Android: I don't need your permission
blog.danlew.net
Android: I don't need your permission
1–10 of 190 posts
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#2This makes it all the more egregious that so many applications ask for permission to access contacts and similar.
Perhaps Android should rephrase these permissions as, for instance "direct access to contacts without your knowledge", as opposed to "access to user-selected contacts upon request" (which, as demonstrated, does not need permission).
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#3Best i can tell, quite a few requested permissions do not come from the developer. Instead it is the defaults of some framework or other the developer used to handle some of the nitty gritty details, like the ads.
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#4This makes it all the more egregious that so many applications ask for permission to access contacts and similar. Perhaps Android should rephrase these permissions as, for instance "direct access to contacts without your knowledge", as opposed to "access to user-selected contacts upon request" (which, as demonstrated, does not need permission).
Given that Google has gone to lengths to obfuscate the permissions further in Play, i don't think that is likely to ever happen...
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#5Best i can tell, quite a few requested permissions do not come from the developer. Instead it is the defaults of some framework or other the developer used to handle some of the nitty gritty details, like the ads.
Admob only requires internet permissions, at least last time I used it.
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#6Another reminder of how eagerly I await Xposed / Xprivacy on ART for 5.0... that said, his examples are fairly benign, I agree that if your app needs to initiate a call, it should show me the dialer to see if I would like to do that now, or some other time (including never).
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#7Best i can tell, quite a few requested permissions do not come from the developer. Instead it is the defaults of some framework or other the developer used to handle some of the nitty gritty details, like the ads.
This is one of those weaknesses about 3rd party dependencies on Android. Unless business and product teams value user privacy and permissions, they usually could care less than vendor X's library requires permissions to read phone state or contacts when your app itself doesn't need it. Esp. given that iOS treats permissions differently, the distinction is often ignored in favor of whatever iOS does. To those managers, the fact that Android doesn't ask the user about using a permission is a happy coincidence.
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#8The same goes for android.permission.INTERNET. Apps can open arbitrary URLs in the browser (which load without user intervention).
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#9Another reminder of how eagerly I await Xposed / Xprivacy on ART for 5.0... that said, his examples are fairly benign, I agree that if your app needs to initiate a call, it should show me the dialer to see if I would like to do that now, or some other time (including never).
If you're just waiting for permission controls, App Ops [1] should work just fine on 5.0. There are other comparable apps that also don't require Xposed.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.findsdk.ap...
Re: Android: I don't need your permission
#10This is the another reason I use CyanogenMod. It has Privacy Guard and I can disable the nasty permissions as I please. If you have Android 4.3+, you can also install it indivudally https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.findsdk.ap... (requires root I guess)
The most helpful one, even if you are not privacy/security concerned is to disable wake up/keep awake requests, which Facebook and FB Messenger used it apporximately 6800 times since I installed my clean rom 1 week ago.