When w11 announced that they were adding native support for rar, 7z, etc, it occurred to me that android also doesn’t support these and I found it really weird

  • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    People don’t tend to need to browse local archive formats on their phones I guess, and if they do, they’ll have a file manager app with support.

    There’s support for some formats if your files are in cloud storage like Google drive, which is a more likely use case for phone users

      • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        I suppose you’d fall into my “you’d install a file manager app if you actually needed it” category

          • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            I think a big part of it for RAR specifically is that it’s a proprietary format that would technically require Google to license it, and for the tiny percentage of users that would benefit, they don’t bother.

            A seemingly random but relevant example is the Japanese travel card situation with Pixel phones—every pixel on the planet has the necessary hardware to support Japanese travel cards since the pixel 6, however only pixel phones bought in Japan can use the feature (locked by the OS) because it would mean Google would have to pay a per-device cost worldwide.

            This is kinda a similar situation I’d bet, they’ve proven they would rather not include the feature than pay for licensing

            • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              I think a big part of it for RAR specifically is that it’s a proprietary format that would technically require Google to license it

              Unrar is free enough.

              • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                4 months ago

                And there’s not really any money to be made charging licenses to open source projects—see ffmpeg/vlc

                Google including it in android though means they can charge licenses as a per unit fee because, basically, Google (or phone manufacturers) is a company with money.

                • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  4 months ago

                  Google including it in android though means they can charge licenses as a per unit fee because, basically, Google (or phone manufacturers) is a company with money.

                  What? This has literally nothing to do with unrar’s license terms.

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Google isn’t exactly excited about the concept of local files. They would prefer you to keep everything in their online services.

    If you need support for these, then installing a separate file manager app is your best bet.
    I’m using this one: https://f-droid.org/packages/me.zhanghai.android.files/
    (No idea, though, if it supports unpacking RAR archives.)

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Google wants you to handle all your storage needs through Drive and Google Photos, where they are in control, can scrape more data, and push you onto paid storage plans.

    I can’t really see the benefit to Google in having an excellent local file manager with wide archive-file support. It doesn’t profit them in any way.

    Thankfully the workaround isn’t too bad, just installing an alternative file manager.

    • zelnix@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      NFS is shit anyway. It has no proper security unless you want to set up something like Kerberos (a major PITA)

      • ladfrombrad 🇬🇧@lemdro.idMEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Yeah no doubt, and that’s why I like Tailscale.

        I just map all users Tailnet visitors to guest, and give me r/w and all others r/o.

        Bugs me though that they could include it, with big red flashy warnings like you get enabling USB debugging.