Everyone knows all the apps on your phone
Everyone knows all the apps on your phone
Until a few years ago, any app you installed on an Android device could see all other apps on your phone without your permission.
Since 2022, with Android 11, Google removed this access from app developers. Under their new package visibility policy, apps should only see other installed apps if it’s essential to their core functionality. Developers must also explicitly declare these apps in the AndroidManifest.xml file - a required configuration file for all Android apps.
For extremely specific use cases such as file managers, browsers or antivirus apps, Google grants an exception by allowing QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission, which provides full visibility into installed apps.
I don’t use Android as my primary phone, but I have a spare one and I was really curious to find out which apps from Indian companies had checks to see what other apps I had installed.
So I downloaded a few dozen Indian apps I could think of on top of my head and started reading their manifest files. Surely they will be respectful of my privacy and will only query apps essential to their app's core functionality? 🙃
GrapheneOS will fix this with App Communication Scopes
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/111359936037411368
Once it's ready and deployed, it will not only restrict IPC, but also app visibility
I guess profiles also help?
Yeah. You can use the Private Space or a work profile as well.
Is there an update since that post in 2023?
They're basically not working on it anymore it seems https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113973056128380064
Privacy Breacher hasn't been updated in four years and is still able to list all the apps on an Android device without any permissions.
PrivacyBreacher is an Android app built as a proof of concept for a research article describing the privacy issues in Android. This app can access the following information from your phone without requesting any permissions: Figure out at what time your phone screen turned on/off. Figure out at what time you plugged in or removed your phone charger and wired headphones. Figure out at what time you switched on/off your phone (i.e., it captures the device uptime and ACTION_SHUTDOWN broadcasts). Access most of your device related information like your phone model, manufacturer etc. Keep track of your WiFi/Mobile data usage. Get a list of all the apps installed on your phone. Construct a 3D visualization of your body movements.
checked the code and it just queries the package manager as usual.
it works because the system tries to maintain compatibility with apps made for older android versions (targetsdk). this app was built for api 29 (android 10), and the query apps permission gating was introduced in api 30 (android 11)
the play store is strict about the min targetsdk allowed for new apps and updates, and while that is also a negative thing, api 29 cannot be targeted anymore for apps: https://web.archive.org/web/20250331021653/https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk
Good to know! I did see the "built for an older version of Android" warning in F-Droid. Thanks for your research!
Yikes. This seems such a big privacy concern, what an embarrassment from google.
but at least it was a good excuse to destroy apps relying on linux procfs (/proc)
This is why we Foss
I just had a look through my apps, surprisingly all of my apps are well behaved minus the banking apps
Android and privacy are incongruent.
The reasons the article gives are because android chooses not to be an intermediate.