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This is a good switch. Apps can still read and write to external storage, just in an application specific directory. Look at it like this. If you are setting up
by matt_heimer 13y ago
This is a good switch. Apps can still read and write to external storage, just in an application specific directory. Look at it like this. If you are setting up a Linux server you don't run all your apps as root, you run them as non-privileged users. Why? Because an app misbehaving as root is a scary thing. But you also don't run all your non-privileged apps under the same user because if one of those apps starts misbehaving and you ran everything as the same user then its almost as bad as running everything as root - one bad app can trash all your data. Android had the same problem with external storage and the android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission - one bad app can trash all your external data. This update will make me much more comfortable installing apps that write to external storage because they can only write to their own external storage as it should be. If an app needs the ability to modify everybodies external storage data doesn't that sound like something that would need root permissions on a properly secured Linux system? Why should Android be any different?
- protomyth 13y agoIf an mp3 player (A) imports some files and stores them on external storage, can mp3 player (B) read the mp3s and write meta-data to those files? What about different text editors? I am a little confused about using root in the example as on a PC a user can have an external storage device with music and all apps can find and play and write to it.
- matt_heimer 13y agoIf application A has private files (regardless of the type) then no, no other (non-root) application can access them. There is a content provider framework that an application can use to register files that it would like to allow other applications to access. Look at where things are in the PC world, viruses, malware, keyloggers, etc. The android permission model is the alternative. Allowing any application access to the entire external storage if it needed to write one single directory was a bad thing. If you want android to continue to allow random apk installation from different sources they needed to patch this hole. The other option to keep your phone safe is a completely walled garden approach (Apple) that polices apps a lot more than Google seems to want to.
- duncan_bayne 13y agoWhat if I want to grant an application access to the SD card? Surely I should have that option?
- protomyth 13y agoApparently, it is a zero tolerance policy except for the provided apps even if you trust the app developer.. Which basically means you cannot truly replace the provided apps without rooting the phone.
- duncan_bayne 13y agoIndeed. Which is why I say this represents another component of a strategy away from open systems, and towards the sort of proprietary walled-garden experience offered by Apple. Not only is this a betrayal of many early Google evangelists - myself included - it's a fairly cynical exercise to build such a system on the Linux kernel.
- duncan_bayne 13y agoThe difference is: most Android systems don't allow their users to assert root permissions, regardless of circumstance.