Add support for Android's backup mechanism

[cketti]

Implement BackupAgent that uses the settings import/export code.

See https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/autobackup and the discussion in pull request #3846.

[Micha-Btz]

There is a new open source backup application SeedVault this is included in more and more custom roms like AOSP,LOS,CalyOS,GrapheneOS, it would be nice if we can use this.

Technical it works like Google Backup,but to your own cloud or on the device /USB.

Android Developer enable Backup

What do you think?

Micha

[ghost]

Android has now option to enable backups, only if they are encrypted.

Info:
https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault/wiki/FAQ

And mentioned example how it was enabled in the Tranportr app:
grote/Transportr@4dc38f4

[ghost]

Please try to understand that it doesn't matter what behavior would be acceptable to you. This is something that needs to work for everyone.

Saving (potentially unencrypted) passwords to a backup provider needs to be opt-in, not opt-out via disabling the system's backup mechanism (that a lot of people probably don't even know about).

For an Android app, would it be possible to add a setting which edits the manifest of the app? Sorry if I'm wasting time.

[DoPeRaSo]

I do not understand, why Backups can at all be deactivated. It's one of the main requirements of each and any Application/System in the IT.

The current Android Backup Solution is one of the reasons I always root my phone, but right now I have to move over the data of a not-rooted phone to another one and it fails because of this design decision.
It's even more special as the configured mail provider uses device/app-specific passwords and it's now much more work to generate new passwords and move all that stuff over to the new one.

Please, rethink this. It was and is never a good decision to patronize users and disable important functionalities. Or with the words of "some other guy": Those who trade safety for freedom deserve neither. ;-)

[avanc]

Until now, I never used Google Backup, but setting up a new phone was always a pain. Last week I became aware that Seedvault supports backup to my own Nextcloud instance. Thus, I bought a refurbished Pixel phone and installed Calyxos today, set up Seedvault and ended in this ticket...

After reading through the comments I still have two questions open:

1. Why is it still an issue to not trust Google Backup although it can be enforced to only allow encrypted backups?
2. If the above is still an issue, would it be possible to publish a patched version to FDroid? I think it is a valid assumption that FDroid users are more privacy focused and do not use backup solutions blindly.

[jcz1]

Please allow safe backups at least for FDroid build.

[nazar-pc]

I really wanted to move from rooted phone to GrapheneOS, but the only way to create/restore backups there is SeedVault and it requires backup support. I see no issues with passwords or other credentials appearing in backups if backups themselves are encrypted. According to https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault/wiki/FAQ#why-do-some-apps-not-allow-to-get-backed-up it is trivial to enable support only in case client-side encryption is used.

It must be up to the user to backup things or not.

[hannesa2]

I have several Google accounts with (forced by Google) individual passwords and I'm annoyed during device change, to enter passwords again and again. So I made my own fork which can import/export passwords and includes #4700.
-Maybe someone is interested-