Not sure if this is the correct place to post, but I just wanna kinda rant a bit.

I’m not the only one that hates this, right?

An app can just do a “This App Does Not Allow Screenshots”? Like… wtf?

Like, its my phone, and some app can just decide to disable a fuction of my phone. It’s my phone and if I wanna take a screenshot, I’m taking a screenshot. I don’t care about whatever “security” the app developer wants.

Imagine if every online shopping app whether fast food or amazon, just used this to block you from taking a screenshot so you can’t save the records in case of a dispute.

Which android developer thought it was a good idea to let an app disable a function on your phone. Even iPhone doesn’t have this stupid concept.

Sorry for the rant.

Anyone wanna share your stories?

(P.S. I have a cheap secondary phone to take photos of the screen. “This App Does Not Allow Screenshots” my ass lmao, I’m taking the screenshot whether the app wants it or not.

@[email protected]
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I like that it’s possible, but I think it should be treated like a permission with a user accessible toggle in settings for each app.

Jiří Král
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I would like to see the same thing for clipboard read access. In the same way app has to prompt you for location permission it would have to prompt you to read the clipboard and you would actually have the option to allow it all the time which is handy for some apps like clipboard manager, or don’t allow it alltogether which is handy for some random apps you don’t trust.

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Oh yea, something needs to be done about the clipboard. It’s unsettling to know that a random app can just get your clipboard. Sometimes bitwarden doesn’t detect a password field for some reason so I have to copy it to the clipboard 😖 don’t feel safe…

@[email protected]
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53M

I believe Bitwarden has a setting to “wipe” the clipboard after some time.

Not perfect, but better

@[email protected]
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13M

You can install Shizuku and AppOps to set default permissions for new apps and limit clipboard permission for installed apps.

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creator
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I’m assuming those require root?

I’m not really into rooting. More attack vectors. I have rooted in the past and managed to brick some phones, not really in the moods to destroying stuff.

@[email protected]
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13M

It uses wireless or local ADB. No root required.

@[email protected]
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13M

Does it have a virtual keyboard?

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Not as far as I know.

@[email protected]
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It’s a really good feature imo and I’d love to see it be more common. This is how iOS does it:

Jiří Král
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It could be nice, but also annoying in some cases. I would at least want to have an option to allow all the time.

@[email protected]
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13M

and preferably an option of “ask everytime as yes no”

@[email protected]
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203M

Ironically, Google’s new creepy Circle to Search feature gets to override the screenshot denial lockout that Google themselves created.

@[email protected]
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13M

Doesn’t appear to work in my case. I can a blank screen like I would when trying to screenshot.

@[email protected]
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33M

Of course. When you run a monopoly, you get to make your own rules.

EU should force Google to open Android back up.

@[email protected]
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93M

I don’t have much to add other than my agreement. They’ve been tightening the noose around our necks little by little for years now. But don’t worry, screenshots and copying and pasting text will return…as a microsubscription! /s

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Android Premium! Get it nowow for only $10 $50/month.*

*Pricing subject to arbitary increases. 🤗

@[email protected]
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Yes, it’s simple, if you don’t want me to screenshot your software then don’t display it on my screen.

_cryptagion [he/him]
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they don’t want malware to screenshot your banking info, but go off I guess

@[email protected]
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I can log into the account on a browser with no such restriction, so it’s not protecting much.

@[email protected]
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Good idea for a finance app (which could helpfully ask me for a confirmation) - but sloppy as a general justification for dictating what a user can or can’t do. (But go off I guess)

@[email protected]
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A better way to handle that would be for “taking screenshots when other apps have focus” to be a special permission that needs to be explicitly granted. Could even make it app specific (ie, “I allow app x to take screenshots or record the display/audio of apps y and z”).

Just like arbitrary apps shouldn’t have access to look at the clipboard or full file system whenever they want.

@[email protected]
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Aaaah! I’m so frustrated by this BS. Its MY phone. It should be MY choice.

