Hidden “App Ops” Feature in Android 4.3 Lets You Disable Permissions From Apps

http://www.droid-life.com/2013/07/26/hidden-app-ops-feature-in-android-4-3-lets-you-selectively-disable-permissions-from-apps/

by radley • 13 years ago

63 62 13 years ago

droid-life.com

hansjorg• 13 years ago

This looks very useful. The Android permission system is pretty good from a technical point of view, but since a lot of apps just require all permissions regardless, and people are trained to disregard this when installing, it's almost moot.

I wonder if Google is using requested permissions in Play rankings. The apps which require _all_ permissions should definitely be ranked lower.

Zigurd4• 13 years ago

This lets you take those permissions away retrospectively. In many cases I suspect you will find it is a free app's ad network that's asking for ridiculous permissions, e.g. access to location in a flashlight app.

Google is probably reluctant to do things that "harm" competing ad networks for fear of getting sued.

barend• 13 years ago

It would make little sense for the finished feature to work retrospectively; apps would just grab the bounty on first launch and then the harm is done before you can get to the settings screen. This looks more like the screen you'd go to if you change your mind about an app. I expect the primary control for this feature to be a just-in-time dialog, similar to permission popups on iOS.

StavrosK2• 13 years ago

This is an absolutely amazing feature. I've yearned for this for years, I hope it will arrive soon. Some apps just don't need the permissions they request, or I don't want to give them, or I don't want to use the functionality that needs it. This would allow me to disallow my bookmarking app from reading my contact list.

Fantastic.

bowmessage• 13 years ago

I really like that Google have added this feature, but unfortunately I don't see it helping things much. I'm willing to be that many of the applications requesting odd and unnecessary permissions will be rewritten to simply not work when any one of those permissions aren't granted to them.

sp3323• 13 years ago

Many programs already won't work since they assume that they have the permissions they asked for.

toomuchtodo• 13 years ago

Heaven forbid your app does error checking!

MichaelGG• 13 years ago

Yeah, Google needs to return random or plausibly zero/empty data when a user has disabled the permission. Some Android distros already offer this.

tjbiddle• 13 years ago

I'm sure this was a 'hidden' feature as it wasn't ready for it's prime time. I would expect developers to receive a notification that they need to update applications to support this - or things will be made to simply fail softly to begin with.

DuskStar• 13 years ago

It could be using the same strategy as cyaogenmod's Privacy Guard - when enabled, return junk data to that application. (gps at 0N,0W, contacts list empty, etc)

npsimons4• 13 years ago

I'm willing to be that many of the applications requesting odd and unnecessary permissions will be rewritten to simply not work when any one of those permissions aren't granted to them.

Good. Let them die. If there's really demand for them, better alternatives will pop up.

keltex• 13 years ago

It would be nice if there was also a "simulate" option for some permissions. That way the app would think it has a permission when it doesn't. It could return an empty phonebook for contacts or random location for GPS or confirm a SMS was sent when it never went out, etc.

eigenvector• 13 years ago

That's exactly what Privacy Guard in CM does.

https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/86LLXrDpVWY

derleth3• 13 years ago

Too bad CyanogenMod itself phones home to tell the developers about you.

veeti2• 13 years ago

The title of this post is misleading. App ops works exactly like that: it does not disable the permissions themselves but turns those API's into no-ops or returns dummy data from them. Aside from implementation bugs (like [1] which has killed my app completely) it should theoretically have no breaking effects on apps.

[1] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=58043

aray• 13 years ago

This was a research project at my university a while ago: http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-jiang-tissa/

mynewwork• 13 years ago

Fantastic. I barely have any apps on my phone because I refuse to accept the egregious abuse of privacy (why does Pandora or Yelp need to access my contacts etc). Recently some friends recommended WhatsApp, but after seeing the massive wall of permissions it was requesting, I didn't install.

I've been waiting for this feature since the day I got my first android phone.

rogerbinns• 13 years ago

What I really hate is that you can pay for and install an app with an acceptable set of permissions, and then later the developer can add new unacceptable permissions essentially changing the product you bought. You can try to defer installation of the new version for a while, but it gets increasingly difficult.

I am of the opinion you should be offered a refund/uninstall if new permissions get added. Or have a way of disabling them like the posting is about.

Zigurd4• 13 years ago

This is a good way to introduce this feature.

Developers: You are now on notice to handle SecurityException and fail soft. in most cases, this should be easy to do, and when it isn't, you can, at least, post a dialog that says" "This app really needs SOME_PERMISSION in order to run."

But since it is hidden, you are not on the hook, yet, to support users that start making use of this feature.

kefs• 13 years ago

More info for devs from Mark Murphy/Commonsware:

http://commonsware.com/blog/2013/07/26/app-ops-developer-faq...

JoshTriplett2• 13 years ago

Cue the piles of posted code snippets on StackOverflow and similar to uselessly error out on startup without the full set of requested permissions.

