Spyware free ROMs? - G1 Android Development

Everyone heard the news about Android spying on its owners and sending cell/wifi/location whatever info to Google.
Can someone please clarify whether custom ROMs are also subject to this 'spying' behavior?
If some ROMs are and some aren't then maybe we could produce a list of spying/non-spying ROMs?
PS
yes I've read Don't Start A New Thread, used search and did RTFW

None of the custom roms here would do that or secretly send information in the background. Unless you get some app that does that w/o you knowing.

GAPPS! But you can turn off the option that send the status.

Sure.. your android rom might send info to google.. if that disturbs you. I don't think that not using a custom rom will give less info to google, as if they don't know enough about you already lol.

The information that is sent to Google is an opt-in/opt-out deal. When you first set-up your phone, it gives you a check box (automatically checked) to send anonymous information to them about your location, apps, version etc. They use this information for demographics, development and marketing. They don't collect anymore information from you than department stores or credit card companies. It could be possible for a third party application to collect this type of information as well, but the application tells you all the information it accesses when you install it.

Related

Permission protected data spoofing on CM7

http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,5677
This is an interesting patch to the CM7 repository frameworks base. If you scroll down and expand the comments you can follow the guys arguments on justifying such feature. Basically from what I understand this would allow you to spoof personal data to apps which may or may not request it. From contacts to SD card contents as well as phone IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number.
It's not a committed change but I wanted to see what the community thinks of having such feature. Personally I see all the reasons why this would open up a can of warms. What do you think?
I think in some other implementation this could be really helpful to the paranoid (like myself). However, I also think that those that are against it have VERY valid points. The community needs MORE widespread acceptance, not less, and something like this could cause major problems with Google, Carriers, Developers....
Sent from a bird cage, with a swing!
Correct me if I am wrong, but the intention is to spoof necessary data that an app might request that it doesn't actually need and to help prevent app force closes that straight up permission blocking causes. Like pandora requiring to read contact data.
Setting aside the other ramifications for a second... This is actually a good idea. It gives us power to not have to accept (for example) Pandora being greedy bastards.
Now the other ramifications are indeed severe. But for example, Swype. Why the hell can't I just buy it on the market?
I think arguing over it is a moot point. This cat is already out of the bag. We can't stuff it back in. This functionality is coming. Maybe not on Cyanogen, but it will be here for the masses soon. The greedy bastards that are trying to milk the system had just better deal with it.
Wow this thread could not have popped up at a worse time , what with all the NexusSense 0.3 users having trouble with their IMEI's.
But having read through all the comments on the change, i see why the CM team do not want to implement it, obviously this kind of change would piss off devs and carriers and of course google.
Yes it is a good idea for us users, but for CM's image and survivability , id say not having it is a sacrifice we need to make
First of all:
Wrong section.
Second: They won't add it anyway.
Some developers cried about it and everything.
dario3040 said:
First of all:
Wrong section.
Second: They won't add it anyway.
Some developers cried about it and everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I figured this is about a development of Android ROM and posted in "Android Development" section. Forgive me if there was a better place to post it in.
This is also not marked as abandoned (as of this post) and still up for debate in the open section of Cyanogenmod Gerrit section.
For devices without an IMEI because they don't have a cellular radio, such as the Nook Color, some amount of this is valid and regarded as highly valuable. While I don't condone being able to haphazardly change or spoof your IMEI, I do believe that for devices that don't have an IMEI that some measure should be taken to create a device specific IMEI that will persist between different ROMs and ROM installations. Unfortunately with no IMEI support for devices like the Nook Color, there is no persistent ID that can be used. As developers continue to use the IMEI as a "device stable" ID, we need to come up with a way to support devices that don't have such an ID, and perhaps generate a non-colliding IMEI from a has of their login information, or some other identifying metric that will persist between different installations. The TAC could be created to identify the device type, and then the serial number could be generated based upon some information provided by the user.
In short, outright spoofing is probably a bad idea, but something needs to be done for devices that don't supply these sorts of IDs.

