Android doesn’t allow you to install an older version of an app over a new version. F-Droid has the UI for it but it doesn’t work, the security policy prevents the install.
There’s probably a good reasons for that, but I can’t think of it other than the flawed reasoning of “it can’t be a good idea to roll back an update”. I’m sure even Google can imagine a situation where, say, an app update got infected with malware or something like that and it’s in everyone’s best interest to roll back to the previous version until a clean update arrives. Preventing rollback means the only way to do that is for the user to manually uninstall the app and reinstall the desired version.
Okay, I can think of a possible reason for that policy: it prevents malware from downgrading a target app to a former (official, signed) version which can be exploited. I don’t know how realistic this scenario is, though.
Apps (almost) always take upgrades into consideration when it comes to migrating data. However they (almost) never take downgrades into consideration.
This is part standard across all software. Migrating forward can already be difficult, but backwards can be impossible, especially if data was lost in the move forward.
Android doesn’t allow you to install an older version of an app over a new version. F-Droid has the UI for it but it doesn’t work, the security policy prevents the install.
There’s probably a good reasons for that, but I can’t think of it other than the flawed reasoning of “it can’t be a good idea to roll back an update”. I’m sure even Google can imagine a situation where, say, an app update got infected with malware or something like that and it’s in everyone’s best interest to roll back to the previous version until a clean update arrives. Preventing rollback means the only way to do that is for the user to manually uninstall the app and reinstall the desired version.
Okay, I can think of a possible reason for that policy: it prevents malware from downgrading a target app to a former (official, signed) version which can be exploited. I don’t know how realistic this scenario is, though.
Apps (almost) always take upgrades into consideration when it comes to migrating data. However they (almost) never take downgrades into consideration.
This is part standard across all software. Migrating forward can already be difficult, but backwards can be impossible, especially if data was lost in the move forward.