Comment on Netflix Windows app is set to remove its downloads feature, while introducing ads
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months agoAndroid in the last couple versions has locked its file system down too
Really!? I’m a bit behind, but somehow this surprises me. I mean, not the intention, bc Google’s motto these days is “definitely be evil”, but that it had gotten this far this fast.
Anyway at a guess all you’d have to do is download whatever you want, then root, profit, then turn off root and it wouldn’t even know? Plus the tons of ways that you can do things without even needing root access these days, and I haven’t even mentioned yet a custom ROM. And ofc piracy, where someone else obtains the video files, e.g. ripping from a physical medium. So they will most definitely lose that flight. And in the meantime, the most honest customers are the ones who suffer.
Overall I just chalked this up to: anyone who uses Windows phones (or iOS) basically is at the mercy of profit-seeking behaviors. You will own nothing, and like it - or else!:-(
morriscox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
medium.com/…/android-scoped-storage-dd50104a0cbd
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
Thanks for sharing!
Oh wow, so much going on there.
What if a malicious app decides to place child pornography or a crypto mining whatever onto your device - but since its space is “private”, can unethical people now legally do that, and simply blame that Google wouldn’t let them see into the space, hence they “did not know that it was there”? This would seem to open the door to so very many problematic issues…
On the other hand this seems related solely to “external” storage - I haven’t used external storage on an Android for… actually I’ve never used it iirc. For this Netflix case, would they disallow downloading onto your device unless you have an external SIM? Also, if you used external storage, then how da fuq could they control you popping that external storage into some other device entirely, like a rooted device with a custom ROM!? It would have made so much more sense for internal storage… or possibly I am missing something there.
In any case, that sucks that Google seems more and more to be buying into the “walled garden” philosophy - you know, “for your convenience”, aka selling YOU as the product to the investor class.:-(
A quick search seems to suggest there is no known way around this, except to use an older Android OS:-(. I would hope that this would absolutely wake people up to realize why Google cannot be trusted - as if what happened to searching wasn’t enough on its own.
morriscox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Possession of stolen items and/or child porn is all that is required, no matter the reason. Crypto mining would probably be considered a you problem, unless your phone is owned by an employer. Each app has its own storage and can access shared storage.
developer.android.com/about/versions/…/storage
Access to data directories on internal storage
Android 9 (API level 28) started to restrict which apps could make the files in their data directories on internal storage world-accessible to other apps. Apps that target Android 9 or higher cannot make the files in their data directories world-accessible.
Android 11 expands upon this restriction. If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app’s data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
But these rules only seem to apply to apps that follow the rules. Or perhaps on an OS that does so. Hence a custom ROM would be able to bypass it, or connecting the external storage to a computer via USB or some such? At which point it seems needlessly restrictive. But, I am no expert, and it would indeed increase security for a naive user, so likely that’s what they are aiming at.