Some Android phones are SD Card capable, and this storage extensibility is one of the key attractive features why people use Android and not iOS.
However, as of Android KitKat (4.4) Google removed the possibility for developers to be able to write files anywhere on the SD Card, instead they can now write to a specific location, and all the files written in it are deleted when the application is uninstalled by the user.
The only two logical reasons we can understand Google did this are the following:
1. Cleanliness. Apps leaving a lot of app specific files in the SD card and not being able to clean up on uninstall (as Android does not notify the app that’s being uninstalled of such an important event)
2. Security. Apps being able to write on each other’s folders, which is unsafe and which can lead to other apps breaking.
Now developers can still write to the SD card, but only into a specific Private folder designated for each app, however there is one big caveat, when an app is removed, that private folder is removed and all files in it are lost forever.
but what about apps that need to leave files behind even after being unsintalled?
yeah, apps like photo apps, video apps, downloader apps like FrostWire…
Oh, for that you gotta use the “public folders” in the phone’s internal memory (which by some odd historical reasons they call “external storage”, which is very confusing) which runs out pretty quickly as every other app needs to do the same.
We’ve tried to exhaust every possible option to write files on the SD card on a location that won’t be deleted, but it’s really impossible to do so (and even though we could do it with a hack, it wouldn’t work on all Android devices)
Google has removed an important freedom, instead of giving developers a persistent app related public location on the SD card that would survive after uninstalling, or to at least leave things the way they were before the KitKat update and add a new ON_UNINSTALL Intent for apps to have a chance to cleanup before being uninstalled.
SD Card Storage is Coming Back as a best effort solution.
We’ve decided to bring SD Card Storage back as an advanced option, it does not make sense to have a downloader application on a phone/tablet with lots of secondary storage and not use it.
We think many users are probably uninstalling FrostWire because they think “it takes too much space” even though this is not our intention, things are this way because Google decided it that way, a-la Apple.
In our next release, you will be able to change the default storage location into your SD Card, but you will be warned and reminded of the risks you face by doing so, remember to synchronize your FrostWire downloaded files outside of your device, or to make a backup of the files before uninstaling FrostWire, which we hope you won’t have to as we’re working hard to give you the best downloader app in the world.
This is the best we can do at the moment, we hope Google changes its mind, we think these policies reflect poor judgement and decision making on their part, as they are continuosly removing important freedoms that make Android such an attractive platform in the first place.
Gubatron
Lead Developer
Here’s a few screenshots of our upcoming Android update, now featuring a full featured music player which sports a lot of new features, including Lock Screen Integration, notification window integration, gestured based skipping/pausing/resuming/stopping, playlist viewing, horizontal layouts and more.
Install FrostWire now on your Android, 100% Free
A new major release of FrostWire for Android (1.3.0) is finally out after 5 long months of coding and testing. Thanks to everyone supporting the project! be it with code, translations, spreading the word or sending donations, without you this release wouldn’t be possible.
The most important changes done in this release have a lot to do with the Bittorrent core engine, significant improvements in memory handling (less unexpected crashes due to out of memory errors, and the app should feel a lot snappier than 1.2.2 when you switch screens and scroll through search results) and lots of details related to user experience.
BitTorrent Improvements
The entire BitTorrent core was replaced with the latest stable source code from the Azureus Project, during this integration we enabled a few features that we didn’t have before on Android, the most important ones being:
User Interface/User Experience Improvements
The “Transfers” screen got a lot of love.
Other user experience improvements include search result thumbnails (when available), making the search experience more intuitive and less Reading-Intensive if you recognize the thumbnail of what you are looking for.
FrostClick/FrostWire promotional images are now displayed the same way across all devices when you first open the app, please support these artists by downloading and seeding their free content, you might discover a favorite new artist to follow.
You can get FrostWire for Android 1.3.0 on Google Play or on our website
(submission pending for the Amazon App Market)
Full Changelog
FrostWire 1.3.0 - APR/30/2014 - Upgraded BitTorrent engine with latest code from Azureus project. - Added uTP packet congestion support. - Added Canonical Peer Priority support. (BEP40) - Upgraded Android SDK target to Ice Cream Sandwich's API (15 - Android 4.0.3). Users on Android devices running older versions will have to use FrostWire 1.2.3 or upgrade their operating system to +4.0.3 to receive further updates. - Removed cling library for Local peer discovery, switched to JmDNS compatible with frostwire for desktop 5.7.1. - Considerable memory handling improvements, lots of leaks fixed which should lead to very little out of memory errors from crashing the app. - Added optional sponsored search results by Appia. - Minor upgrades to audio player and Frostclick.com's free promotional downloads. - Added TPB, Torrents.fm, Monova and Yify search. Search results available only when on a Wi-Fi connection. - Magnet URI support when touching a magnet link on a web site. - Paste a magnet or .torrent URI on the Transfers screen to start a download. - Some search results now have image thumbnails. More coming. - When internet connection is dropped, ongoing transfers are automatically paused and restored when internet connection comes back. - Corrected file sizes on SoundCloud search results. - Multiple bug fixes.
Welcome to a new series of FrostWire for Android.
