Android :: Select Android Applications Sharing Data Without User Notification
Sep 30, 2010
Come one, come all -- let's gather and act shocked, shall we? It's no secret that Google's Android Market is far easier to penetrate than Apple's App Store, which is most definitely a double-edged sword. On one hand, you aren't stuck waiting a lifetime for Apple to approve a perfectly sound app; on the other, you may end up accidentally downloading some Nazi themes that scar you for life. A curious team of scientists from Intel Labs, Penn State and Duke University recently utilized a so-called TaintDroid extension in order to log and monitor the actions of 30 Android apps -- 30 that were picked from the 358 most popular. Their findings? That half of their sample (15, if you're rusty in the math department) shared location information and / or other unique identifiers (IMEI numbers, phone numbers, SIM numbers, etc.) with advertisers. Making matters worse, those 15 didn't actually inform end-users that data was being shared, and some of 'em beamed out information while applications were dormant. Unfortunately for us all, the researchers didn't bother to rat out the 15 evil apps mentioned here, so good luck resting easy knowing that your library of popular apps could be spying on you right now.
Update: A Google spokesperson pinged up with an official response to the study, and you can peek it after the break.Update 2: Looks as if the full study (PDF) has been outed, with the 30 total apps named. Here they are: The Weather Channel, Cestos, Solitaire, Movies, Babble, Manga Browser, Bump, Wertago, Antivirus, ABC - Animals, Traffic Jam, Hearts, Blackjack, Horoscope, 3001 Wisdom Quotes Lite, Yellow Pages, Dastelefonbuch, Astrid, BBC News Live Stream, Ringtones, Layer, Knocking, Barcode Scanner, Coupons, Trapster, Spongebob Slide, ProBasketBall, MySpace, ixMAT, and Evernote.
View 6 Replies
Aug 1, 2010
I'm looking for a way to allow a user to press a button to browse the contents of the SD card, and then select a folder, whose path will be returned to the application. Similar to how you pull up the "Browse..." dialog on Windows for installations.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Aug 9, 2010
I'm looking at creating an AppWidget and want to have the user select which size they want before adding it. Thus, the user can choose 1x1, 2x2, etc. The Calendar widget in Android 2.2 (and possibly earlier, but not in 1.6) does this. How is this done?
View 11 Replies
View Related
May 15, 2009
Anybody knows if we can share databases between applications? How can I access to a database from an A application to another B application? It is possible? What URI I would have to put?
View 4 Replies
View Related
Sep 1, 2009
I have two applications in the field that share the same sharedUserid.What I just found out was that there is a bug in Android, where un- installing one application removes permissions from the other application also - thereby rendering the other application useless. Looks like this bug has been reported before : http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2773 This is a critical bug.Is there a workaround or a tool that can be provided to the user to recover back to a working version. Un-installing and re-installing the the application to start from scratch is not a acceptable option for our users,they stand to lose a lot of valuable data.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jun 10, 2010
Here's a quote from Android's Dev Guide: A central feature of Android is that one application can make use of elements of other applications (provided those applications permit it). For example, if your application needs to display a scrolling list of images and another application has developed a suitable scroller and made it available to others, you can call upon that scroller to do the work, rather than develop your own. Isn't it a bad practice to make an app dependent on other apps?
View 2 Replies
View Related
Aug 11, 2009
What's the most convenient way to share a database across applications? For example, I want my application's dbadapter to query the android's native contact database so when a contact on the phone is deleted, similarly that contact is removed from my application. Should i use an attach statement to attach the table? Or would the better/more secure approach be to create a custom contentprovider query onCreate of my app to verify all contacts in my application still reside on the Contacts.db.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Jul 24, 2010
I want to create a "main" service/application which will provide different functionalities to other applications. According to android docs I can use elements from an application/ service in other. "A central feature of Android is that one application can make use of elements of other applications (provided those applications permit it). ...". There is any examples/documentation on this direction? TicTacToeMain/TicTacToeLib example is not helping me because it seems "TicTacToeLib" will be embedded in final TicTacToeMain apk file. Also I want to ask if is possible to detect if "main" service/ application is missing (if is missing I want to tell user to install it, or to install it automatically).
View 2 Replies
View Related
Aug 26, 2010
I have ten, possibly more, apps I'm developing that all share logic. 50-75% of the logic is the same - perfect for some time of library or code sharing. However, after reading the posts here and trying to share code in Eclipse, I'm not sure that's going to work. I tried going to project -> properties -> build path -> link source and adding the src and gen folders of the project with the shared code and then importing the classes I need. That seems to work in the IDE, but gives an error during runtime: class not found. This seems to be a common error for people attempting this.
