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ex-AOSP dev here > Hiding their app icon from launcher... Well, apps that don't have a declared launchable (homescreen) UI don't get these icons. Granted it h

ex-AOSP dev here > Hiding their app icon from launcher... Well, apps that don't have a declared launchable (homescreen) UI don't get these icons. Granted it has been abused by spyware apps to "hide" from unsuspecting users, but you'll find these in Android's Settings app. > One app would install other apps from the same company in the background without user consent. I doubt installation without user consent is possible at all in Android 9+. Afaik, only Google PlayStore (or other OEM embedded stores) have permissions to silent install, as it were. And I haven't seen anyone allege PlayStore silently installing apps. See also: https://www.xda-developers.com/android-14-background-install-control/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-14-background-install... > Multiple apps will wake each other so they always stay in the background and become impossible to kill One can Force Stop an app to make sure no component (service, activity, recievers, or resolvers) can run in the background, until the user explicitly starts the app process again via the Launcher. Android also limits background processes, tracks per-app CPU and memory use to limit it, and "caches" processes aggresively if need be (puts their threads to sleep so they aren't executing anything but could be resumed quickly). > Requesting every permission under the sun and transmit as much info to the mothership as possible The Trust on First Use model has been taken to the cleaners by Android apps hell bent on tracking their users. Starting Android 12 though, Android auto removes permissions granted from installed apps user hasn't interacted with. > Secretly turning on the camera and film their users Android 13+ has camera and mic indicators. And for earlier versions, even if inconvenient for end users to setup, there exist open source apps that continuously log cam or mic access from other apps. None of this is perfect, mind you; but I wanted to point out that Android has been responding to growing privacy concerns: https://security.googleblog.com/2022/12/app-defense-alliance-expansion.html?m=1 https://security.googleblog.com/2022/12/app-defense-alliance...

nopinsight 4y ago
>> Secretly turning on the camera and film their users > Android 13+ has camera and mic indicators. Indicators are a good step, but wouldn't it be better to disallow apps from turning on the camera without the user's explicit consent altogether?
- Operative0198 4y ago
  Nothing like that on Android happens without explicit consent. And the controls around this consent are very very robust imo.
- pas 4y ago
  the current model is a very strict "allow once" or "allow while using the app" and the only "background" way is to have a persistent/permanent notification so far I have seen the Blokada, VPN apps and the Shazam app do this
  - ignoramous 4y ago
    Android requires foreground apps to show a persistent notification (which are dismissible only on Android 13+). Re: Blokada: https://twitter.com/JulianKlode/status/1613919509731225601 https://twitter.com/JulianKlode/status/1613919509731225601 / https://archive.is/nasHG https://archive.is/nasHG
jszymborski 4y ago
None of this makes me feel better, especially w.r.t. non-technical people.
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
>Android 13+ has camera and mic indicators. LineageOS further has camera/mic toggle & when apps need them we can enable them on the fly.
IIsi50MHz 4y ago
>> Multiple apps will wake each other so they always stay in the background and become impossible to kill > > One can Force Stop an app to make sure no component (service, activity, recievers, or resolvers) can run in the background, until the user explicitly starts the app process again via the Launcher. > > Android also limits background processes, tracks per-app CPU and memory use to limit it, and "caches" processes aggresively if need be (puts their threads to sleep so they aren't executing anything but could be resumed quickly). Amazon's apps love to do this. If any one of {Kindle app, Amazon Shopping, Amazon Music, Prime Video, Amazon Appstore} launches, one or more of the others will launch in the background. I first noticed it on three low-resource devices. Force-stopping ones I wasn't using at the moment resulted in them relaunching in a few moments. The only solution was to not have more than one Amazon app one each low-RAM or aging-CPU device. Google does something like this, too, but I can't as easily disperse Gmail, Play Books, Play Music (erm, YouTube Music), Google Services, and whatever else. They also seem to do it more like "O, device just woke, or wifi state change, so lets update all the things", instead of Amazon's "User asked to load Kindle into 864 MB of RAM? Better have all the other large Amazon apps check for updates, too!". 2 GB RAM? Same sudden glacial slowness and unresponsivness due to background semi-related apps running unnecessarily. 4 GB? Well, that mostly works; a moderate slowdown, but no UI freezes. (Yes, I'm saving up for a Galaxy Tab S8+with 16 GB, but…it costs as much as a real laptop without including a keyboard. I almost miss my Palm IIIx with month-long battery.)

nopinsight 4y ago

>> Secretly turning on the camera and film their users > Android 13+ has camera and mic indicators. Indicators are a good step, but wouldn't it be better to disallow apps from turning on the camera without the user's explicit consent altogether?

Operative0198 4y ago
Nothing like that on Android happens without explicit consent. And the controls around this consent are very very robust imo.
pas 4y ago
the current model is a very strict "allow once" or "allow while using the app" and the only "background" way is to have a persistent/permanent notification so far I have seen the Blokada, VPN apps and the Shazam app do this
- ignoramous 4y ago
  Android requires foreground apps to show a persistent notification (which are dismissible only on Android 13+). Re: Blokada: https://twitter.com/JulianKlode/status/1613919509731225601 https://twitter.com/JulianKlode/status/1613919509731225601 / https://archive.is/nasHG https://archive.is/nasHG

jszymborski 4y ago

None of this makes me feel better, especially w.r.t. non-technical people.

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

>Android 13+ has camera and mic indicators. LineageOS further has camera/mic toggle & when apps need them we can enable them on the fly.

IIsi50MHz 4y ago

>> Multiple apps will wake each other so they always stay in the background and become impossible to kill > > One can Force Stop an app to make sure no component (service, activity, recievers, or resolvers) can run in the background, until the user explicitly starts the app process again via the Launcher. > > Android also limits background processes, tracks per-app CPU and memory use to limit it, and "caches" processes aggresively if need be (puts their threads to sleep so they aren't executing anything but could be resumed quickly). Amazon's apps love to do this. If any one of {Kindle app, Amazon Shopping, Amazon Music, Prime Video, Amazon Appstore} launches, one or more of the others will launch in the background. I first noticed it on three low-resource devices. Force-stopping ones I wasn't using at the moment resulted in them relaunching in a few moments. The only solution was to not have more than one Amazon app one each low-RAM or aging-CPU device. Google does something like this, too, but I can't as easily disperse Gmail, Play Books, Play Music (erm, YouTube Music), Google Services, and whatever else. They also seem to do it more like "O, device just woke, or wifi state change, so lets update all the things", instead of Amazon's "User asked to load Kindle into 864 MB of RAM? Better have all the other large Amazon apps check for updates, too!". 2 GB RAM? Same sudden glacial slowness and unresponsivness due to background semi-related apps running unnecessarily. 4 GB? Well, that mostly works; a moderate slowdown, but no UI freezes. (Yes, I'm saving up for a Galaxy Tab S8+with 16 GB, but…it costs as much as a real laptop without including a keyboard. I almost miss my Palm IIIx with month-long battery.)