I have some apps on my HTC One (M8) that want to have access to my camera and microphone (Yahoo Mail app). I have seen on an iOS device that you can disable this access but still run the app. Is there something similar in the Android world?
1 Answer
Not directly, but with a rooted device, Xposed or a custom ROM (e.g. CyanogenMod) you are able to revoke permissions granted to the app by Android.
If your device allows the installation of applications signed with developer keys, then you might be able to do that without root needed.
Side effects may be unexpected application crashes or hangs if the app decides to do something that needs one of the revoked permissions.
In the best case the application will just not be able to use e.g. the camera and show a black preview of the image (Camera App for example).
-
1Those side effects are rather rare, I've never seen them myself. That might be due to the fact I'm using apps providing "fake data" instead of simply removing the permissions. For a collection of candidates, please see my list of Permission Managers. On Android 4.3, some can do that without root (watch out for "App Ops").– Izzy ♦Jan 2, 2015 at 19:19
-
@Izzy Using fake data fixes this problem, indeed. As far as I know only XPrivacy (an XPosed module) does that, though. Jan 2, 2015 at 19:32
-
1To update your knowledge: LBE does that for ages already. Permission Master for Xposed does so as well, and so does IMHO DonkeyGuard (another XPosed module). There might be more, I didn't check them all. And the link in my previous comment is wrong again – here's the fix: Permission Manager #D– Izzy ♦Jan 2, 2015 at 20:18
-
I don't know that many apps because I use inbuilt CM12 AppOps. Good to know that there are many alternatives. Jan 2, 2015 at 20:19