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So, Google can just randomly uninstall apps from my device? What will happen after developer verification comes into effect? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by testaccount789@sh.itjust.works to c/android@lemmy.world

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If this can happen, is it possible that once mandatory developer verification comes into effect, all 3rd party apps will be uninstalled at first and require a re-install?

Concerning this specific case, NFCGate is a tool on which malware (family) titled NGate by ESET is based, thus likely causing a false positive.

Oh, and no bypass is available anymore (aside from disabling play protect):

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[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 104 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I've disabled play protect because of this bs

[–] Mountainaire@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Well, they're obviously gonna make Protect forcibly on, 24/7. So then what for us?

[–] normonator@lemmy.ml 83 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Play protect will remove things that google doesn't like, not malware.

Working at a phone retail place, I have never seen malware not from the Play store. There is fuckloads of malware on the Play store. Most of it faking Google's own apps which you'd think they would care about, but they don't. All of that walks straight through play protect and in some cases on Samsung phones will abuse their security features to not let you remove it easily.

Fake apps that replace your home screen, display ads every 5 seconds, and close any app that you're in are rampant on the Play store and play protect will do nothing about it.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It has the largest user base to target.

If it was normal to just search the web for all the apps you wanted, and you installed from from prompts on vendor websites, then all of the malware would come from that instead.

Google and Apple claim their stores address the issue. But it’s almost impossible to pay enough people to deeply review every single app and app update.

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 8 points 4 days ago

It would be easy to pay for it, but shareholders don't like that

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

I searched for "Messages" on the play store, and the top link was malware. WTAF?

[–] cybernihongo@reddthat.com 55 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It uninstalled AnkiConnect for me. No warning first to tell me the app was malicious (it isn't), no prompt of whether or not it's OK to remove it. Just yeeted.

I had to disable Play Protect from Google Play's settings, and that wasn't enough as notifications would now pop up saying the app is malicious after I brought it back, so then I shut off those notifications.

When the warranty on my phone runs out or it's under threat of not being able to unlock the bootloader, I'll unlock the bootloader and put on a custom ROM without Gapps. Fuck this bullshit. And Google wants to make installing apps harder to feed its ego. Fuck billionaires.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I removed the network permission from the play store. Apps will still work if they arbitrarily require Google Play to be installed. The store itself can't do shit.

GrapheneOS can remove Play Store network permissions. I'm not sure about others.

[–] testaccount789@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago

Some can be pretty limited in what they allow you.
For example, I tried Moto G54 5G, and it kept giving me full-screen update notifications, which would immediately re-appear when I exit it and closed it from recent apps.
Naturally, I tried to disable Moto updates, at least temporarily.
Hmm, shouldn't that be me?
I returned the phone for a refund.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 7 points 3 days ago

We start hacking. The war begins!

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 34 points 4 days ago

it's not really your phone unless you have full root/bootloader access to the device sadly

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 50 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Had heard they could uninstall programs for years now, but never seen a report of that actually being done.

Alas, does Play Protect help in anything? Power users are likely to know what they're doing, and normal users are likely to be using only the programs Google already sanctioned due to being on Google Play, so I personally can't see much room for it.

About your question, hard to confirm anything. But with Google existing on an eternal slippery slope, I think it's safe to say not if they're doing it, but when.

[–] GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I mean there is the problem of malicious apps on the Play Store (though that should be handled by Google reviewing submitted apps better). Maybe Play Protect could uninstall those once they're discovered? Seems a bit late. There's uninformed users being fooled into installing malicious APKs outside of the Play Store by blindly following malicious instructions, but Play Protect is just another step to follow.

I figure what's more valuable to Google is the marketing that Android is secure and a list of apps installed on your phone.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Google is a sellout hypocrite of the highest order and has been for...15, 18 years?

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago

Android being “open” was always just marketing. The truth is more complex and not as sellable.

[–] seathru@quokk.au 15 points 5 days ago

Happened last year with BLE Radar when police/ICE realized people could see (the presence of) their body cams.

[–] PixeIOrange@lemmy.world 32 points 4 days ago

Google has control over every aspect of your phone. Some LineageOS versions ago the true permissions were visible. And google play services is crazy mighty. Time to get rid of google entirely in my opinion.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 12 points 4 days ago

Roll on Moto and Graphene

[–] artyom@piefed.social 37 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I uninstalled Google.

You can (and should) also disable Play Protect.

[–] lyralycan@sh.itjust.works 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

They flagged Rustdesk a while back, which is a probably harmless open-source remote access software. Because of this I learned that Google not only has Play Protect in Google Play settings, but a second, separate setting in Security called Advanced Protection, that prompted me to remove Rustdesk, and a second time after it re-enabled itself. It reminds me of the days I ran Windows and the antivirus would kill vital programs or script files for some games.

