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[Q] Way to trick an app into thinking it is on a different ROM or OS version???

Not the most crucial question, but I still would like to know if this is possible.
Anyone play World War? Well have you ever run into the issue where you install the latest rom (CM 6.1 RC5 in this case) and all of a sudden World War thinks you are starting all over even though you restored from a good backup - like with Titanium Backup? I know I have a few times now and it is annoying. I have to wait for the app to be updated which isn't very quickly when it comes to World War.
So my question... Is there a way to fool a particular app into thinking it is running on a different version of Android or a known working ROM? Maybe a script or a app? If there isn't one, it would be a nice ability to have. Sort of like the backwards compatibility options in Windows 7/Vista.
I would like to be able to do this on a per app basis and not have to change any major setting/variable for my entire phone. Any other workarounds for this situation?

[UTIL][APP]Lenovo Security / LeSec app (anti-virus/spam/theft/firewall)

Edit: Important: The newer V4 version of LeSec may no longer be usable for non-Chinese speakers. See this post #17 here, also to discuss alternatives
For all you Lenovo users out there,
I wanted to (re-)introduce this application. Because I have the impression that many Lenovo phone users rather quicly move on to migrated ROM's from for example APKHOT/Smileyvvv/Etotalk etc, where this app is cooked out.
You may want to reconsider going back to it, if it will still work on your phone with whatever ROM you have. It is really a very useful utility:
Firstly, it is a virusscanner. Not sure how useful a virusscanner is on Android, and as I want to avoid that discussion in this thread, that is the last I say about it.
It is also anti-spam. You can black- or whitelist SMS and Calls. See screenshots for an impression. Very useful.
Anti-theft is there. Send SMS upon SIM change, or remotely instruct the phone to send location or self-destruct. I suspect, but did not try, the SMS instruction is stored in /system, so a data-wipe will not undo this. But a good hacker will fully flash, so it only protects against noob thieves, like all anti-theft apps.
But those are common functions, readily availible in other apps. But now for the interesting feature:
It has a firewall. If that is the correct name. Or an app-wall. An permission-wall? You know those apps that you download that for some reason want permission to send SMS? Why does it need that? Or why does it want to read my contacts?
Well, you can per-app decide to block a permission. This app does not need to read my contacts. That app does not need to send SMS. And it will show you if an app tried to anyway. How cool is that?
Guest- and Childmode. Hide some apps. After all, we do not want junior to see daddies tripple-X rated apps. Or the wife. Which is why you can also hide certain contact's and call-history entries (wink, wink). It may also apply to banking apps and your bookie, though that is a bit more boring. Oh, and in Child mode the radio turns of as we want to protect junior from radiation...
Some of you that use Etotalk or APKHOT ROMS may have noticed the notification area buttons to these last two that were dead because this app was missing.
We could of course worry about whether this app in itself is not a spy, reporting everything you do to the Chinese government. But you may not be aware that this is true for *any* Chinese clone you buy. Typically those clonemakers do not release the kernel or framework source, so such a spy would be in there, not in a de-installable app. And if you are really worried about it, make sure you get a phone where you can install CyanogenMod compiled from source.
Personally, I doubt either Lenovo or China is interested in me, and if they do it means they have a Infinitesimals bigger datastore to clog their machinery before they find something on people like Liu Xiaobo or Tenzin Gyatso, which is actually a good thing. But I suspect the app is simply without such sinister intentions.
Anyway, attached is the version I got from my phone. From a Lenovo A750 ICS 4.0.3 S306. But I suspect it works with any phone that uses the Lenovo Framework, so any Lenovo ICS phone that has a not too heavily modded ROM. It did also work on the ICS 4.0.3 Lenovo P700 ROW S113 (Rest Of World edition) edition.
I provide update.zip installers for MT6575 and MT6577 (because I know their partition table). It probably also works on Lenovo Framework phones based on MT6573/MT7513 or even MSM7227/MSM7527, maybe even GB ones. But then you need to take the two *.apk files from inside the zip file, and copy them manually into /system/app, as the update.zip installer will not work for that.
But do try, and please report back if it does or does not work on your phone/rom. There is also an uninstall package. Oh, and you are messing with /system, so as always, at your own risk, ensure you can always flash back a working ROM or have a Nandroid backup before you experiment.

