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by oakwhiz 1989 days ago
I was going to recommend the open source "Barcode Scanner" app also known as "zxing" on GitHub. However when looking at the app's page, I noticed that someone seems to be engaging in some kind of review-bombing with that app. There are tons of reviews claiming that it was recently updated and has highly intrusive full page popup ads. But looking at the version info, the app hasn't seen an update for over 2 years and the repository is in maintenance mode, and I nor anybody else that I know has seen a single ad when using it.

I wonder if this is a concerted effort to steer impressionable people away from a "real" FOSS QR code reader app and direct them to a malicious one instead, using scare tactics.
1 comments
rozab 1989 days ago
If you say "OK Google, scan a QR code", it opens up Google Lens which does the job but only seems to be accessible through voice on my device
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pja 1989 days ago
On my Android phone if you open the camera App there's a Google Lens icon at top left next to the menu hamburger icon.
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scatters 1989 days ago
You can access it without voice, by opening Assistant (long-press Home, double-press Power, etc.) and then typing "Lens" into the search box.

Ridiculously, there's no way that I can see to get an app shortcut icon to it.

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abraham 1989 days ago
The is a Lens app you can install to get an icon. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.ar....

Note: I work at Google but not on Android/Lens

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scatters 1989 days ago
OK, I've done that. It's pretty crazy that the app takes up 40MB just to add an icon to my apps menu.
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jimmySixDOF 1989 days ago
I also use Lense for QR and like any typical app just installed through Play and launch normally.

Voice Assist is yet another privacy invasion vector imho, there are too many anecdotal first hand accounts of someone talking about fishing and suddenly getting banner adds for boat trips everywhere.

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chopin24 1989 days ago
You don’t think it’s more likely that a person who talked about fishing also searched for fishing gear using Google? Or “Likes” fishing on Facebook? Or follows a fishing person on Twitter?

The technology and storage that would be required to parse non-device-directed speech doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be profitable since there are so many other reliable signals that are much cheaper.

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