related to camera

Profile page
- Added an option to copy profile ID
- Display exit confirmation dialog if there are unsaved changes
- Display previously selected apps on top of the app list
- Display warning before deleting a profile
- Avoid creating duplicate profiles by auto-renaming the newly-created profile
- Fixed displaying backup options in configurations tab

Profiles page
- Added an option to copy profile ID
- Use profile ID instead of profile name for identifying each profile
In profile version 1, there's no difference between profile name and profile ID. But from profile version 2, a new field id shall be introduced which will be decoupled profile name from its ID, making it possible to use any name for profile or rename it. If you use automation, make sure to use profile ID instead of profile name.
- Auto-select the configured profile state in “Apply profile” dialog
- Handled applying multiple profiles using a queue
- Moved shortcut handling logic to a different activity
To avoid opening existing tasks from Recents, shortcuts are handled in a separate task.
- Optimised updating new or modified profile information

Running Apps page
- Fixed listing processes when some PIDs no longer exist

Security
- Check for zip-slip vulnerability before creating a folder or a symbolic link
- Disabled access to content:// in WebView
- Sanitize user inputs, intents when it involves files and filenames
- Use formatted string for logging to prevent log injections

Settings
- Fixed navigating one step back after a device configuration is changed

UI Tracker
- Added the ability to drag the icon when iconified
- Added the ability to drag the window outside the visible display
- Used 60% transparent window

Usage
- Fixed retrieving mobile data usage in Android 12 and earlier

Others
- Enabled fast scrolling in the user manual page
- Use definite mode of operation
When the mode of operation is set to auto, App Manager will attempt to find the best mode and set it as the current mode instead of “Auto” in order to improve the startup time as well as allow stable access of service via upcoming App Manager SDK.
- Use marquee texts in suggestions/dropdown menu
- Use wakelocks in long-running tasks to keep the CPU awake
- Fixed retrieving list of packages in some devices
- Fixed uploading APK files to VirusTotal
- Made setting UID/GID optional while extracting a tar archive
- Prevented the app from crashing due to forceDexOpt failing in Android 12
In Android 12, forceDexOpt always fails due to a bug in the Android framework. As a workaround, the optimisation is done via performDexOptMode imitating whatever forceDexOpt does.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/compare/v4.0.0-alpha01...v4.0.0-alpha02

#stable #release
App Manager v3.1.2

- [App Info] Hide data usage for other users
- [ADB] Fixed clicking the links in the “Incomplete USB debugging” dialog
- [Installer] Fixed installing some signed APK files
- [Docs] Fixed links to App Manager settings page
- [Installer] Fixed parsing unsigned APK files
- [Settings] Fixed navigating one step back after a device configuration is changed
- [Settings] Fixed saving a backup option: Cache
- [Batch Ops] Fixed saving APKS with dependencies
- Enabled fast scrolling in the user manual page
- Fixed extracting tar archives in a volume with no support for permissions, UID and/or GID
- Fixed navigating one step back after a device configuration is changed
- Prevented crashes in Android 14

Full Changelog: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/compare/v3.1.1...v3.1.2

Notice.

I’m temporarily disabling the security vulnerability reporting feature in GitHub due to the increasing number of spams. GitHub devs didn’t think anybody would spam there and left no option to delete those spams/fakes or report the spammers (which is weird because nowadays people even post fake CVEs). As a result, I’ve got a number of private forks of my own repositories created for those fake vulnerabilities that I cannot delete (again, because they left no option to delete those repositories). You can still report vulnerabilities in my email address: muntashirakon [at] riseup [dot] net.

#stable #release
App Manager v3.1.3

- Avoided displaying “Imported” message when no file is selected during importing rules from Watt or Blocker
- Avoided fetching app list for other users if there's not enough permission
- Fixed a typo in German strings
- Fixed installing apps for users other than the main user in no-root mode
- Fixed loading the list of packages in some devices
- Prevented the app from crashing when filename returned by SAF is null (empty)
- Skipped loading usage for uninstalled packages

Full Changelog: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/compare/v3.1.2...v3.1.3

Attention.

It appears some people are getting confused because there are several versions of App Manager available at a time. Here’s a brief denoscription of what to expect from each type of release in order of stability:
1. Stable: Very stable releases in terms of features*, expect no changes in any features in minor releases**. Good for day to day use and for those who do not want to see new features or face compatibility issues. Only stable releases ensure backward compability for certain features such as backup/restore or rules.
2. Release Candidate (RC): Mostly stable release but intended for smaller audience for a final check before the next major release. The users should expect no major issues with the new or existing features. RCs are feature-locked, that is, each RC only receives bug fixes. Usually, there will be two to three RCs before the next major release.
3. Beta: Beta testing of App Manager, intended for a wide range of tester including those who may not have any technical or platform-specific knowledge. The users should expect a lot of issues with the app and report them via official means.
4. Alpha: Alpha testing of App Manager, intended for long term testers with technical or platform-specific knowledge. The users should expect a lot of issues with the app, including some nasty bugs that might cause data loss.
5. Debug: Rolling release of App Manager built by GitHub Actions each time anything is pushed to the specificed branches of the App Manager repository in GitHub. Super unstable, expect a lot of bugs, including some nasty ones that might cause data loss. The signing key is also public. So, make sure you're installing them from the official sources.

