Re: Samsung phones are not rooted OOTB

Samsung phones are not rooted OOTB (Score: 1)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2015-03-03 21:44 (#47Q4)

That is the problem. My hardware. My device. Regardless of ease of rooting these days I prefer root access when it is handed over. Throw in the beefed up security and these guys meet a personal and business need. If they can provide excellent enterprise level device controls the money will roll in.

Re: Samsung phones are not rooted OOTB (Score: 1)

by axsdenied@pipedot.org on 2015-03-04 12:20 (#48YH)

The average user does not know what root access is and does not need it. I don't think that you or most of us here are average users. Hence, it does not make sense to enable root access on all handsets but it makes sense to make it easily obtained if the advanced user wishes to do so.

Re: Samsung phones are not rooted OOTB (Score: 2, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-03-04 12:26 (#48YK)

What I meant by that sentence is, "I feel like others have rooted my phone from the moment I first use it." The fact that Android is so closely tied into Google, has that miserable app permissions system that allow devs to simply ask for one more permission each round until they rule the world mwah ha ha ha, and is probably phoning home more than you know, kind of freaks me out.

Android is not consumer-focused, it's enterprise focused. And those enterprises need your data, your ad-watching-eyeballs, and your credit card to stay in business. Fuck that, I just want pocket computing.

Re: Samsung phones are not rooted OOTB (Score: 2, Interesting)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-03-04 16:43 (#49BC)

I mostly liked the old Android app permission system, until they removed network access as a component. Where else do you get a nice list of the things an app is allowed to do? Certainly not on Linux/BSD unless you audit the source, yourself, or else install a carefully crafted SELinux policy for each. And when there are multiple apps that do the same task (say: solitaire) you can shop-around, until you find one that requests the fewest permissions.

An app update wants new permissions??? Just decline and keep using the old one. Or if you want to try it, just backup your apps before upgrading, and reinstall the old one if the new version has undesirable changes.

Unfortunately the most recent revamp REMEMBERS that you (perhaps accidentally) accepted the new permissions of the app update, and will reinstall it without any extra prompting, requiring you to clear the Play Store's app data before rolling-back.

I'm not so sure Cyanogen's system of allowing users to limit permissions would work on a larger scale... App developers would start including unit tests to see if they actually have each permission up and working, and if not, the app just exits.

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