AllAgainstCovid is the new tracking application to combat the Covid 19 epidemic and alert people if they are potential cases contacts. How it works, what’s new, what’s new with StopCovid, personal data and battery impact.

What is AllAgainstCovid for and how?

The application principle remains unchanged from the objectives of StopCovid: This is a tracking app whose main purpose is to warn the user if he has been in contact with an individual tested positive to Covid-19. It works with Bluetooth, which must always be activated on the smartphone. The platform can then determine with which other smartphones on which AllAgainstCovid is installed your own mobile has been close and thus know who has crossed with whom. The application takes into account contacts less than one meter away for at least 15 minutes so as not to bomb users with false alarms. When a person is tested positive to the new coronavirus, then they can declare themselves infected on the application, which will then notify individuals who have been in contact with them for an extended period during the contagious period (which starts from the 48h before the start date of the symptoms or seven days before their positive test if the person is asymptomatic). The informed user can then self-contain as a precaution and take a test to find out if he has contracted the virus. This mode of operation means that a large part of the population adopts TousAntiCovid so that it can be really effective. Currently, the target of 20 million active users is far from being met, as only 4.4 million downloads have been made (knowing that a user may have downloaded the app several times, or downloaded it, but not used it).

How to download AllAgainstCovid on Android and iOS?

AllAgainstCovid is of course a free application. It is available on the Play Store for Android smartphones and on the App Store for iPhone owners. For users who had already installed StopCovid on their mobile, they just need to update the app to get AllAgainstCovid, which is an important update from its predecessor, but not a brand new app that starts from scratch. The features are in theory the same on Android and iOS, but in fact the application works less well on iOS. Indeed, development teams have decided to dispense with the protocols of Google and Apple for concerns of independence towards the two giants. And while tracing is still possible on Android without the tools provided by Google, it is much less efficient on iOS, much more closed. AllAgainstCovid does not have all the access to the Bluetooth BLE chip that equips the iPhone. Consequence: iPhones have a hard time communicating with each other and the effectiveness of the system is inevitably questioned. In practice, here is what to take into account in view of the difficulties experienced by the app on iOS. An iPhone and an Android smartphone can communicate normally, even when the app is in the background on both devices, because the Android-powered mobile will be able to "wake up" the Apple device. In the case of two iPhones, two situations are possible:

-If both iPhones or iPhones have the open application in the foreground, the data exchange works well.

-If both iPhones only have the application running in the background, the communication does not run. Unless an Android smartphone is close enough to wake up either iPhone.