3 ms·

See my comment upthread, it helps a bit, but does not close this hole since apps within the same profile can communicate through IPC, so other apps could provid

See my comment upthread, it helps a bit, but does not close this hole since apps within the same profile can communicate through IPC, so other apps could provide network access on their behalf. I think the best example is probably Play Services, which provides functionality for a lot of apps and will communicate with Google, etc. (Yes, you can disable network access to Play Services, but it sometimes breaks things and the general point of IPC as a hole still stands.)

deanishe 4mo ago
I'm not an Android user. What's a profile? Is that a user thing or a developer thing?
- microtonal 4mo ago
  It is a user thing, you can set up multiple profiles and install apps into each of them. These profiles are isolated from each other. I think they started out as a way of separating private and work apps/data, but you can have many of them. See e.g.: https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles
- Cider9986 4mo ago
  You can make different profiles. They can have different unlock methods and can have different apps installed. If you have one app installed in both it's shared. They were designed so multiple people could use one device. Some people use them to separate identities or contain apps they view as bad. I'm not sure if the efficacy of this. Grapheneos improves them significantly https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles
- inigyou 4mo ago
  On GrapheneOS, it's like a container, or a virtual phone. Apps in different profiles (and you can install the same app in more than one profile) can't see each other and theoretically can't even tell they're running on the same phone (although I'm sure there are leaks like IP address)

3 ms·

See my comment upthread, it helps a bit, but does not close this hole since apps within the same profile can communicate through IPC, so other apps could provid

by microtonal 4mo ago

deanishe 4mo ago
I'm not an Android user. What's a profile? Is that a user thing or a developer thing?
- microtonal 4mo ago
  It is a user thing, you can set up multiple profiles and install apps into each of them. These profiles are isolated from each other. I think they started out as a way of separating private and work apps/data, but you can have many of them. See e.g.: https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles
- Cider9986 4mo ago
  You can make different profiles. They can have different unlock methods and can have different apps installed. If you have one app installed in both it's shared. They were designed so multiple people could use one device. Some people use them to separate identities or contain apps they view as bad. I'm not sure if the efficacy of this. Grapheneos improves them significantly https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles
- inigyou 4mo ago
  On GrapheneOS, it's like a container, or a virtual phone. Apps in different profiles (and you can install the same app in more than one profile) can't see each other and theoretically can't even tell they're running on the same phone (although I'm sure there are leaks like IP address)