Just wanted to post a single follow-up, other than that I'll not be continuing this topic.
First of all, I want to restate that I really appreciate all the hard work of
Ingbrzy,
Acid, and the whole Xiaomi.eu development team (I believe that
iBotPeaches of APK Tool fame is also a member).
Thank you all!
I admire your patience to deal with trivial support questions and all kinds of entitled demands you keep getting everyday, even more so as I would probably not have such patience myself.
That being said, my post was not one of these demands but was driven by a genuine interest in the long-term success of the project. The way I see it, this is not just about MIUI Browser or Chrome but a principle being tested, or implicitly decided here. Basically, it's about what kind of ROM Xiaomi.eu is, and there is a choice to be made here:
- Option 1: Remove bloatware and China-specific apps, improve English locale, add other translations, customize for international users but try to stay close to stock MIUI.
- Option 2: A hotch-potch of some people's favorite apps and some other people's favorite customizations on top of MIUI.
The reason I wrote my post is that I really hope you could go with the former. Otherwise, before we know it, you'll be bundling Angry Birds, as that's a great game everyone should try at least once in their life. It's an exaggeration, I know, but I've seen projects deteriorate like that. I really hope you don't shoot yourselves in the foot.
Btw replacing apk by older won't work... So users could had FC of browser for whole week and use alternative anyway.
I think, working under time pressure, you made a good decision this week to remove the force-closing MIUI Browser (of course), and perhaps to include some alternative, and Chrome is a popular one.
The question is what will you do
next week, when the stock browser issue likely gets fixed. And the week after that, when something like this happens again (it will), possibly with another app.
As I think it's mostly about the principles not the details I didn't want to get too technical, but there are some other options that could be considered.
- Revert to an older, working version (thank you for trying it this time!)
- Remove the offending app without replacement and let the users decide what to do
- Remove the stock app and install an AOSP alternative (in this case, the AOSP Browser)
Then, the following week:
- Fork a patched version of the app in the local repository if the issue persists.
- Merge the changes back when the issue gets resolved in stock
Chrome is not added as system app and can be uninstalled.
Thank you for doing it this way.
In short: Browser is Chinese product ok. We don't want Chinese s**t in our roms. Please read this thread again and again and you will understand.
I want to stay on topic so I'll be brief. I've just re-read my post and really could not find anything that could have possibly irked you to answer this way. I think the tone of your response is uncalled for, especially as I've read the thread very carefully before posting, and was not duplicating an already closed discussion.
More on topic, as for the bundled apps, it's not really much different than what Google is doing (take for instance the annoying search box on the stock Android Home screen, Talkback, etc.). Moreover, some of these MIUI apps are actually quite useful and it's not as much about
being Chinese but about
being in China. Who knows, if you're about to make a trip to the Middle Kingdom you might even want to flash the Chinese version temporarily. And if you're not, it's not really worth it to get frustrated about a business putting the most attention to where their largest customer base is.
Again, a big thank you to Xiaomi.eu developers for all the hard work. Please don't misconstrue anything I wrote. I'll not be writing about this topic anymore, unless specifically asked to respond.
.. Thanks for the weekly roms!