Switching to GrapheneOS soon, and if the bank app(s) don’t work, too bad. I’ll use a (Linux) computer.

@[email protected]
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GOS does allow taking screenshots, but they come out to be an empty black image.

Bob
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Ah, same with E/OS, I’m just seeing now. Never thought to test that!

@[email protected]
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I just switched to GraoheneOS and love it! All my financial apps worked out of the box.

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GOS allows that to be bypassed?

Well fuck me, I wanna use Samsung Tags to track my cat, so can’t really get a Pixel to use GOS.

@[email protected]
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removed by mod

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creator
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My cat is an indoor cat. Please stop making assumptions. Indoor cats can still escape. Its in case the cat gets out.

@[email protected]
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I didn’t assume you had an outdoor cat I provided information in case you did.

How about you stop making assumptions?

@[email protected]
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I believe you just need the smartThings app to track the tags, which is available to all Android devices. You could use GrapheneOS on a pixel and still use your trackers if you want.

lad
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I recently bought Samsung tags to track my cat, too. The app is available on Pixel but it doesn’t allow me to pair with the tag, so no, it’s a bit more complicated

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Um no, it doesn’t work like that. Its not just an “app”, the app is just the interface, it require some deeper code that runs in the background to make the network work. Everyone who participates in the network needs their phone to be constantly scanning for other tags, and ig it were just the app, it would get easily killed by the OS, so they made it part of samsung’s OneUI, and require OneUI

Also: The second reason it quire Samsung Phone is, I speculate, that its also to incentive people buying Samsung Phone over other brands, which in this case, they succeeded. Having access to such a huge network is very powerful, tile doesn’t have such a large network like Samsung or Apple, and since I dislike iOS, my only other option is Samsung, or I’d have to pay a monthly subscription for a cat tracker which would be terrible and very heavy for my cat to wear (and also you need to charge those batteries every 2 weeks, unlike a bluetooth tag that can last months). Samsung is very clever at getting more phone sales.

@[email protected]
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Google has find my device tags as well just FYI that utilize all modern android devices, so probably a larger network than Samsung’s but smaller than apples

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I read about it and sounds cool, but inferior to Samsung’s smart tags (or Apple’s airtags, for that matter).

If you didn’t know already, let me explain:

Smart tags that are powered by Google’s Find My network doesn’t work as well because Google’s Find My Network settings default to a setting that requires Multiple devices to scan the tag before the server reveals the tag’s location to you.

Sure you might say its for “privacy” and I understand Google is trying to be very noble here. But when my cat goes missing (god-forbid, hopefully never happens) I don’t need this fake “nobelness” and “privacy-concious” mindset, I need for my tags to work and for me to find my cat. Google be selling all your info then suddenly wanna pretend like they’re some saint when it comes to these tags, bruh the location of the tag is already reported to Google servers, they’re just hiding it from your view until they decide enough devices has scanned it. Wtf Google, what’ the point of that?

Both Samsung and Apple tags show the location after one device scanning it and reporting the location, Google’s however, requires Multiple. Yea just find some youtube video comparison and you see the difference. Google’s shit is junk.

Also on top of the issue mentioned above the Samsung Tags have been out for years, Google’s have only been recently releases, and is buggy and essentially in beta-testing.

@[email protected]
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Good info to have, thanks

@[email protected]
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I hate the whole bloody smartphone ecosystem for shit like this. Microsoft Palladium was widely seen as a nightmare scenario when it proposed ceding a bunch of user control to the OS and app developers a couple decades ago, even by the mainstream press. It seems Apple and Google used it as a roadmap, likely because people don’t know how to use computers, and that doesn’t seem to be improving.

The part of the modern mobile OS security model that does have merit is that apps aren’t trusted. The PC model, even in multiuser operating systems with fancy permissions was that apps are user agents which are always doing something the user asked for, and therefore trusted as much as the user. The glut of spyware for Windows in the early 2000s proved that false.

