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this was supported with Xprivacy many years ago and it was fantastic, but it stopped getting support. The entire pro-privacy android scene seems to have become

this was supported with Xprivacy many years ago and it was fantastic, but it stopped getting support. The entire pro-privacy android scene seems to have become a very small niche over the years

em-bee 5y ago
interesting. f-droid has an app called xprivacylua which seems to be a successor to xprivacy. last updated less than a year ago. the problem is that it requires rooting the phone which not many people will want to do, and the xposed framework comes with a big warning that it could prevent android from booting. what we need is to have this integrated into the core OS so that it can safely be used by anyone.
f1refly 5y ago
That's mainly googles fault. Xposed still lives on somewhat with the Riru project, but even a rooted phone without any mods will fail securitynet checks today, rendering it useless for most consumers that would have been willing to do the process before. With every android version things become less modular and less moddable, so the community shrinks as a consequence.
- em-bee 5y ago
  that's why this needs to be built directly into alternate roms, like graphene, /e/ or even lineage so this feature is available on those roms without the user needing to root their phone.
- Xeanort 5y ago
  It's still possible to use XPrivacyLua (https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua) with passing SafetyNet. It's a cat-and-mouse game, but the community is still ahead. You can achieve this with latest Magisk (v24+, https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk), enabled Zygisk and following modules: - LSposed Zygisk (https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed, fork of Xposed) - Universal SafetyNet Fix (https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix) - Shamiko [optional, more hiding but needs configuration] (https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed.github.io https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed.github.io)
zibzab 5y ago
Can someone explain this to me? Have people just given up?
- neop1x 5y ago
  Yes, basically. After you root the device and install things like Xposed, "safety" feature called SafetyNet will most likely start reporting to apps that your device is untrusted. Google Pay, some banking apps and similar software may stop working or complain. There are still some ways to cloak the root and let SafetyNet pass but that may easily change with a simple Google Play Services OTA upgrade or something like that and it is simply not worth the risk for me personally. I don't want to spend days hacking around a recent update in order to regain the ability to pay with my phone, I don't want to block a queue of people when a payment machine displays generic rejection errors...
  - exikyut 5y ago
    To be pedantic, if I just root a random device, but am very careful in terms of what I adjust... how does that fare?

this was supported with Xprivacy many years ago and it was fantastic, but it stopped getting support. The entire pro-privacy android scene seems to have become a very small niche over the years

em-bee 5y ago

interesting. f-droid has an app called xprivacylua which seems to be a successor to xprivacy. last updated less than a year ago. the problem is that it requires rooting the phone which not many people will want to do, and the xposed framework comes with a big warning that it could prevent android from booting. what we need is to have this integrated into the core OS so that it can safely be used by anyone.

f1refly 5y ago

That's mainly googles fault. Xposed still lives on somewhat with the Riru project, but even a rooted phone without any mods will fail securitynet checks today, rendering it useless for most consumers that would have been willing to do the process before. With every android version things become less modular and less moddable, so the community shrinks as a consequence.

em-bee 5y ago
that's why this needs to be built directly into alternate roms, like graphene, /e/ or even lineage so this feature is available on those roms without the user needing to root their phone.
Xeanort 5y ago
It's still possible to use XPrivacyLua (https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua) with passing SafetyNet. It's a cat-and-mouse game, but the community is still ahead. You can achieve this with latest Magisk (v24+, https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk), enabled Zygisk and following modules: - LSposed Zygisk (https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed, fork of Xposed) - Universal SafetyNet Fix (https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix) - Shamiko [optional, more hiding but needs configuration] (https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed.github.io https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed.github.io)

zibzab 5y ago

Can someone explain this to me? Have people just given up?

neop1x 5y ago
Yes, basically. After you root the device and install things like Xposed, "safety" feature called SafetyNet will most likely start reporting to apps that your device is untrusted. Google Pay, some banking apps and similar software may stop working or complain. There are still some ways to cloak the root and let SafetyNet pass but that may easily change with a simple Google Play Services OTA upgrade or something like that and it is simply not worth the risk for me personally. I don't want to spend days hacking around a recent update in order to regain the ability to pay with my phone, I don't want to block a queue of people when a payment machine displays generic rejection errors...
- exikyut 5y ago
  To be pedantic, if I just root a random device, but am very careful in terms of what I adjust... how does that fare?