Tips about a good customer support

No matter if the app is free or paid, as a developer you want to offer a good support to the end users. Why? Because as long as they are happy they will continue to use your app and they will recommend it to others. So it is in your best interest to do your best and resolve issues that customers are reporting, implement requested features and solve as many bugs as possible.
To that end, you must ensure you provide easy to access means of communication between you as a developer and the end users. There are many ways you can achieve that and I will list a few I am using and the more you can provide the better so we can put together a list:
Create an email address or use one you already have (I prefer the former) and provide links on Google Play and inside the app. It is nice if you add an accessible menu item that says (Suggestions/Bug report/Support/Etc) that will start an intent chooser for sending emails to this email address
Use forums (XDA ) and post your app and frequently visit and answer suggestions/questions. There are a lot of helpful users there that will test the app and discover bugs, suggest new features and it is very good if you can keep the thread hot so you keep the interest up. Users like feedback and makes them feel important (which they are) so try to answer as many posts as possible even though you don't have a solution to the problem yet
Get social! Social networking is very helpful these days both for spreading the word about your app but also for customer support. Create profiles for the app on all major social networks (Facebook, Google +, Twitter, etc) and try to get as many users as possible. Post as many updates as possible and keep the users informed about changes to the app, answer to their comments and implement suggestions
Prioritization - build yourself a TODO list with priorities: for each update try to solve major bugs first that are heavily reported or that are causing big problems. Always find some room for improvements and user suggestions. Then fix small bugs and try to improve UI.
Localization is an important part of today's apps. Try to support as many languages as possible making easy for the users to understand the app and to better communicate their findings
Use the publish console to check for crash reports. Many users use this feature and send crash reports along with the stack trace and it is very helpful to keep track of major crashes and identify the root cause
Please reply with more tips so we can create a big list for everyone
Email is the number 1 way people ( from my experience ) contact the developer to ask questions, recommendations, etc. What I did in addition to all the things in the op was create a cheap 5 page website with Godaddy website tonight its like $100 bucks a year or something. They also auto optimize your site for mobile viewing!Then made a contact us page, were users can choose a reason for contacting us. This works really well and you can set up an auto responder to send them a message letting them know you got the email.
I always try to answer emails immediately (during business hours) but always within 24 hours. Having a great customer service program even if your a solo dev like I am will translate into 5 star ratings based solely on customer service!
Have a lax customer service program and you will see the negative 1 or 2 star ratings pop up again based solely on customer service. It shouldn't take anyone more than say 48 hours to re connect with someone and at least start the process of answering their concern.
You can see the contact us page here
Good policy will turn into good reviews and good downloads!
:good:
I've put a feedback page in all my apps.
You don't even need to create a new email address. Just use your personal email address and create an alias. That way it looks formal on the outside but messages go to same inbox as your personal one, only have to check one inbox everyday.
HMMMMMM!
FIRST OF ALLL EMAIL AND AFTER THAT XDA POSTS.........:victory:
email or the message box is very important. But it's also important to reply to their questions promptly.
Free Customer Service SDK
Replying promptly to customers is essentially the first step towards good customer service. If you are an iOS app developer, looking to impress your customers with excellent customer support, try out Freshdesk's Mobihelp SDK ( [freshdesk.com/mobihelp) you can snap-in to your app and start communicating with your customers from right within your app. I'm sure it will be of great help in your customer service efforts!
Thanks for the tips! Just a question: I have got one Crash report in google play console very early, but since then nothing. I have put email in the game and on the play store. But nobody used it. I do not have many installs, but I wonder what is the usual percentage of people who actually report bugs?
kulisgames said:
Thanks for the tips! Just a question: I have got one Crash report in google play console very early, but since then nothing. I have put email in the game and on the play store. But nobody used it. I do not have many installs, but I wonder what is the usual percentage of people who actually report bugs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my experience, if the app is something people desperately need (e.g. utility) or want (e.g. game) but it isn't working quite as they expected, they will be vocal. Not hearing anything from users is usually a warning sign that nobody was too excited about the app in the first place, or that not that many people downloaded the app in the first place.
If I see a crash on Google Play I assume that the same crash occured for 10 others who didn't bother reporting it. So I try to fix it ASAP.
You could use Google Analytics to report crashes without user prompt.
Regardless of the above, it sounds like you have a general marketing challange which is much more critical than that crash report, so you should investigate marketing and promotions in general.
kulisgames said:
Thanks for the tips! Just a question: I have got one Crash report in google play console very early, but since then nothing. I have put email in the game and on the play store. But nobody used it. I do not have many installs, but I wonder what is the usual percentage of people who actually report bugs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bad reviews on google play
slackydroid said:
No matter if the app is free or paid, as a developer you want to offer a good support to the end users. Why? Because as long as they are happy they will continue to use your app and they will recommend it to others. So it is in your best interest to do your best and resolve issues that customers are reporting, implement requested features and solve as many bugs as possible.
To that end, you must ensure you provide easy to access means of communication between you as a developer and the end users. There are many ways you can achieve that and I will list a few I am using and the more you can provide the better so we can put together a list:
Create an email address or use one you already have (I prefer the former) and provide links on Google Play and inside the app. It is nice if you add an accessible menu item that says (Suggestions/Bug report/Support/Etc) that will start an intent chooser for sending emails to this email address
Use forums (XDA ) and post your app and frequently visit and answer suggestions/questions. There are a lot of helpful users there that will test the app and discover bugs, suggest new features and it is very good if you can keep the thread hot so you keep the interest up. Users like feedback and makes them feel important (which they are) so try to answer as many posts as possible even though you don't have a solution to the problem yet
Get social! Social networking is very helpful these days both for spreading the word about your app but also for customer support. Create profiles for the app on all major social networks (Facebook, Google +, Twitter, etc) and try to get as many users as possible. Post as many updates as possible and keep the users informed about changes to the app, answer to their comments and implement suggestions
Prioritization - build yourself a TODO list with priorities: for each update try to solve major bugs first that are heavily reported or that are causing big problems. Always find some room for improvements and user suggestions. Then fix small bugs and try to improve UI.
Localization is an important part of today's apps. Try to support as many languages as possible making easy for the users to understand the app and to better communicate their findings
Use the publish console to check for crash reports. Many users use this feature and send crash reports along with the stack trace and it is very helpful to keep track of major crashes and identify the root cause
Please reply with more tips so we can create a big list for everyone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
how can we deal with bad reviews on google play, reviews that comes from pepole that didn't understand the meaning of the app?
Thanks.
If you're looking for app support best practices, contact a big startup like Buffer or Squarespace and see how they respond to your question. Notice the friendly tone of voice, the detailed answers they try to give you, and the call for action at the end of every support ticket - whether it's to try and recreate the event that caused the bug or read a FAQ section. Do that a dozen times and you'll learn more about 'proper' support than any how-to article can teach you.
dimnikolov said:
If you're looking for app support best practices, contact a big startup like Buffer or Squarespace and see how they respond to your question. Notice the friendly tone of voice, the detailed answers they try to give you, and the call for action at the end of every support ticket - whether it's to try and recreate the event that caused the bug or read a FAQ section. Do that a dozen times and you'll learn more about 'proper' support than any how-to article can teach you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep makes sense in my experience - personalise as much as possible and reflect the tone of voice of your app. Users will really appreciate it. Stay social.
Why not have some kind of in-app help?
Having a suggestions/feedback menu item seems to be the common thread here to provide good customer support.
But wondering - why not some kind of in app help itself? Sort of a Whatsapp inside the app? I feel email being a separate channel breaks the context - help within the app itself and in context would be so much easier for the end user.
Thoughts?
I know it is an old thread but there are SDKs that help you integrate a support chat right within the app. I have seen zomato use one of these.
Thank you for a list!

