<a href="https://postimg.cc/6y3Z9yjY" rel="nofollow">https://postimg.cc/6y3Z9yjY</a><p>They had implemented that already a while ago, then reverted the behaviour, and now implemented it once again.<p>It seems as if it was not "enabled" for everyone yet, however.<p>They hid the permissions with each version better and better and apparently decided now, users don't need them at all.
While it is much less of a concern with runtime permissions that are optional.... yeah, I greatly dislike this too.<p>In particular because <i>not everything is a runtime permission</i>. E.g. I like to know that [apk X] has no internet or file permissions at all - it rules out nearly all practical ways to leak your information. And google just keeps taking more and more steps to hide that information from me.
That seems OK since it still asks you as it needs them when running an app, and "prunes" permissions away from apps that you do not use often.<p>Lots of apps only need specific permissions if you use specific parts of the app. And apps are much larger (one app does more things) than they were 5-10 years ago. Eg you can use some apps as a camera, but never as a photo editor, and get use out of it by only giving some specific permissions (camera), forever.
LineageOS. Or Murena, if you can't be bothered to install it yourself. And then use f-droid, or if it's not available there, Aurora store.<p>As seen on computers, OS is too important to be left to companies - if you value your freedom of choice and privacy, that is.
Probably because all apps are now required to target the latest api, which means most permissions are done by user prompts, and not just by downloading the app.
Could this be because every privacy relevant permission, except internet access, now requires a manual approval dialog? Why list every permission when it's only used for specific feature X which is requested upon usage?
This is truly a sad state of affairs—I really hope this was just an oversite as a result of the new Data Safety section they have been rolled out as I frequently used this permission list to determine if I was going to install an app or not.
Honest question, how many of us read permissions after scrolling through the description and then download ? It might make sense if you have metered bandwidth, not otherwise. I first try to find an ad-free app, install it and then see if it asks unnecessary permissions and go from there.
One of the things I really liked about the Android custom ROMs (Cyanogen, etc.) was that they allowed you to revoke some app permissions, but still run the app. Google will never allow users to choose because it conflicts with their own business (user data collection and targeted marketing).<p>Now they aren't even letting you know how much information the app collects until you download and install it.
Android should abandon the current permission mode<p>Everything should be permitted by default, however, the user can choose to return blank, fake or real data.
I don't remember, was the information contained in the permission similar to the information provided as data safety?<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.google.android.apps.maps&hl=en&gl=US" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.google....</a>
I think it's good news. I don't see why they should be more transparent on this: nobody cares, and the very rare users who actually care about these things would not trust that information anyway.
After all that research presented at fancy conferences about this topic, why would they then erase what little trust they had built up by making this change?
It’s like installing an app on your computer; your giving the app permissions to your computer… there’s so much Google can’t control that it’s dumb to blame them here… I’m not saying “every end user should be wary of their apps and test them all”, but basically… what’s the alternative? Build your own mobile os, and then side load and very every apk?!
Someone just make an open source app store which solves this.<p>Can't be trusted to these idiots / money-hungry project managers / behemoths * delete as appropriate *<p>Sorry, maybe there is one but I've not investigated and it's .... rant time.
> They had implemented that already a while ago, then reverted the behaviour, and now implemented it once again.<p>This is, among many other reasons, why I finally dropped Android after the better part of a decade. The constant A/B/C/D/E testing makes every single thing they put out feel like it's a constant state of beta testing. It's to the point where you don't even know what to expect when you do something as fundamental as opening the app store. You'll seemingly have some kind of server-side flag activated one day that gives you a totally new UI in an app you use every day, hiding things or removing features you rely on. Then maybe in another few days it'll be back to how it was.<p>Not only do they not seem to value their users, they actively punish you for being one of their users, jostling you around between new UIs or even entire services that are always worse than the last.
Ugh. I really liked that "nutritional label" because the advance warning tells me upfront if the developer values my private data. I would prefer app stores be similar to health warnings on cigarette packets, because predatory data collection and billing practices are so entrenched.
I see people in the comments trying to justify this change because the apps need to request for permissions, but WHY exactly would google want to get rid of this info? What benefit does it bring to the user, if any?<p>If anything, it harms the user by preventing them from seeing what permissions apps will access in an easy to read format.<p>Why did google even decide to do this in the first place? My best guess is it makes users more likely to let an application access permissions after they've gone ahead and installed it, generating more ad $$$ in the process. But is there any other reason?