* Bugs can exist because Android is a diverse ecosystem and interacting with the private APIs (that is, the Android features not meant for public use) have proven to be problematic, especially, in highly customised operating systems such as MIUI. In stable releases, bugs that require nasty workarounds may not be fixed.
** App Manager’s versioning is roughly based on semantic versioning, that is, each version has three numbers separated by dots. For example, v3.0.0 or v4.0.0 means that it is a major release with many new features and changes in the existing features, v3.1.0 or v4.1.0 means that it is a major release with changes in the existing features along with some minor new features, and v3.1.1 or v3.1.2 means that it is a minor release with some bug fixes and performance improvements, and so on.

I now have a personal account on Mastodon that you can follow: @muntashir@infosec.exchange

(I was never really active on Twitter in the last 14 years, but I'll try to be active on Mastodon.)

Notice. If you're seeing ads in this channel, you should know that it's only Durov's latest breach of promise and nothing else.

#stable #release
App Manager v3.1.4

- Fixed an intermittent crash in the App Info tab
- Fixed disabling components in Android 14

Full Changelog: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/compare/v3.1.3...v3.1.4

Funding App Manager, 2024

Background
All the projects I work on are hobby projects. However, with a growing number of users and requests since its release in May 2020, App Manager has become more than a hobby project. It currently has 243,000 lines of code (24,000 new lines since December 2022) and roughly 5,200 commits among which some 3,150 commits are my own. It is packed with so many features that one cannot count all of them, but at the same time, it is designed in such a way that most features are invisible to the users unless they look carefully. This design makes App Manager complex yet free from clutter. Most importantly, it offers a modern user interface based on latest technologies such as Material 3 and supports a wide range of devices (from Android Lollipop to Android 14) including Android tablets and TV. It also provides an extensive Documentation (in a website and within the app) with support for a few languages. This is why, within the 3 years of its existence, it has been downloaded over 190,000 times (110,000 more since December 2022) from GitHub (in addition to how many times it has been downloaded from F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, or other unofficial channels) despite it being completely absent from the mainstream app stores such as Google Play Store, and no advertisements. Thanks to the translators, it has also been translated or is actively being translated into 33 languages.

With more users comes more responsibilities as the number of issues and feature requests is ever on the increase. Those who are following the project from the start know that there used to be a support group on Telegram which was discontinued, as it quickly grew to be unmanageable for me. Besides, with such a large codebase, more capable hardware are required to develop, emulate and test the application in various ways to ensure it functions properly. As I have mentioned in the Readme page in GitHub or the donation section elsewhere, App Manager does not support donation, it only supports funding. This is due to fact that short-term donations do not ensure the longevity of a project. With that in mind, I have since been looking for long-term funding by contacting institutes and foundations, but so far (and considering the fact that we’re living in a difficult situation due to COVID-19 and subsequent wars), I have yet to secure any long-term funding, which is becoming increasingly necessary to sustain the project. So, I have decided to restart the funding campaign for App Manager for a second time. The purpose of the campaign is to ensure the longevity of the project by ensuring a fixed funding.

The campaign will last from 21 December 2023 to 31 May 2024 (roughly 5 months). This is different from the regular donations in the sense that I expect people to donate however much they can within this time frame. Since this campaign runs for 5 months, recurring donations are also possible for at least four months. Unlike the last campaign, the campaign will run on both Open Collective where you can contribute using PayPal, bank accounts, credit/debit cards, GitHub, and Patreon. See the FAQ below for details.

Summary
Campaign duration: 21 December 2023 to 1 April 2024 (~3 months)
Target amount: $6,000
Campaign website: https://opencollective.com/app-manager
Available payment methods: PayPal, Bank accounts, credit/debit cards
Direct links: Open Collective - GitHub - Patreon
Contact:
- E-mail: muntashirakon [at] riseup [dot] net
- GitHub: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon
- X: @AppManagerNews
- Mastodon: @appmanager@floss.social
- Matrix: @muntashir:matrix.org

Please convey this information to others who might be interested in funding App Manager.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Can I donate anonymously?
Open Collective supports guest donations where you can use a temporary email in the email section.

Where will the funding be spent?
The funding will be spent on buying new hardware, a domain, increasing my focus on open source projects in general by getting rid of other commitments, sending small gifts to the contributors and so on. Open Collective has an updates section where you will be able to see how the funding are being spent.

Would you accept recurring donations after the campaign?
If the campaign goes well, I will accept any donations for App Manager. In any case, you can still donate me via my page on Open Collective.

I want to provide funding from my organisation. Can I contribute here?
Yes, you can. However, if you are willing to contribute a large sum of money, you might want to contact me first.

Does App Manager support bounties?
No. App Manager only accepts funding. Features are prioritised according to the developer’s current state of mind.

Why is Patreon added this time?
A few people have suggested me to add Patreon as they were missing out due to the campaign being held only on Open Collective. However, Open Collective is still preferred over Patreon.

Is there any advantage of donating via Patreon?
No. Donations do not unlock any features or any additional support, both are provided for free. On the contrary, we prefer that you donate using Open Collective.