11–20 of 207 posts
I think it's a great feature. There have definitely been some apps where I would have liked to use them but they've had permissions requirements that I did not believe the app's core functionality needed.
If you are interest in doing this with Android, the autopatcher[0] does this for you on a whole series of ROMs on all versions of Android from 2.x-4.x, and has been doing so successfully for a while. There is a pretty active user community on XDA for the PDroid patchset as well.[1]
[0] https://github.com/mateor/auto-patcher
[1] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1357056
However something like this needs to be integrated tightly like iOS and apps need to be aware they may not receive requested permissions. I still use App Ops in Kit Kat and it silently breaks apps all the time. Apps expect to be able request information (e.g. contact details) and crash or stall when they can't.
In that respect, LBE Privacy Guard[2] was a much better alternative up to ICS. It was a privacy firewall that would pop up notifications when protected permissions were being used for the first time. Instead of blocking apps when denied, Privacy Guard would feed it blank data instead. This lead to a better UX and stopped blocked apps crashing.
There needs to be an open source version of LBE Privacy Guard since the current one hasn't been updated over a year and is closed source from a Chinese company.
[0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.colortiger...
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=biz.bokhorst.x...
[2]: DO NOT INSTALL, FORCES REBOOT LOOP
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lbe.securi...
I think it's a great feature. There have definitely been some apps where I would have liked to use them but they've had permissions requirements that I did not believe the app's core functionality needed.
every time I open facebook messanger with gps enabled, I see it querying my location. I hate it so much. Would love to be able to turn that off
> When asked for comment, Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. Oh, it would definitely break some apps. Considering it would introduce new uncertainty. It's still an amazing feature.
Thanks Google, for making my phone less secure.
It's been a pretty shitty week for privacy, hasn't it? First the Disqus hack, then the changed Block feature on Twitter, and now this?
The changed block feature on Twitter didn't do anything negative for privacy.
By contrast, in iOS, I can choose which apps have access to my location, contacts, etc.
I know that Apple's track record when it comes to privacy isn't exactly spotless but Google would be well advised to follow their lead in allowing users granular control over 3rd-party apps' permissions.
The current set of capabilities is too technical for end users to really understand. This all need to be collapsed into a few broad areas like "tracks your location" that have clear, clickable explanations.
For the privacy paranoid, having a configurable way to just inject false data would be great. Have a single fake IMEI number, for example. Then for apps, the API call doesn't fail, it just returns the fake number.