I am slowly deciding that shared code is not the best approach in this scenario. Android doesn't seem to work well with this type of code sharing. For one thing resources are not packed in libraries, but references (R.whatever) must exist so as not to create errors. This can be designed around, but the effort and headache is probably worse than simply creating multiple copies. My experience seems typical, based on what I've read. Is it? Have you experienced success or failure with sharing code and/or custom libraries? Am I off-base in thinking that multiple code copies will be smoother sailing than fighting the shared code approach?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Jun 2, 2009
I am working on developing several individual android applications. We had created common UI Layout View XMLs, classes and resources. I would like to share these common layout xml, classes and resources across all of my android applications. I dont want to duplicate them in my applications. Is there any easy way to do this?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Apr 7, 2010
I was playing a bit with adapters cursors and activities. Let's assume i have a cursor containing a query I've made (it doesn't matter if it's to DB or content provider). Now lets assume i bind some of the data (first two rows) to a list activity. Every click on one of those items should open a new list activity (i pass on the cursor index in the activity bundle). Now the question is, which sharing method will be most efficient and right from code point of view ?
1. I thought of trying to send the cursor object in the intent itself (hoping it implemented runnable) but I'm not so sure it's that efficient since the query may contain many rows which will need to be parceled, and i the other intents uses only a few (say 4-5 columns of each row) it's a real waste.
2. Thought of trying to create the array list for my other list screen adapter and serialize it to the intent (again use serialize and intent to pass on the data) but again i fear for efficiency penalty.
3. my last solution was to use static cursor member in my first activity, with package permission, it will work and be relatively efficient, but I'm not so sure regarding memory efficiency and code structure, i'm not fond of using static variables in any case.
Is there another sharing method that i don't know off, if two activities share the same process and application, then they also share memory space, then it should be easy to pass variables from one to another, the question is what's the easiest way without serializing ?
View 6 Replies
View Related
Aug 10, 2010
I did some digging, but couldn't find a clear answer. I have an application with TabActivity as the main activity. I have some computing and network communication that needs to be done when user clicks on the big red jolly "DO IT" button. One tab hosts the form with "DO IT" button, while the other tabs display the results from computing (each tab displays different part of results). The computing is done as AsyncTask as it's supposed to be (afaik).
Now the question is, what is the best way to share the results between the tabbed activities? It can be done with ContentProvider + database from what I have read, although that seems like a bit too much for my needs. I have also considered an option to save the results to some cache file activities could read in onCreate, onResume etc and display the data. Are there any other convenient ways to share the data? (To make it more clear, the data aren't simple, so doing it through preferences etc is impossible.)
View 5 Replies
View Related
Mar 13, 2009
I was looking out for ways to share data between various activities that one may need to create for his applications . Using "Parcel" and Bundle one can do data exchange , but looks like this is a bit cumbersome process specifically if you have to share large array objects with too many fields.
As android.app.Application maintains global state for the application , we can use this class to store global data and access it across activities. Is this a good way ? Are there any implications on allocating large objects in the your class which extends from android.app.Application ?
View 6 Replies
View Related
Aug 25, 2010
I'm writing a game that includes an editor for users to create their own levels. I'd like players to be able to share the levels they've created with other players. I'm trying to figure out the best way of implementing that, and hoping for any advice on the subject.
One obvious option is to set up a server for sharing levels. The game would connect directly to the server to let players share their creations or download levels created by other players. This provides seamless integration and a good user experience, but I'd really prefer not to use this approach. For one thing, I don't want the cost and responsibility of setting up and maintaining the server. And I would be taking on a basically unlimited obligation; otherwise, if I decided to shut down the server a few years from now, the game would suddenly lose a large part of its value.
Another idea I had is to use the Android Market as the way to distribute sets of levels. That way, Google is taking care of running the server for me. Clearly there are programs that work this way, since I've seen lots of themes and expansion packs for particular applications in the Market. While this could work, I'm not very happy with it. Asking an ordinary user to sign up for a developer account on the Market and learn how to post files through it is unreasonable, not to mention they would have to pay $25.
The approach I'm currently leaning toward is allowing levels to be exported as ordinary files. People could then just email them to each other, post them on any website they wanted, etc. Ideally I would want to set up a file type association so they could simply open an email attachment or click a link in the web browser, and my game would automatically be launched to import it. I haven't yet looked into whether that's possible.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jul 21, 2010
I am getting some glitches while making a tab enabled application.
I want to share data, between two tabs of mine application.
How can i achieve the same.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Oct 20, 2010
I am new in android development. i was wondering if i could share some data between two applications in android. One way is to place the text file on SD Card but i dont want to do this.Second way is to place in data folder, and i dont know how to.3rd way is to place the data in shared memory so both applications can see it.also i dont want the user to see or delete this file,only my two applications can change this file or data.Please help me.I've been wondering on this for 2 days.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Nov 12, 2010
I would like to be able to select available WIFI hotspots from the notification dropdown. this would seem to be the most practical way to swap between various hotspots without going through the settings menu.But I can't find anything on the market, although if I want an app to toggle WIFI on and off i'm glad to know there will never be a shortage of available apps!
