Questions and answers

Yes. There are no ads, in-app purchases or paid tiers, and I have no plans to add any or to sell Navis. I made it for myself and my friends, and I’ll keep maintaining it for us and for anyone else who finds it useful.

No. Navis works with Navidrome and other servers that support the Subsonic or OpenSubsonic API. I only use Navidrome and Lightweight Music Server (LMS) myself, and testing other servers properly would take a lot of time, so I don’t plan to support them unless Navis reaches a point where there’s nothing else left to do.

Google’s developer verification has failed for me more than 20 times. I’ve sent them more personal details than I’m comfortable with and contacted support again and again, with no result. I’ve run out of patience.

For now, Navis is an APK from this site or from the GitHub releases, with a SHA-256 checksum for every file. The download page explains how to install it.

Not yet. The AUR package is ready, but AUR registration is temporarily closed, so it can’t be released at the moment. Until it is, Arch Linux, CachyOS and Manjaro users can use the portable .tar.gz from the download page.

I don’t have a Mac or an iPhone to test on, and I don’t want to release something I can’t test. Navis is cross-platform, so the builds are possible. If you’d be willing to maintain them, get in touch.

Every download on this site comes from my Cloudflare servers at downloads.porthorion.com, not from GitHub, and so do Navis’s updates unless you switch the update source to GitHub in Settings > Integrations > Updates. Updates are verified the same way either way. The files attached to each GitHub release are identical copies, and the release notes link back to downloads.porthorion.com.

Whichever copy you have, you can check it against the SHA256SUMS file or the checksums on the download page.

Navis checks downloads.porthorion.com for a new version. The release list there is signed, and Navis checks the signature and the size and checksum of every download before installing it. On Android, it picks the build that matches your device.

You can turn automatic checks off or choose the update source in Settings > Integrations > Updates, and check by hand with Check for Updates in Settings > About. The .rpm package is updated through your package manager instead. If you’re on 1.4, Navis finds 1.5.0 the old way and switches to the new update checks after that.

Open an issue on GitHub. Suggestions are always welcome, and issues let me track them properly. For bugs, the contact page lists what helps me reproduce them. If something can’t go on GitHub, email [email protected].

No. There are no accounts, analytics, crash reports or logs sent to me. I don’t know how, where or by whom Navis is used, and I don’t want to, even though it means rare bugs have to be reproduced by hand.

Only the update check and downloads reach my servers, and they’re logged like any website visit. You can switch the update check off. Lyrics, artist information and the other online features talk to those services directly; the app privacy policy lists each one, and each has its own switch.

No software is perfectly secure, but I do my best. Every online service Navis talks to, from lyrics to update checks, is reached over HTTPS, your server password and ListenBrainz token are kept in your system’s secure storage, and each service only gets what it needs. Updates are signed, and Navis checks the signature and every download before it installs anything.

Your own server is reached at the address you enter, so use https://. Found a security problem? Please email me before sharing it publicly.

Very large libraries. A few friends and I run a project preserving music from video games and artists we’ve collected, and because it’s a group effort, the library has grown past 100,000 tracks. Many players start to break at that size; Navis is built and tested against it.

Yes. Navis is licensed under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later, and the source code is on GitHub. You can read it, build it yourself and change it. The licence page summarises what the GPL allows.

The Navis name and logo are reserved for my official builds, so if you publish a modified version, please give it a different name and icon. Official builds are on this site and on the GitHub releases, and every official APK is signed with the key whose fingerprint is on the download page.

Navis is free and always will be. If you’d like to support its development, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Donations are entirely optional and never unlock features or priority support.

Yes, and it sped up development a lot. I have a background in software engineering and review much of the logic and code that goes into Navis, but not all of it. I’d rather say that up front.