Explain permissions

[Tigger 1]

I was looking at AVG & AVAST antivirus and several of the permissions were quite ridiculous. Can someone here tell me why they need most of the things they want like sending email without my knowledge.

 

[Rukbat]

An antivirus app has to communicate with "home" all the time, to find out if there are any new virus definitions. (Viruses don't come with labels that say "this app is a virus", they're recognized by certain patterns in their data.) New viruses come along all the time, so you need new virus definition files all the time. An anti-virus program is only as good as the last data file it downloaded.

 

[Tigger 1]

I understand needing to keep the virus definitions up to date but I didn't think the app would do that by making phone calls, text messages and emails without your knowledge. Also editing your contacts and calendar one even wanted to create a log of my phone calls. I don't see what these things have to do with scanning for viruses and allowing me to remove them.

 

[funkylogik]

You have to look at permissions in an abstract way. If the dev explained them to you you'd be like "d'oh right i understand".
I think theres a sticky thread somewhere about permissions but an example i use is that an app needs to have access to your calls so that it knows when you get a call and shuts itself up instead of interrupting your call lol

 

[funkylogik]

http://androidforums.com/showthread.php?t=36936

 

[Tigger 1]

Thanks I will check that out. I guess one option would be to download the app and let it check the system out the disable it until I feel the need to run it again. I have several apps that I rarely use disabled to save system resources but still have the ability to use them when needed.