Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

Post by fashion-at-cost » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 3:49 AM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #77

andsoitis wrote: post #26

> everyone knows all the alls on your phone On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.

On iOS it's kinda worse in some ways. If you enroll into a company MDM they can see all your apps. On Android if they use the work profile (which is the standard method these days) they can only see the apps inside there.

Post by jmb99 » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 3:52 AM UTC

piyuv wrote: post #27

andsoitis wrote: post #26

> everyone knows all the alls on your phone On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.

Right, only Apple knows, but it’s ok, they’re the good guys

Post by ignoramous » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 3:57 AM UTC

AznHisoka wrote: post #85

nexle wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link, seems like the loophole is already there since the introduction of the package visibility restriction, and almost everyone and their mother knows how to bypass this restriction. > Google refuses to patch this While I don't believe Google engineers are not aware of this widely used loophole, do you have any source that they refused to fix it?

That loophole was published 5 years ago, it hasnt been fixed since. Do you need someone from Google to explicitly write an official note, notarized, indicating they are refusing to fix it?

Post by silenced_trope » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 4:00 AM UTC

hnburnsy wrote: post #87

>For extremely specific use cases such as file managers, browsers or antivirus apps, Google grants an exception by allowing QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission, which provides full visibility into installed apps. 'Extreme' my a*. My bank app has this permission, as well as my camera app, contacts app, clock app, Google Home, and on and on. My bank app was moved to an old iPad because of this.

Post by johntitorjr » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 4:05 AM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #51

marcodiego wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, f-droid only accepts OSS apps, so the incentives for spyware is simply not there. Second, anti-features are explicitly marked on f-droid. Third, f-droid apps are curated like a very rigorous linux repo.

Being an OSS app is not sufficient protection. Most OSS apps aren't terribly misbehaved, but some are. Being OSS in and of itself is not anything like a guarantee with this sort of thing. > Third, f-droid apps are curated like a very rigorous linux repo. Yes, I know. My question is is this one of the things they're screening for?