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don't know. advanced protection protects against stingrays though, so I'm not sure I want to disable that just yet except for when I have to update an app and then I re-enable it

[–] lyralycan@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Well, from what I can find it doesn't seem that much of an attack vector --

-- My phone does not have 2G compatibility, this probably only tracks location if you've switched on location services and I'd wager most people use IM calls and texts rather than cellular. If the phone is old enough to have 2G or 3G, perhaps there's a threat. If you live in the US it's ironically probably smart to leave it on -- state forces are a bigger threat than malicious conglomerates atm

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There are newer stingray type devices that are effective against 3G and 4G devices as well, and I think there's one that's coming out soon or has already been released that works on 5G to some extent but not completely. I haven't read up on it fully lately, but there's definitely more out there than just 2G/3G devices.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

If you read the alleged protection dialog, Google's only blocks against 2G networks. The same of which many carriers allow, enable, or enforce blocking, and if not *#*#info#*#* let's you do it yourself.

"2G network protection - Avoids 2G networks, which are less secure"

[–] testaccount789@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

*#*#info#*#*

OH, that's why 4636.

So 3646633 could be ENGMODE (Engineer Mode on MediaTek). Are all of them like this?

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Most of the time they do spell things, yeah, then there are the weird legacy holdover ones. The *3001#12345#* iPhone code is an old Nokia engineering screen code that probably only had meaning to Nokia S40/S60 engineers.

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Interesting. *#*#info#*#* didn't do anything for me.

Invalid mmi code

Edit: I did however find it under settings, network,sims, and then when I selected my particular sims, it scrolled down a bit. I found that that was already disabled. It was labeled as 2G network protection.

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[–] atropa@piefed.social 25 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I use grapheneOs BTW

[–] discocactus@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Omg tell me more...

[–] pfried@reddthat.com 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Welcome to 2010. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2010/06/exercising-our-remote-application.html

Remote installation via the web has been exposed to the user since 2011. https://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducing-android-market-website.html

This also means users can remotely uninstall. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-store-uninstall-button-3614548/

Yes, it's possible that Google will abuse this, but it would be an easy antitrust case.

[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 5 points 4 days ago (3 children)

"Easy antitrust case" the same kind of easy as easy to punish google for actively throttling access to sites that dont pay them,or easy to punish them for actively supporting apartheid?

They've got a chokehold on the internet and of every political entity/corporation that uses the internet, excising this tumour is going to be anything but easy.

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[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 22 points 5 days ago

Yes, because you are using Play Protect. You don't have to do that.

[–] DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 days ago

Why is this not a prompt asking if you would like to uninstall? It should be my choice, not googles choice, to uninstall apps.

[–] Ghoelian@piefed.social 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

this app is fake

Lmao what does that even mean. Looks pretty real to me if you managed to install it.

[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

The app isn't real. It can't hurt you.

[–] FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 days ago

play protect deleted the aurora store from my phone. now I have a new one with graphene and no google services :)

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I'd be interested to know what anti-malware tools one can use on an Android other than Play Protect.

[–] cJni5di01n@lemmy.org 1 points 3 days ago

There is Hypatia available through F-Droid.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Samsung phones include McAfee, oddly.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

At the rate that software was bloating over the years, I'm surprised humanity has produced enough RAM already to load the latest version.

[–] AdminBot@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

Ill bet that it shares no code with PC mcafee, and its just a rebadge over something else.

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[–] unitedwithme@lemmy.today 18 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Fun fact: you can remove your Google account from your Android phone and it'll work completely fine! I've done so, disabled every Google app and Play store thing I could. Everything is either from F-Droid, or APKeep minus my banking app that I'll get rid of when it's obsolete.

[–] potatoguy@mbin.potato-guy.space 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

On one of my phones I do this plus delete/disable everything from google, except play services and play services framework (with everything disabled in there, only cloud messaging enabled). For apps on the play store I just download from aurora store.

The only thing I needed the play store for was to register 2FA for the government app on that phone. On the rest, it didn't make a difference.

On another phone I use microg and it works fine too. I think attestation (safetynet) and disabled root and dev tools will make everything work fine, I put my hosts file using adb in recovery mode and no application has noticed. No banking app, nothing noticed.

I didn't know that Android would block installs from "unauthorized sources" using play protect, I thought it would be hardcoded into play services or even on the android images.

Edit: for such a "secure" implementation, etc, it seems very weak, ngl

[–] blargh513@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 days ago

That is because it is security theater.

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[–] marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today 18 points 5 days ago

Play protect doesn't actually scan for malware; it's not an anti-virus. Google, supposedly, scans for malware on the app store regularly and takes action through play protect if they find it there.

So, in other words, unless you have a very specific reason; like you believe it is likely that one of the apps you use from the google play store could become compromised in the future, just disable plat protect.

It will at best annoy you with false positives and blocking non-play store apps for no other reason than google's jealousy. At worst it won't stop a harmful app from being on your device -- it will just eventually catch and remove it after it has already been on your device doing whatever nefarious activity.

[–] homologous@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 4 days ago

i havent had it uninstall an app but google has been blocking me from updating apps in Obtainium (using Shizuku) DESPITE having play protect disabled. im able to bypass it but the fact that it even blocks it in the first place unwarranted pisses me off

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