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

Re:Hidden “App Ops” Feature in Android 4.3 Lets You Disable ... by hansjorg on Friday July 26, 2013 @03:24PM (#6109985)

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.

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Re:Hidden “App Ops” Feature in Android 4.3 Lets You Disable ... by Zigurd on Friday July 26, 2013 @04:04PM (#6110261)

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.

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Re:Hidden “App Ops” Feature in Android 4.3 Lets You Disable ... by barend on Friday July 26, 2013 @05:07PM (#6110588)

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.

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