The first thing you will notice is our switch to flat-land design while still keeping our flavor.
A flat user interface means not using any gradients, this makes screen painting faster and more energy efficient, as well as less memory intensive.
New Search
Search now reveals a lot of search results you may have been missing.
FrostWire is a file type agnostic search tool for your mobile, on this release you will be able to see in real time the number of search results you get per file type (Audio, Video, Documents, Programs and Torrents)
We’ve also made a lot of upgrades under the hood that will make search feel faster and better than ever.
A few new search engines have been added to FrostWire’s smart meta search, and more are coming on further releases of the 1.2.x series.
Our first attempt at a navigation menu was ridden with bugs that have been solved with a completely new menu that comes on top from the left side.
Renewed Audio Player
The audio player screen got some love too, notice the new flat buttons, flat progress bar, and new long press gesture on the pause button to completely stop the current song being played.
On the top right there’s a menu with more options, including an option to delete the current track if you don’t like it, something you’d never be able to do with a iOS devices and iTunes.
Also, you can switch songs by swiping your finger to the left or right, and if you want to pause a song you can swipe down with 2 fingers.
Full Changelog
FrostWire 1.2.0 – NOV/01/2013
– New Flat Skin makes screens rendering faster.
– New, more stable, slide in navigation menu.
– Considerable memory usage optimizations.
– Fixed skip-song gesture on top of player seek bar.
– New icons.
– After opening one of My Files, FrostWire will now remember the position of the list of files, no more scrolling down to continue browsing your own files.
– Current song being played now is displayed at the bottom of the navigation menu.
– Current song being played now shows “Stop” icon when browsing your own audio files.
– Updated turkish translation, thanks @Serrae.
– New BitSnoop metasearch.
– New TorLock metasearch.
– Removed ISOHunt metasearch.
– Fixed Monova metasearch.
– French translation updated.
FrostWire is a very powerful research tool, its smart file meta search can find millions of files in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses, among those, many unvaluable books, instructional videos and lectures in every academic discipline.
The One Laptop Per Child project is an amazing educational initiative that has put technology in the hands of over 2.5 million children worldwide, truly transformative stories have ocurred in the process, many will give you the goosebumps to hear.
More recently the project has recognized the evolution in personal computing technology and the advent of tablet devices, and their new iteration is a tablet, an Android tablet.
FrostWire runs on Android, now OLPC users will be able to use the powerful FrostWire smart file meta search technology and Wi-Fi sharing capabilities to discover, learn and share.
About One Laptop Per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a project supported by the Miami-based One Laptop per Child Association (OLPCA) and the Cambridge-based OLPC Foundation (OLPCF), two U.S. non-profit organizations set up to oversee the creation of affordable educational devices for use in the developing world. The project was originally funded by member organizations such as AMD, Chi Mei, eBay, Google, Marvell Technology Group, News Corporation, Nortel, Red Hat, and Quanta.
it is highly recommended that you update your FrostWire for Android on this release as it contains very important fixes related to the search experience, lot better now.
Oh, and it should be OUYA compatible too 🙂
Changelog
FrostWire 1.1.4 – OCT/11/2013
– Audio player shows correct android notification when paused.
– Fixes ExtraTorrent meta search.
– Removed Vertor meta search. No longer serving .torrents without captcha.
– Updated arabic translation, thanks @nisrmasr.
– Updated spanish translation, thanks @muckachina.
– Updated portuguese translation, thanks @tati110.
– Updated french translation.
– Updated turkish translation.
– Updated polish translation.
– New anonymous usage stats.
– Fixed crashes and NPEs.
Grab a copy, and while you’re at it, order a few free FrostWire stickers to put on your phone or tablet.
You can use the menu entry on the top right of the music player > Stop.
Or you can Long press the Play/Pause button and the audio playback will completely stop and memory will be freed.
A new FrostWire for Android is out, it fixes multiple crashes and uses several megabytes less of memory, it should perform better than ever, users with older Android models should feel the improvement. Issues with soundcloud search have been fixed. New user interface elements regarding Wi-Fi sharing. Now you can fully stop the audio player by long pressing on the pause button.
Final Changelog
FrostWire 1.1.2 – SEP/03/2013
– Removed offers during installation to comply with new Google Play guidelines.
– New: Stop music playback completely by long pressing the play/pause button.
– New: Audio Player menu now has “Delete this track” feature, get rid of songs
you don’t like on your device next time you come across them and keep playing.
– New: Turn on/off wifi sharing from Wi-Fi sharing screen. Turning off Wi-Fi
sharing results in considerable battery savings since the radio is not being
used constantly to discover and announce to other peers on the local network.
– Sources on search results are now underlined to hint user of sourc checking feature.
– Fixes issues parsing some YouTube urls.
– Fixes soundcloud search.
– Improved memory usage and multiple memory leaks fixes will avoid a multiple
number of crashes due to out of memory errors, specially on older devices
with limited memory availability.
– Fixes issue with double memory allocation related to
first creen’s grid view.
– Fixed some memory leaks related to picasso bitmap
allocations.
Official FrostWire Blog 