The fact that somebody else doesn’t know how to use a computer shouldn’t force me to cede control over mine to participate in the modern world. Root is a bit of an escape hatch, but it’s a blunt instrument on Android, and Google tries to help app developers stop me from using that as well. I’m starting to feel like Richard Stallman was right about everything and I should go be a digital hermit, only running software I compiled from source.

atocci
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Wow that blog post is from 2013? I wouldn’t have guessed if not for the references to 3G.

@[email protected]
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I just read it myself, as a “mature age” student at University in 2024 I have often sarcastically asked some of the 18-21 cohort in the class if they need the old person to show them how to use a computer when they don’t even know that a “program” for a PC/Mac is just another word for “app” even the teachers look shocked when you hear most of the class nod in agreement about not knowing what software actually is and that it can be installed without an “App Store”.

I think the thing is most people just see computers and tech as just another appliance the same as a microwave and to know anything more than “turning it on and off again” is just seen as far too nerdy or a waste of time when they can get on the internet and read their influencers on social media or just watch YouTubers instead….

But they are the first to complain when “the internet doesn’t work!!”

That blog could have been written today!!

@[email protected]
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I work for a company that builds an app /sdk that handles credit cards / payments. It’s one of the (many) requirements for getting an industry standard certification (like PCIDSS / MPOC). The app Must block screenshots, and Must disable the camera while using it…

@[email protected]
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Why did you capitalize “must”?

@[email protected]
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Probably a nod to the written style of RFC definitions, which have the word entirely in capital letters, as in… the implementation MUST do such and such, and SHOULD do this other thing. In this case, the relevant security standard(s)

@[email protected]
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We have italics and bold characters for that.

@[email protected]
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RFCs were being written back when line printers couldn’t do either.

@[email protected]
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I misread your comment and thought you said “RFK”. I have no idea what an “RFC” is. Some sort of teletype thing?

@[email protected]
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RFCs are Requests For Comment, published technical documents describing proposed standards.

Onno (VK6FLAB)
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What on earth are those in charge of certification standards thinking they’ll achieve with requirements like this?

@[email protected]
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It’s probably to stop third party apps from screenshoting the banking app.

@[email protected]
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43M

Why is this only a problem on mobile? Why doesn’t desktop have similar requirements?

@[email protected]
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I don’t know.

@[email protected]
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tbh the security settings on desktop devices tend to be more lax in general; for example almost any desktop pc has an open bootloader, means you can sideload an operating system from usb. The consequence is that no password-at-login will protect your private data; only full disk encryption can.

Smartphones on the other hand often have a fully-locked bootloader, which means it’s totally non-trivial to install an alternative operating system. especially, it often contains wiping any data on the smartphone, so an attacker with access to the device can’t simply install their own OS and read the internal storage.

@[email protected]
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The same functionality that you use to take screenshots can be hijacked by bad actors to get access to your stuff. It’s especially bad if they can see your MFA apps or other sensitive info.

Not saying the functionality is always used for the best of intentions, but there are many situations where I see it as necessary.

@[email protected]
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Accidentally screenshotting your bank acct and routing number is the only one I can really think of.

@[email protected]
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Or your “time clock earth sounds” app from the not so well policed appstore takes silent background screenshots, grayscales them and sends them to their host for OCR.

I agree this permission is annoying. But I differ in I feel it should be system controlled and can be invoked by apps that identify specific fields to be blocked, instead ofnjusy disabling it outright.

Onno (VK6FLAB)
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Not sure how this is relevant, these numbers are routinely shared with clients and suppliers.

@[email protected]
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fucking scrcpy

@[email protected]
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13M

If only that didn’t require a PC - like an Android version that could run on your tablet to copy your phone’s screen.

@[email protected]
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Many phones can work in usb host mode. I’ll see if such a rooted phone can be used to capture screen over adb with perhaps a modified scrcpy. Or run normal scrcpy in a freedesktop rootfs container. Sounds like a fun side project.