Well-behaved apps won't ask for permissions they don't need anyway, and badly-behaved apps will simply refuse to run without all the permissions they (and their ad services) request.

Without the ability to pretend to have the permission but not actually provide useful data, this really won't help much.

On the bright side, at least a subset of these do behave in the sensible way: various reports suggest that calendar and contact accesses will successfully return empty results rather than erroring out, for instance.

pat2man• 13 years ago

badly-behaved apps will simply refuse to run without all the permissions they (and their ad services) request

If this were true it would be an issue on iOS. Its not.

FigBug• 13 years ago

On iOS, if an app crashes or doesn't function when permissions are denied, it won't get approved to be in the app store.

bnr• 13 years ago

There are some valid use cases for this. "Read All Contacts" is often required to optionally invite your friends. "List running Apps" for crash-reports.

npsimons4• 13 years ago

Here's a thought: permissions shouldn't be asked for until they are needed, and one that should be disabled with no option to override is to spam your entire addressbook.

cmircea• 13 years ago

Why can't some permissions be prompt-based, instead of always giving access to apps? Say for contacts, if you want to invite friend you'll allow access to contacts just now.

npsimons4• 13 years ago

and badly-behaved apps will simply refuse to run without all the permissions they (and their ad services) request.

With any luck, those apps will (rightfully) die do to lack of user base. Of course, the cynic in me knows that the unwashed masses will never go to the trouble of dealing with all those permissions, even if they know about them.

BTW, what do you consider "badly-behaved"? I've seen so many "good" apps ask for so much it boggles my mind (as someone else mentioned, WTF does a music player need access to your addressbook?).

JoshTriplett2• 13 years ago

BTW, what do you consider "badly-behaved"? I've seen so many "good" apps ask for so much it boggles my mind (as someone else mentioned, WTF does a music player need access to your addressbook?).

Any app which requests a permission whose use isn't instantly obvious from the nature of the app. "Full network access" for a non-multiplayer game. "Location access" for anything that isn't a mapping app or point-of-interest finder (and even the latter ought to allow manual zipcode entry or similar). Contact access for any non-communications app. Phone state access for almost any app that isn't an dialer or call-control management app.

A music player that asks for access to your contacts would fall squarely under "badly behaved".

StavrosK2• 13 years ago

This will very likely simulate full permissions, or it would be useless.

corresation• 13 years ago

Well-behaved apps won't ask for permissions they don't need anyway

I would say that this is close to universally untrue -- apps generally ask for permissions that cover the superset of all possible edge conditions, even though only a subset of their users will ever actually need that.. If I'm someone who will never use the contacts feature, for instance, I would love to have the option -- on install -- of saying "Yeah, I understand you want that but no, you aren't getting it". This is a step in that direction.

Zikes• 13 years ago

This is exactly the feature I've been waiting for to update my old Facebook app install. Ever since they launched FB Home, the normal Facebook app has asked for exorbitant permissions including the ability to see all the apps I have installed and running and even draw on top of them. I've refused to update to that version because I don't want to use Home, and those permissions could easily have been restricted to just the Home application.

As others have mentioned I'm sure some app developers will resort to just erroring out if they can't access something they asked permission to access, but hopefully we'll be able to shame the bigger players away from that.

gcb0• 13 years ago

Being stuck with old phones has its advantages. My phone only runs CM7, which has this very same feature for some 2yrs.

It's called app goggles or something.

I block internet access to lots of apps thatdo not need,it. And most of them crash when they try to use it.

Eg. Swype tries to connect every time i reboot my phone. Not sure if they are just checking for updates or uploading my personal dict, but since it doesn't try to upload anything while I'm actually writing, i just watch it die every reboot and that is it.

Almost all games i tried i removed access to see running apps and contact list. Very few crashed, meaning they probably expose those api to ads, and they are not using them yet.

jhome• 13 years ago

Permissions is the reason why I do not have Facebook installed (specifically the GPS).

dman3• 13 years ago

This removes one of my pet peeves about android. Now please allow users full control over uninstalling non system applications. I hate that I cannot uninstall Facebook and Twitter on my HTC one. My past Droid Charge by Samsung (on Verizon) was even worse since it installed a whole bunch of useless applications that I had no way to uninstall. I hated that phone every single time I used it.

zachlatta• 13 years ago

That's on your carrier/manufacturer, not part of Android itself.

dman3• 13 years ago

It shouldnt be on the carrier / manufacturer. Whats innately different about the software on phones as compared on Windows / OSX / linux ... that the user cant be trusted with administrative rights on their machine?

srathi• 13 years ago

With 4.1+ Jelly bean, you can at least disable the system apps. That way, the only thing you are losing is some storage.

krakensden• 13 years ago

Didn't Google threaten to pull CyanogenMod's ability to distribute Google Play for implementing the same thing a while back?

andybak2• 13 years ago

Citation needed?

Hidden “App Ops” Feature in Android 4.3 Lets You Disable Permissions From Apps

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