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.

  • @[email protected]English
    3•21 days ago

    It is a dumb move. I have a bank app that doesn’t want to function allow if I set other keyboards than GBoard. It came out of nowhere

    I’m already in the process of settling my loan and credit card debt with them and closing the account. If they ask why I’ll make sure to highlight that’s the biggest reason.

    The other reason is I got better rates though so suck it