@[email protected]
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When I first was researching scrcpy, I found a thread (probably under “issues” on the GitHub repository for scrcpy) where someone else requested the same. They then went on to create a prototype using Java that the author of scrcpy seemed impressed with, but that was as far as it went. The prototype was based on a very old version (1.x) of scrcpy, so I never bothered trying it. Might be usable for this purpose, however.

@[email protected]
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Thanks, good to know.

@[email protected]
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Like, its my phone, and some app can just decide to disable a fuction of my phone.

Is it your phone though?

@[email protected]
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deleted by creator

@[email protected]
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83M

Yes, and we should not give app developers a free pass because “everybody is doing it”.

@[email protected]
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43M

Your physical phone hardware belongs to you.

The Android operating system is licensed for your use as Free and Open Source Software.

All the other Google bits and blobs are licensed to you by Google.

Some days I’m not even sure if I own the shoes on my feet or if they’re just licensed to me.

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🙃

It should be, but the reality is that is isn’t.

@[email protected]
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The security argument is a lie, I think. I think websites like Netflix like these features so it’s difficult to approach copying a video.

If security were an issue I don’t think you’d be able to copy text to the clipboard in situations where you can’t screenshot.

@[email protected]
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Microsoft teams limits your clipboard to 500 characters when you try to copy on the app. Of course blocks screenshots too. If I’m on a meeting that isn’t being recorded, I now have no way of saving any pertinent information, and the ones that ARE recorded get automatically deleted after 30 days. 🤷🏽‍♀️

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creator
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using a secondary phone to take pictures of the screen intensifies

𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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30 days is set by your company. Ours is set to 90 days. Stupid, on my opinion. If I recorded it, I obviously want to keep it. For this reason, I user OBS on my computer and record meetings through that. Bypass teams’s recording framework altogether.

@[email protected]
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OBS?

𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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Sorry. Open broadcaster software. While not really intended for this use case, it works great for it.

@[email protected]
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I can confirm, OBS Studio is perfect for recording Microsoft Teams sessions. Other parties are not aware of the recording unlike Teams built-on recording.

Probably works for every similar application as well.

𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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Oh, it does lol. If it’s images on the screen and audio through the output, OBS can record it. It’s awesome!

@[email protected]
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Open Broadcast Software

Open-Source screen recording and streaming software

@[email protected]
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03M

Ah, ty.

@[email protected]
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In litigation, if one side destroys evidence beforehand, or goes to great lengths to deliberately not collect it, courts instruct juries to presume against the side that destroyed the evidence. Companies that think they’re being clever by using apps that auto-delete records aren’t as clever as they think they are. This Teams feature is obviously meant to make it difficult to assist in corporate malfeasance. Using Teams is now a liability risk to companies.

@[email protected]
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you can bypass this with a rootkit

i think they do it for security reasons. if you can take screenshots of sensitive data, so can malware. however, you should be able to disable it for netflix for example.

@[email protected]
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i think they do it for security reasons.

Yet, on iOS, the same app can’t. So it is more like, “ooh a button to twiddle, I’ll twiddle it!”

@[email protected]
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Netflix and other streaming apps do it to prevent screen recording their ‘premium’ content. These use DRM too and the region of protected content shows in black in scrcpy. These apps are much hostile to users much beyond screenshot and shouldn’t be used anyway. Most movies and shows can be pirated from torrent, illegal streaming sites or simply telegram in good quality and watched in say vlc for much better experience than these crappy apps provide.

@[email protected]
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I respect your opinion, but I see it differently.

Paying for entertainment and content like well-made animations makes sense to me. After all, paying for content is some kind of democratic participation, choosing what is produced. I didn’t mind pirating a lot when I was younger and didn’t have the money to pay for something anyways, but now i prefer to do things “the right way”.

@[email protected]
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I’ve no problem with paying the artists of the great contents I enjoy. I think they deserve the support and praise. What I (and we should IMO) hate is user subjugating behaviour the streaming apps and hollywood studios impose. I’d pay for the content and the bandwidth of the streaming/downloading service. Better yet, pay per download like netflix dvd days.

