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.

  • passenger@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    4 days ago

    Very scary stuff.

    Wondering how the android alternatives deal with this, does it work on grapheneos, e os, calyxos?

    • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      6·
      3 days ago

      I’m on Graphene and Aurora store can see all installed apps without me giving it any additonal permissions. I know because apps I installed outside of Aurora appear on the app list in Aurora.