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I am using FireBase Dynamic Links and generating my links on the fly by concatenating documented parameters to get a link that either deep links into the application or prompts the user to install it and then recovers the link in the application, still.

But I am not able to figure out how to tell whether the application is installed so I can have the link say either "Install" or "Open" (or similar).

Is this functionality out of scope of FireBase Dynamic Links? Do I need to integrate FireBase auth somehow perhaps or is it completely not something FireBase SDK can do for me? Will Branch.io help me there? Other product / approach?

Alex Bauer
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Tomáš Hübelbauer
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1 Answers1

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Alex from Branch.io here:

This is out of scope for Firebase Dynamic Links. For obvious security reasons, Apple does not allow websites to detect if an app is installed or not. This means there is no way on the device alone to determine whether to show Open or Install.

Branch does offer this feature, but it is done on the backend. We associate a browser cookie with the user's device, and record which apps with Branch integrated have been opened on that device. It's still not completely watertight, because users can uninstall an app and we won't know about it until things fail the next time they attempt to open a Branch link for that app.

Though imperfect, this is currently the only approach available for solving the issue.

Alex Bauer
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