Digital restriction management has been proven ineffective for piracy. And piracy is the only way I get good quality content in accessible way. For example due to DRM netflix will not run on any of my devices above 720p no matter what I pay. There’s simply no way I can pay the artists directly AFAIK.

slazer2au
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I get banking and financial apps doing it. But shopping apps yea, wish we had a permissions override

@[email protected]
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Wanna know what’s even more fucked up? Few years back, I had exactly this problem. Searched the internet for a solution. Guess what?

Enable Google Voice Assistant and say “Ok Google. Take a screenshot.” Google magically has the rights to make a screenshot on the App that doesn’t let you, the user, take the screenshot.

Next phone I get is gonna be something with a alternate OS, no Android or iOS.

@[email protected]
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This is a hot tip, thank you! Just confirmed in my banking app, no overlay or notification but the screenshot appeared in my photos

𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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So, the very thing the block claims to block, is completely allowed lol genius

@[email protected]
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Google is working on replacing Assistant with their Gemini AI crap - would not be surprised if it no longer works there.

@[email protected]
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83M

That OS won’t have those banking apps in the first place, so what’s the difference to just not installing them on Android?

@[email protected]
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13M

android allows programs to prevent screenshots, which is defective by design https://www.defectivebydesign.org/

𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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Cool website!

@[email protected]
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133M

Good luck with finding an alternative. I tried running a Pinephone Pro with Linux and it was just too buggy to use.

If your current phone lasts 4 more years it might be ok software wise but good god is it bad now.

@[email protected]
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53M

Don’t a lot of people use GrapheneOS?

Yes, I use GrapheneOS myself, but just know that it doesn’t make any changes to AOSP other than privacy and security enhancements. Apps can still prevent you from taking screenshots on GrapheneOS.

@[email protected]
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People do but it’s Android. They asked for a non iOS non Android system.

@[email protected]
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43M

it’s for pixel phones only.

@[email protected]
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43M

I realistically only need to have mobile data, run Signal, Discord, possibly WhatsApp, and have a working browser… Hm. I hope that works.

@[email protected]
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43M

If you are ok with a 4-5 hour battery life then this should work. They all have Linux clients. The problem is that there is no notification infrastructure. The phone just runs like a desktop the whole time. If you sleep the phone you don’t get alerts.

_cryptagion [he/him]
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You can root your phone to remove all security features, if you don’t mind malware having full access to your data. You should probably cancel your debit and credit cards if you do, and lock your credit score, cause if you’re doing stuff like that you won’t have to wait long till Have I Been Pwned notifies you you’re in a data breach.

@[email protected]
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93M

Rooting doesn’t automatically give root permissions to just any app that wants it - you still have to allow it.

@[email protected]
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Many (maybe even all) banking apps won’t even install or launch if your phone is rooted.

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creator
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Yea… I though about rooting, but heck no, too much security problem, I don’t want more anxiety. Guess I’ll just have to keep use my cheap secondary phone to take pictures as a workaround… 😓

@[email protected]
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53M

You can bypass this crap, but you’ll need to root your phone to achieve that.

Afterwards you’ll need to install magisk (superuser app) and a bunch of plugins: play integrity fix and playcurl_next (to simulate that your phone is unrooted), and then FlagSecurePatcher (which is the actual module that’s overriding the screenshot block.

@[email protected]
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23M

Thank you, I needed this info for a friend

_cryptagion [he/him]
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If you root your phone, you give root access to any malware you run across as well. So don’t use your phone for anything that you don’t want to end up on some darkweb forum.

@[email protected]
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53M

Rooting doesn’t automatically give root permissions to just any app that wants it - you still have to allow it.

@[email protected]
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63M

Rubbish, the superuser app will prompt you if an app asks for permissions, and you need to grant it manually. The warning message is distinctively different from regular popups, and there is a 5 second cooldown timer before you can click it, to make sure it’s not happening accidentally.

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