One should never comprise in matters that involve critical things
such as your own privacy. But, the developer of the apps can set their
own permissions to the apps they develop and are able to access your
private data which raises privacy issues for the users. While changing
permissions and removing those that are not needed form any app can
solve the privacy issue but it causes another problem - most
applications force close with changes in permissions. PDroid comes handy
in such situation.
So, wouldn't you want to control your device and preserve your privacy? I
am sure you would. Then, PDroid is just what you need. PDroid let's you
block access to information of you choice and more of all it doesn't
causes force close. With this you can take control of access to your
private data by the
applications you install. The developer of this app,
Svyat, believes that every user has the right for using any application without worrying about their privacy.
PDroid allows
blocking access for any installed application to the following data separately:
- Device ID (IMEI/MEID/ESN)
- Subscriber ID (IMSI)
- SIM serial (ICCID)
- Phone and mailbox number
- Incoming call number
- Outgoing call number
- GPS location
- Network location
- List of accounts (including your google e-mail address)
- Account auth tokens
- Contacts
- Call logs
- Calendar
- SMS
- MMS
- Browser bookmarks and history
- System logs
- SIM info (operator, country)
- Network info (operator, country)
PDroid also allows supplying
custom or
random values for
device ID, phone and mailbox number, SIM serial, subscriber ID and
device location. More over it has following features that keep it above
all other competitors. Anyway, here's why PDroid is recommended to
preserve your privacy.
- Applicaitons do NOT crash when access to private data is blocked (unlike with Permissions Denied or Cyanogen Mod)
- Fine-grained tuning of access to private data.
- No background service needed.
- Very small memory footprint (~700KB).
- No impact on battery life.
- No impact on performance (5ms overhead on access to private data; yes, that's 0.005s).
- 100% reliable unlike ROOT applications (LBE), which need to start their background service on boot (see android underground to learn why this is an issue).
- No ROOT required for the app to run.
- No Android permissions required for the app to run.
- Open-source.
These are all the features that you get with PDroid app and all these
for free. So, what are you waiting for? Download latest PDroid app from
below and take control of your private data. But, first you will need to
flash a PDroid patch file via
Clockwork Mod Recovery. You can find
more information on making a patch file for your rom at this article.
Once you can make a PDroid patch for your
custom rom
by following the instructions at this article then, flash it on your
device via Clockwork Mod Recovery and then install the PDroid app from
below and you are done with it. Now whenever you install an
application a notification will be shown asking you to manage (allow or deny) the access to various data. Below are few
screen-shots of this app that will give you fair idea about working of this PDroid
Privacy Protection app.
|
Notifications to configure privacy settings. |
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PDroid App Preferences |
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Privacy Setting For Angry Birds game. |
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Privacy Settings For FB - Custom values for app. |
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Angry Birds Access Blocked Information. No Force Close. |
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