If they’re root, they already can. Like Google Play and other root/system apps that can install apps without the pop-up.
It is an obvious double measure but it’s been around for a long time, and it’s not too insecure or annoying unless manufacturers install malware as system apps and/or disallow locking the boatloader (they do, sadly).
If they’re root, they already can. Like Google Play and other root/system apps that can install apps without the pop-up.
Fun reminder that the Facebook system apps included on many phones can do that too. Look for system apps called "Facebook Bridge", "Facebook stub", "Facebook App Installer", "Facebook App Manager" etc.
The fuss is that 3rd party apps need a persistent notification to stay alive. But, because Google owns pixels, it can skip that step and be less intrusive/visible, which others can not.
Would be better if it were optional. The little key in the status area is more than enough indication for me. A persistent notification is not a notification, it's a hack.
The hack is the aggressive battery optimization in some phones that don't respect the native Android battery optimization settings and still kill apps.
I don't understand the article. They either aren't clearly explaining the issue or just heavily misinformed.
I have Google One and PIA. Both do the same thing, which is add a key to the top right of the screen. To me, that's like a persistent notification.
PIA has never needed to use the actual persistent notification API. There's no reason to. Persistent notification is for application that don't want their UI Window to terminate when Android gets memory pressured, or when wanting to use a local service (eg: Location or Orientation) when not the main foreground application. I can kill the PIA Window (swipe up from recent apps) and the VPN is still running.
If Google One were able to activate VPN without changing my status bar, that's a different story, and that's not the case.
From what I understand, Google One had its own persistent notification (left side) when using the VPN as well as the normal key icon (right side). So now it just has the latter.
Nope. I have my Pixel 7 on Android 13 and my Pixel 8 on Android 14.
The only difference is when you activate on Android 13, you get notification it's connecting and it's connected. Neither are permanent, and I can dismiss them.
Android 14 has no notification and just shows you on the app it's connected now (different UI).
It never had a persistent notification, so I'd reason the author was misinformed or misunderstood the change when somebody told them.
Have you enabled notifications for it? I use Proton with GrapheneOS. I keep the ProtonChannel notifications disabled normally as I don't need to see it. Enabling it, I see the persistent notification as expected.