Until a few years ago, any app you installed on an Android device could see all other apps on your phone without your permission.

Apparently Android apps (even in current Android versions) can check for the presence of other Android apps by listing the apps they want to check for in their manifest file. Nothing stops them from listing dozens or hundreds of other apps, and some do exactly that. Up til Android 11 they didn’t even have to list the other apps in the manifest. Then Google “tightened” things to be almost as bad. Dumb move, Android.

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    I’ve been wondering for a while, has anyone tried make something to confine every app in a virtual machine? Like I after I install some shady fast food app that requires access to my contacts and phone history it “sees” its self in a empty Android install. If the app actually needs data from the real phone you could just mirror that data into the virtual machine.