Request : experienced app dev - well paid assignment

I'm looking for a experienced app developer who can write code for a previously designed app.
The app will display info from users based on location,
The app will be for commercial use so it has to be quite secure and I do require a clean code witch worked without big issues.
We offer good money for the right person.
If this is not the right place for this request, I apologize. I'm in a little crisis because I don't know where to start looking for developer ?
If you have what it takes, or if you have some questions, please send me a line
[email protected]
Thanks.

Can a dev steal our info easily when using his ROM?

So I was thinking the other day..
If any of the recognized dev's here would of put a hidden script/program to collect of things we type/our passwords and upload it without us knowing... how can we tell?
..Can a person even do it if he wanted to? or does android have any security policy regarding custom roms on that matter?
Thoughts and Information on the matter would be highly appreciated
Something like that would be spotted quickly and reported I am sure.
But, as soon as you unlock and/or root your device, you do open the door for security issues. So the bottom line is......if that is of great concern to anyone.....don't unlock or root your device. And any app you install can pose a privacy risk too....so that's another problem.
See what I'm saying? There's no privacy guarantees when doing anything to your device. Common sense is the best defense. Along with researching what you install or do with your device always, before you do it. :good:

Need help for this

Hello. I am not pretty sure to ask this question in this community, but I really want to discuss it and need help with it. I am a new seller on amazon and there are many agencies in the USA that offer account management services. But as a newbie I am not sure whether to book an agency for my amazon account management to drive sales or I should manage it myself with basic information. I'm sure it will take some time, but can anyone suggest a proper solution for that? If I work on plan B (research phase). How long will it take to achieve the right results?
To get the reason why an app crashes simply do a LOGCAT.

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