View 2 Replies
View Related
Aug 23, 2010
I am working on a small android project where it is necessary to share some data amongst several activities and a service that runs in a separate process. I would just like to know what are my options in terms of sharing data? Application class? IPC? File-based? Broadcasts?
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jun 28, 2009
In order to share data between one of my own Android service and an application i am looking for the best way to do this. I have seen the shared memory drivers inside the GNU Linux kernel, but no Java api. Maybe the specific Google IPC Blinder cad be used for my need ?
View 10 Replies
View Related
Mar 20, 2010
I had used Listview to display phoneno from phonebook.now i want on the onListClick event just select the phonno and pass phone no to another activity. but its not working . my code ...
View 7 Replies
View Related
Sep 30, 2010
BBC News - Google Android apps found to be sharing data
Quote:
View 26 Replies
View Related
Aug 22, 2010
I'm looking for suggestions for ways to share Android app data between phones running the same app. For example, lets say I have an app that stores a database of book reviews. If person A has a book review that person B doesn't have, what are the options for getting that information from person A's phone to person B's phone?
Currently, I'm aware of the following options:
- Upload data from person A's phone to a server, then download data from server to Person B's phone.
- Write code to have the phones sync up using bluetooth
- Write code to send SMS messages
I'm wondering if there are any more options besides these, and if there's actually a best-practice for accomplishing this?
Ideally, I want the users to simply click a button in the app to make the sharing take place, so I don't want to go down the bluetooth route because that requires the user to do a bit of setup (or assumes they already have set things up in the form of bluetooth settings).
Since the data can be of variable length and potentially large, I believe that would rule out text messaging.
As far as the server route goes, from what I understand this seems to be an ok way of doing things, but my problem is that I have no experience with having users potentially sign in to a server and then uploading data. I don't know of the cost concerns (if any), or of potential security concerns (allowing just anyone to upload data, I'm not sure if I would have to take steps to ensure someone couldn't bypass the app and upload malicious data).
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jul 22, 2009
I have been using SharedPreferences to share data between activities. But I would very much like to find a better way. I would simply like both Activity1 and Activity2 to share Object1. Activity1 will create Object1 and then start Activity2. What is the smartest way to give Activity2 a pointer to Object1?
To summarize: Activities don't have constructors! How do I send data to them from their parent activity?
View 17 Replies
View Related
Feb 10, 2010
way I can Authenticate a Google Apps User in a Android Application? One approach I know of is to take could take their username and password in a android view, and use the clientLogin interface (http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/AuthForInstalledApps.html). However I was wondering if there was a different approach, maybe pushing to a browser window where it would show the google login for that domain, but I would not know how to get the details back to the application, after the authentication is done.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jun 5, 2010
Has anyone tried sharing a wifi connection through the evo? I have a really old laptop without a wireless card and would like to be able to pick up wifi signal from my router with evo and use usb to share with my pc. Haven't tried yet and will when i get home bit just wondering if anyone had tried this or knows if it'll work.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Sep 4, 2010
so I was clearing up some room for a new app and went through managing apps and deleting some and clearing some caches. And now, I can't select any of the normal ringtones on the phone for my notification sounds. When I go Personalize > Default ringtone > select ringtone. It comes up saying 'Phone Ringtone' With options of OK and Cancel. It gives me no choice of any of the old normal tones the phone had before....what the hell is going on. Same for text noises btw.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Sep 24, 2010
I'm trying to create a notification that uses a different sound than Notification.DEFAULT_SOUND. Is there an easy way I can pop up a Sound picker where the user can choose from? and how do I use the sound picked for my notification?
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jun 26, 2010
I've decided to purchase my first non nokia phone, which will also be my first smart phone in the next couple of weeks! I just want to know, where do you get applications from? How easy is this phone to do things with? I've seen the thread "show us your homepages" and I haven't got a clue how any of this works. If there are any manuals I could read, please point me in the right direction.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Aug 9, 2009
Is there a way for end users to disable 2G data services (e.g. make the phone just a phone)?Or disable the GSM function as well (say, for a device used on a hiking trip as a GPS tracker, where there is no coverage)?
Is there enough control in the SDK to pursue writing an app with a control screen like: [x] Enable Voice (GSM) Enable 2G Data / Enable 3G Data (uses more battery than 2G) [ ] Enable Data When Roaming (may result in extra charges) [x] Enable WiFi [x] Enable WiFi even if device is sleeping [x] Enable Bluetooth [x] Enable GPS [ ] Airplane mode (disable all radios)
View 7 Replies
View Related
Apr 22, 2010
I have an application that allows the user to "drill-down" into data. At each level of data the user can choose a Tableview item or a Listview item. This will result in a startActivity() call for display of new data.
I can get back to the top (Parent activity) by using the Back button, which can take a while. Is there a way to "POP" back to the Parent activity and dismiss all previously allocated activities, and not have to go back through all the activities previously created?
View 2 Replies
View Related
