FairEmail developer calls it quits and pulls apps from Google Play
The developer of the open source email client FairEmail pulled all of his applications from Google Play and announced that he would stop development.
Update: FairEmail is available again and the issue on Google Play is resolved. End
FairEmail was a popular email client for Google's Android operating system that was free to use. It was privacy-friendly, had no limitations in regards to email accounts that users could set up in the app, supported unified inbox, conversation threading, two-way synchronizing, support for OpenPGP, and a lot more.
Marcel Bokhorst, the developer of the application, announced major changes to the project yesterday on XDA Developers. According to the thread on the forum, Bokhorst pulled all of his applications from the Google Play store and announced that he would stop supporting and maintaining them.
Earlier that week, Bokhorst received a policy violation email from Google stating that Google believed that the FairEmail application was spyware. The full statement has not been published, but Bokhorst believes that Google might have misinterpreted the use of favicons in the app. He resubmitted a new version of the application that had the use of favicons removed.
The appeal he received as a response "resulted in a standard answer". While the content of the answer is unclear, it appears to have been a generic answer that Google Play Store developers have been frustrated with for a long time.
Bokhorst decided to pull the application and all of his other applications from the Google Play Store. The apps won't be maintained and supported anymore according to the info.
Other factors played a role in Bokhorst's decision, including the discrepancy between answering thousands of support questions per month and the application's revenue, and the inability to do something against unfair reviews in the Google Play Store.
He considered keeping the applications on GitHub, but this would result in an 98% loss of audience.
The GitHub repositories are still available but archived. Users may still download the latest release from the repository and install it on their devices. The unsupported apps will continue to work but there won't be any future updates anymore. Eventually, the apps may stop working altogether.
The application could get forked and another developer could take over development of the application. Whether that is a realistic scenario remains to be seen, considering that the Google Play Store policy violation is still looming over the app.
Closing Words
FairEmail users may continue using the application for the foreseeable future, even with it pulled from Google Play. FairEmail's developer is not the first who experienced the often unfriendly nature of the Google Play Store policy violation restoration process.
If you're looking for an alternative email client, you can try K-9 Mail, it is also open source.
It is not a good day for Android apps, Total Commander's developer was forced by Google to remove the ability to install APKs from the File Manager.
Now You: did you use FairEmail?
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
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Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
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Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
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Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!