Android starts to limits the visibility of apps to other apps

Android is one of the most popular markets right now, and their operating system is one of the most preferred by people. The other company so big is Apple, and the both have a huge difference is their iOS system. Apple limits the interaction between apps, which means that one apps doesn’t necessarily know what other apps are installed in your device. Android systems allow this, and each app can know what else you have on your device so it is easy to interact.

Even though this characteristic on the Android system is very functional and it can make a lot of different interactions simple, it also has a down side, and it is that some times, we can download an infected app, a malicious app, and it is not so good that has easy access to all the other apps. And just exactly this reason has made Android change its opinion, and it seems that now Android will start to limit the visibility of apps to the other apps.

Google wants to improve its security protocols

It is a delicate situation for the company, since they still want to give the freedom to make connections and interactions between apps. This is a process that makes everything simple and even allows to create new interactions. However, they also acknowledge that can be risky. The decision so far is going to be too limited, to certain extent, the visibility of the list of apps that is on the device.

If one app wants to see what other apps are installed on the system, it needs to use a protocol called QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES. In the new Android OS, this protocol won’t be eliminated, but each app and developers will have to justify and specify the reasons why they want to know what other apps are on the phone and in what way they will use it. This will justify why a file manager app or an antivirus need access, but will limit other apps like a calculator or a game to have the same access without any logical reason.

This new protocol looks to improve the security of the new OS. They said it will absolutely come with Android 12, but it seems that will be also integrated in Android 11. This will be a quick change and very urgent, since Google gave 30 days to developers to make the necessary changes on their apps.

The apps that won’t make the necessary changes have the risk to be eliminated from the app store. So, we also need to be aware of the apps that we have installed and see if they get deleted or banned for the same reasons, this will mean that this app is having unnecessary access to our device.