install_referrer intent deprecation

Question

I have received email from google:

We recently announced that we’ll be deprecating the install_referrer intent broadcast mechanism. Because one or more of your apps uses this intent to track referrals, we wanted to ensure you make the switch before March 1, 2020. After this date, new versions of the Play Store app will no longer broadcast the install_referrer intent after app installs.

I am not using install_referrer directly, but while browsing merged manifest i discovered that some firebase service named with package name com.google.firebase.measurement use it.

My firebase dependencies updated to latest version.

Should I care about it?

Answer 1

From Firebase support:

This is a great catch. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. There's no need [to take] action from your end as of now, I've created an internal request so we could provide an alternative for the install_referrer intent broadcast before its deprecation. As of now, we are yet to find out any details or timelines as to when it will be implemented. You can check our release notes from time to time for any updates about Firebase features and its services.

Strange that Google's products are not synchronized.

However if you are not using Firebase and your app contains third party libraries that use install_referrer kindly check directly with them.

To find in which library install_referrer included, open merged manifest and search for install_referrer, check the package name of the service in which the install_referrer included.

Answer 2

com.google.firebase:firebase-core:17.2.1 and com.google.firebase:firebase-analytics:17.2.1 add INSTALL_REFERRER to AndroidManifest. Probably need to wait till Firebase team updates these packages to use the new API.

Answer 3

Various SDKs can register a receiver for the install referrer.

For developers who are unsure about which SDK added a receiver to your manifest it's useful to look at the manifest merge blame file. Typically, in build/ there's a file intermediates/manifest_merge_blame_file/release/manifest-merger-blame-release-report.txt

In that file you'll need to find receivers that have

<action android:name="com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER" />

in it's intent-filter, and the line before it will indicate what the source of that line is in your manifest.

For instance, the relevant lines for one of my apps looks like this:

44        <receiver
44-->[com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:15.10] .../jetified-appbrain-sdk-15.10/AndroidManifest.xml:29:9-35:20
45            android:name="com.appbrain.ReferrerReceiver"
45-->[com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:15.10] .../jetified-appbrain-sdk-15.10/AndroidManifest.xml:30:13-57
46            android:exported="true" >
46-->[com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:15.10] .../jetified-appbrain-sdk-15.10/AndroidManifest.xml:31:13-36
47            <intent-filter>
47-->[com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:15.10] .../jetified-appbrain-sdk-15.10/AndroidManifest.xml:32:13-34:29
48                <action android:name="com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER" />
48-->[com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:15.10] .../jetified-appbrain-sdk-15.10/AndroidManifest.xml:33:17-79
48-->[com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:15.10] .../jetified-appbrain-sdk-15.10/AndroidManifest.xml:33:25-76
49            </intent-filter>
50        </receiver>

This shows that the AppBrain SDK (of which I'm one of the developers) adds a receiver for the install referrer. The following image from our blogpost explaining what exactly changes (https://medium.com/appbrain/the-google-play-referrer-api-and-the-appbrain-sdk-38cfbaa350dc) is clarifying what Google is changing: