Total Commander it is a name that has been missing on our pages for several years now – the last time it was talked about was still in 2015 – but the latest events involving the application have brought it back to the center of media attention. For those who don’t know what it is, Total Commander was one of the main ones file manager of the Windows Mobile scene, then landed on Android in 2011 and brought with it all the advanced file management features it was famous for.
Google took care of making an app like Total Commander current again specifically a letter sent to the TC team with which he comes sets the removal of one of the typical features of the application, i.e. the management of the sideload the APKs. Android has always been an open operating system, however Google has gradually begun to redefine the boundaries of what can and cannot be done within the stock experience (therefore without resorting to the root) and even the sideloading of applications does not seem to be particularly appreciated, especially when this is made possible by an app distributed on the Play Store.
THE REASONS FOR REMOVAL
According to Mountain View, in fact, Total Commander could have moved towards removal from the store due to abuse in the use of network and device management permissions. The dispute was resolved by eliminating the function responsible for this abuse, namely the one dedicated to the sidealoding of APKs.
All the details of the story have been illustrated in a post in the official forum of the project (you can find it in Source), however we can only see how the whole affair is decidedly suspicious, since Total Commander is a file manager and therefore it is not strange that it has to take care of installing apps from third-party sources. Despite this, the rules of the Play Store are clear and prohibit an app distributed in this way from executing code from sources other than the same Store. It will be interesting to see if Google will adopt the same policy against all other file managers who are in the same situation.
