Everyone knows all the apps on your phone
Everyone knows all the apps on your phone
Everyone knows all the apps on your phone
Since 2022, with Android 11, Google removed this access from app developers. Under their new package visibility policy, apps should only see other installed apps if it’s essential to their core functionality. Developers must also explicitly declare these apps in the AndroidManifest.xml file - a required configuration file for all Android apps.
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.
I don’t use Android as my primary phone, but I have a spare one and I was really curious to find out which apps from Indian companies had checks to see what other apps I had installed.
So I downloaded a few dozen Indian apps I could think of on top of my head and started reading their manifest files. Surely they will be respectful of my privacy and will only query apps essential to their app's core functionality? 🙃
GrapheneOS will fix this with App Communication Scopes
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/111359936037411368
Once it's ready and deployed, it will not only restrict IPC, but also app visibility
Yeah. You can use the Private Space or a work profile as well.
Is there an update since that post in 2023?
There have been multiple updates, but I can’t find them because the search feature on Mastodon sucks. I also picked this post, because it includes a screenshot.
They're basically not working on it anymore it seems https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113973056128380064