* Withdrawal of GedStar Pro from Android Store

[AdrianBruce]

I've just noticed this on the GedStar Pro site http://gedstarpro.com/index.php

IMPORTANT NOTICE!
Effective 1 Jan 2018, GedStar will be removed from the Google Play app store and will be available only directly from this website. It has become too difficult to support this product due to the numerous changes in Windows, Android, and the genealogy software landscape and their respective development tools. Future changes, if any, will be noted here in the change log and made available on the download page. ...

This does not sound good for those of us who use it to display our data on our phones. I'm not wholly sure about the implications of stuff being loaded from outside Google's Play. At the very least, it's frowned upon, I think, if you want assurance about your software. And how long will it keep going?

[tatewise]

GedStar Pro originally required a small fee, but since I think Apr 2016 it has been free.
It seems unlikely that any further development will take place, so what you have now should not need updating.
In this particular case, I have no qualms about downloading directly from the website.

[AdrianBruce]

... It seems unlikely that any further development will take place, so what you have now should not need updating. ...

True, although a tweak to my Android might cause an issue... I suspect I'm more likely to hit any issues when I get a new phone and need to reload apps.

... In this particular case, I have no qualms about downloading directly from the website.

Agreed - the concern I had was more about the effect of opening up for this one, would I allow knock-on opening up for less welcome stuff? (Never done anything like that before). Digging around a bit (thanks to the GedStar Pro site) it appears that Allow installation of apps from unknown sources is the operative setting (this is in [Android] Settings / Security / Device Admin on my phone.) I can set that to 'allow' easily enough but it seems to me that it would be eminently sensible to dis-allow immediately after loading GedStar Pro.

[tatewise]

Absolutely correct.