Your zip didn't work on my A789, which is using the apkhot based rom available on forum.china-iphone.ru. After extracting the apk files, copying to /system/app and manually setting permissions, it's working like a charm.
Thanks, I really missed it. On the most recent cooked roms, I miss many things available on the Lenovo official ones, like the fm transmitter, or the butterfly-like widget on the default home screen. Some cookers tend to leave out any non standard apps without even taking some time to know what they do. Not all Chinese apps are rubbish or impossible to understand, and Lenovo is a serious company.

Ok, here you have the FM radio and transmitter of the A789, but it probably does not work, as it is Odex'ed.
And I uploaded seperate installers for MT6575 and MT6577
Also, on your APKHOT, please confirm it actually blocks permissions and blacklists SMS. I am not sure how much the APKHOT deviates from the Lenovo Framework, so merely being able to install and configure may be too soon to tell.
PS: why not try my factory-cleaned A789 ROM? It comes with all those apps by default, and I now have 3 positive feedback.
Come to think of it, why did I take this security app from A750, when A789 is newer....
Edit: Because they are both the same version. In fact the LeSec has not changed since Dec 2010, according to the internal dex binary.

I have tested call blocking and it works, but it isn't so important, since call blocking is a built in feature of the Mediatek framework. You can block calls from any contact you have on your Google account just out of the box, and it works great. I've tested older phones which used older Mediatek chipsets and that feature has been part of the Mediatek framework since MT6573.
The FM transmitter won't work that way, since it is odexed. But it doesn't work deodexed, either. I've just got a deodexed version of the app, thanks to a friend from another forum, and it doesn't work very well. It works, but I had to stick the phone to the antenna on my radio in order to hear something. People I've talked to say that the transmitter works great on the stock Lenovo roms, so maybe it's just some incompatibility with the apkhot roms.
The only reason I'm not using your rom (which I have downloaded) is that I wanted to setup the phone in Spanish, and the rom I'm currently using is the only one I've found which contains that language. Just a quick question: is there any noticable performance increase on the s227 based roms? If so, I don't care using the phone in English, since I just want the most feature rich rom.

Thinking it twice, I've remembered another reason. One of the things I like most about the apkhot rom I'm using is that the external sdcard is mounted on /sdcard and not /mnt/sdcard2, which avoids problems with many apps. I tried one of the newest apkhot roms, based on s227, and none of the tricks to exchange /sdcard and /mnt/sdcard2 worked with it.

I'll reply to that in the A789 thread, as we seem to deviate from the security app.

cybermaus said:
Edit: Because they are both the same version. In fact the LeSec has not changed since Dec 2010, according to the internal dex binary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember there was an update of that app on my A750 with your ROM. Now with apkhot I installed that package posted above and I have the older / original version. But there is no update offered...

That was probably on the S148 Gingerbread ROM. That one has an older version. I know, because I messed up trying to install it, as I had that older GB version and the new ICS one both in my Titanium backup. Also, the Dec 2010 date is probably false, I just got OTA ROW_S114, and it too had all files timestamed to Dec 2010. But I am certain the LeSec from S306 and S227 are the same, the binary compared identical. Official version is V3.5.1.3.5.2.0041 and the update button tells me there is no newer.
Every so often it does update the virus/blacklist signatures, but that is not the app itself. Current virus signature 2012.09.14 Current harasment (blacklist) 2012.07.11
But if you find a newer one, please do let me know.

