1y ago

Android 15 may make it even harder for sideloaded apps to get sensitive permissions

21 comments

With the changes being made, I wouldn't be surprised if a Linux phone has a real chance.
- Linux mobile is a necessity. Apple is regularly dragged to court because of their walled garden bullshit and Google tries to catch up to them in that regard
- Nokia should have kept it going (referring to N900).
  
  It always felt like Elop was sent there to kill the company.

I assume it will still be possible to enable the APIs with adb.
So this will mostly affect users in that in-between skill level where they know how to use a third-party app store (or how to download and install apps from a file browser) but don't know how to use adb. I'm not so sure how big that segment is. Probably pretty small.
For the group of users who are tech-illiterate (the common case), this is actually a very welcome change for malware prevention.
- users in that in-between skill level where they know how to use a third-party app store (or how to download and install apps from a file browser) but don't know how to use adb
  That knows just enough to cause trouble user is probably the kind of person who is the target for the kind of malware this fix is meant to combat. As long as those of us who want to tinker safely still have a way to do so then this is probably a net positive.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure whether it’ll be possible to still enable a legitimate, sideloaded app’s Accessibility or Notification Listener service if it’s hit with ECM restrictions. It’s possible to disable Restricted Settings for an app, so it should also be possible with ECM restrictions, but I can’t say for sure since I haven’t been able to get the feature to work yet in Android 15.
So we don't even know if this is going to be a restriction for people who know what they're doing. Pitchforks on standby, but I'd assume there must be a workaround for actual developers etc.

21 comments