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Wonderfall 2022-07-13 17:55:45 +02:00
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@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ F-Droid should enforce the approach of prefixing the package name of their alter
This results in a confusing user experience where it's hard to keep track of who signs each app, and from which repository the app should be downloaded or updated.
## 6. Misleading permissions approach
F-Droid shows a list of the [low-level permissions](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission) for each app: these low-level permissions are usually grouped in the standard high-level permissions (Location, Microphone, Camera, etc.) and special toggles (nearby Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices, etc.) that are explicitly based on a type of sensitive data. While showing a list of low-level permissions could be useful information for a developer, it's often a **misleading** and inaccurate approach for the end-user. Since Android 6, apps have to [request the standard permissions at runtime](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview#runtime) and do not get them simply by being installed, so knowing all the "under the hood" permissions is not useful and makes the permission model unnecessarily confusing.
F-Droid shows a list of the [low-level permissions](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission) for each app: these low-level permissions are usually grouped in the standard high-level permissions (Location, Microphone, Camera, etc.) and special toggles (nearby Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices, etc.) that are explicitly based on a type of sensitive data. While showing a list of low-level permissions could be useful information for a developer, it's often a **misleading** and inaccurate approach for the end-user. Since Android 6, apps have to [request the standard permissions at runtime](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview#runtime) and do not get them simply by being installed, so showing all the "under the hood" permissions without proper context is not useful and makes the permission model unnecessarily confusing.
F-Droid claims that these low-level permissions are relevant because they support Android 5.1+, meaning they support very outdated versions of Android where apps could have [install-time permissions](https://source.android.com/devices/tech/config/runtime_perms). Anyway, if a technical user wants to see all the manifest permissions for some reason, then they can access the app manifest pretty easily (in fact, exposing the raw manifest would be less misleading). But this is already beyond the scope of this article because anyone who cares about privacy and security wouldn't run a 8 years old version of Android that has not received security updates for years.