xwords/xwords4/android/website/sms.html

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<h2>CrossWords and Play-via-Data-SMS</h2>
<p>Play-via-Data-SMS is one of my favorite features of
CrossWords. It's super-reliable, and works between GSM phones
round-the-world without requiring any kind of server. Most apps
have servers in order to harvest saleable infomation about you
or to show ads, but CrossWords is ad-free (and not-for-profit)
and so has always supported this feature.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Google's decided there may be security problems
with SMS and is prohibiting most apps from continuing to send or
receive SMS (including Data SMS) if they want to be listed on
the Play Store. And so I've removed the feature from the
CrossWords "variant" that's available there. The feature
remains, however, in other variants, including those at:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/eehouse/xwords/releases/">Github
OpenSource repository</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/xwords/">Sourceforge
OpenSource repository</a></li>
<li><a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.eehouse.android.xw4/">F-droid
OpenSource "app store"</a></li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>(The GitHub and Sourceforge variants will install over the top
of the Play Store variant without problems. With the F-droid
variant, however, you'll have to uninstall your current
variant first, losing your games and settings.)</p>
<p>I've also written a data-SMS-forwarding app called
NBSProxy. With NBSProxy installed, CrossWords will be able to
communicate using Data SMS without the SMS permissions (since
NBSProxy has them, and is the one using Android's Data SMS
functionality.) Google says that apps whose core
functionality requires SMS permissions will be allowed on the
Play Store, so NBSProxy should be available there soon. In the
meantime, you
can <a href="https://github.com/eehouse/nbsproxy/releases">get
it from GitHub</a>.
</p>
<p>Side note: It'd be helpful to know how many people use the
Play-via-Data-SMS feature in deciding whether to keep these
separate variants going. Would you
mind <a href="mailto:xwords@eehouse.org">emailing me</a> and
letting me know whether you've found it useful?
</p>
<p>Thanks!
<br>
<br>
--Eric
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