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How to get Control over Android?!

mosmetic

Lurker
Sep 26, 2012
1
0
Hi,

I am new to android and I moved there from Iphone OS because of privacy, open source, and more control.

Now I have an HTC One V with Android 4.0, but I do NOT have more control!

In the taskmanager, I can see that all kinds of services start "themselves" (meaning, they are back right soon after closing them) also, when I want to install new apps and I see what kind of rights they have, I would like to throw this thing right out of the window.
Seriously, why does a flash light need the right to write to my SD card or talk to the net?
And why does the Flickr process (and others) start all over again even after I "disabled" it/them?
What is behind processes like "SmartNetwork" and "google services"?

So my main question is:
How can I get back the control over my hardware?
How can I restrict apps, and how can I prevent apps from starting "themselves" or get started through other apps which actually have nothing to do with them?


Are here poweruseres who have rooted their phone and can share some experiences?
Preferably ones who also value freedom in the sense of free software and privacy very high?
I would like to talk to you guys, get some insights and learn how you got back in control over your hardware.

Thanks
 
These processes are meant to "restart" themselves. In Android, RAM is used to store apps for real multi-tasking. Even with a fresh exit, many apps are meant to run in the background, like Flickr. When you're in the gallery app and want to share a picture, it enables Flickr to be on the list of ways to share. This is designed like a computer rather than a sandbox. If you start turning things off, your phone won't work as it's designed.

Nearly all free apps will have internet permissions, which is to place ads within the app. You will see this on basically every app you ever download. As to the SD card, it likely shouldn't That is why Android shows you the permissions up front so you can not download it if they seem unreasonable.
 
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But I admit that having stuff like Flickr start up when I had no use at all for it annoyed me. That's not a core part of Android, but an app that HTC thought I needed.

I simply got rid of it by running custom ROMs not based on HTC Sense. If I recall correctly part of HTC's contacts app depended on it, so removing it from the HTC ROM broke other functionality.

(That's not the reason I ditched Sense, but I saw it as a benefit ;))

The general points that apps start for a reason, and that you should check permissions seem reasonable, I absolutely agree with. But without root you can only control the apps you install yourself. If you want to have control over apps the manufacturer or network installed you need root (though I believe that more recent Android versions do give you more ability to disable unwanted apps).

If you really want to keep Google off your device you should look at CyanogenMod, which comes without Google apps unless you add them in - though I think more or less everyone other than perhaps Cory Doctorow does. ;)
 
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First off, you do have more control. It seems to me that its simply a case of being overwhelmed with all the new info about which you do not yet understand, and lack of understanding how Android works in the background. Basically some of the stuff you are seeing are similar to what is actually happening in the background on an iPhone, the difference is that Apple did not feel you needed to know about such stuff.

1.) First off, "apps that start themselves."

There are two kinds of apps that do this: Apps that require a background process, and your most used apps. Apps that require a background process running, like Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Sugarsync, etc, are apps that are constantly needed to be running partially for some purpose. For example, Facebook and Twitter needs to have a process constantly running in the background to check for new messages, mentions, notifications etc so the phone can alert you. I do not use Flickr, so I have no idea on what it does apart from photosharing, but if its something like instagram, its background service is flagged as essential so it can notify you of new posts or comments. These processes, if marked as "essential" will keep on running in the background even if you try to close them. And in fact, forcefully trying to close them eats more battery than leaving them be, as I will explain in a little while.

Moving on to the apps you use the most bit. As you use your phone, Android polls your usage and time per app. It sees which apps you use the most and preloads them on the cache so they open up faster and uses less battery in doing so. So basically, they sit on RAM so they are accessed faster. This is how Linux is designed to work: more used RAM, the faster it is. As opposed to Windows where the less RAM free, the slower it is. Windows 7 however can function like Linux in this manner if you activate certain "smart features" of the OS. These apps sitting on RAM do NOT eat battery as they are using zero CPU cycles unless called upon. This is how Android manages memory. The more used an app is, the more likely it is preloaded on RAM, and the more likely its own background process is flagged essential and given priority. Basically, each background process is like given a priority number, and Android will load as much of these processes as it can to ensure that all your automated settings run as you set them. Same goes for cached apps. The more frequently an app is used, the more it is given priority to be cached to open faster.

Basically, leave all those stuff you see on Task Manager alone. That app is available for the rogue app that always crashes so you can force an end task on it, or so you can monitor which apps are CPU and battery hogs.

So to answer the first question on how do you control the hardware (or actually software), is that you do have control, you just did not understand how you are supposed to control it. Hardware controls like overclocking, setting a certain hardware option to toggle on and off based on certain parameters, etc, all this can be done with the proper apps, you just need to say what you want to do and we will point you in the correct direction.

In answer to the second question of "how to stop apps from starting themselves", you don't and you should not. Because that's the way how Android, which is basically Linux, was designed to work from the start. Its not Windows and should not be managed the same way. Android is smart enough to do what it must with the hardware to keep experience optimized.

2.) Why does a flashlight app need ability to write to SD card and talk to internet?
The talk to internet part is easy, its for ads usually, especially if the app is free, it would usually have this. On the iPhone as an example, every app with ads has this as well. Apple does not tell you it has permissions to connect to internet, but of course it does. It has to pull those ads from somewhere. For a safe flashlight, use TeslaLed Its notifications include camera (for the flash to be used as flashligt), System level alerts (take over full screen for fullscreen option. Used for some of its features like police lights and screen for Morse code signalling or flashlight if your phone does not have camera flash), and prevent tablet from sleeping (keep screen on).

Rooted devices can install apps like Droidwall, ad blocker and Permissions checker. Droidwall is a firewall app that can selectively block internet access from specific apps. Ad blocker is well, an ad blocker. Permissions Checker (or was it manager, can't remember) can deny apps access to certain permissions. For example in your Flashlight app, you can deny the permission to write to SD card. Note that for some apps, permissions may be essential for it to work properly so blocking permissions may cause the app to crash when accessing certain features of it.
 
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