I've been trying LeSec further and it works, but I found a problem I wasn't able to fix, so, until I found a solution, I've freezed it with Titanium Backup. The problem is that I'm using Go SMS Pro, instead of the default messaging app, since I need to write SMS in Spanish and the default app doesn't support Spanish characters like accents, etc. Go SMS Pro works, but every time I send an SMS, LeSec thinks an unauthorized app is trying to send an SMS in the background, and shows a popup to let you decide whether to allow it or not. I haven't found a way to disable that, and it's a bit annoying having to click two buttons everytime I want to send a message.

Its probably a silly question, but you did go into LeSec->ChargeShield-SMS and ensure that your app was allowed to send SMS in background?
Probably for reasons of 'likely form of attack' the SMS apps are (unlike other permissions) by default in a 'Warning' setting, but if the warning does not come to the foreground on your phone, it may simply not work.
Also, rather than freezing LeSec completely, you could go into ChargeShield, and simply turn of the ChargeShield.

cybermaus said:
That was probably on the S148 Gingerbread ROM. That one has an older version. I know, because I messed up trying to install it, as I had that older GB version and the new ICS one both in my Titanium backup. Also, the Dec 2010 date is probably false, I just got OTA ROW_S114, and it too had all files timestamed to Dec 2010. But I am certain the LeSec from S306 and S227 are the same, the binary compared identical. Official version is V3.5.1.3.5.2.0041 and the update button tells me there is no newer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I used the S148 just some days and updated to your S306 V1.2 and simply stayed there, because it works very well. After some time it offered me an update and the user interface changed a bit with that update. The way how you set privacy on app level and so on. The update button itsself never worked for me either.
Sadly, backup never worked on that rom. I found that out as I wanted to try apkhot. To be honest, I didn't try on apkhot, yet.

A few minutes ago, I was offered a 4.1.4 version and installed it. Now it's purely chinese
Maybe I have to reboot the phone for english...
From the design it is a version newer than the version I wrote about...

leFloyd said:
A few minutes ago, I was offered a 4.1.4 version and installed it. Now it's purely chinese
Maybe I have to reboot the phone for english...
From the design it is a version newer than the version I wrote about...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, before you put the old one back, safe this one for me will ya.

cybermaus said:
Well, before you put the old one back, safe this one for me will ya.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't want the old one back - I want this one to be english
How do I save it? Any idea where it has downloaded it's update? This was done within the app...

Well, it would have simply replaced the two apk's in the /system/app folder.
So look for:
LenovoSafeCenter.apk
LenovoSageWidget.apk
or something similar, it could have changed its name, or added a 3rd component.

Got the files?
Sent from my Lenovo A750 using xda app-developers app

Well, it seems that Lenove Security (LeSec for short, and LenovoSafeCenter officially) is becoming less usuable. As mentioned above, it is fully Chinese, no Engrish anywere.
I had a look at the new V4 of it, even decompiled it. Not only 100% Chinese, but is hardcoded in the app, there are no resource xml files that we could translate. A big pity.
Also, there is one app (Waze, a social car navigation app) that in the latest version is incompatible with LeSec. Though it is at this moment the only incompatibility I ran into, it is also a pity.
That may mean we need to find an alternative:
For now, these two has shown up:
LBE : Somehow, I think LBE is actually the company that makes Lenovo LeSec. Or at least, there logo is shown in the about menu of LeSec as part of the "in cooperation with" mentions. Maybe the reason why the free LeSec is limiting itself?
Anyway, I am trying out LBE at the moment, to see how it works.
pDroid : pDroid looks promising. Specifically, they are promising ICS support, but right now, only GB, so one to keep an eye on, but not availible to us just yet.
Permissions Denied : A Paid app. But if it works well, it may be worth it. Not looked at it yet.

So, LBE seems to work well. It does not have the hiding of apps for 'child mode' and 'privacy mode'. Nor does it have the 'anti-theft' or 'virus-scan' but it does the permissions thing well.
I tested, it nicely prompted/blocked permissions. And to be honest, using a slight more clear interface. If it is permissions, which was indeed what I was after, LBE seems to do the job. I also like I can block internet use separate for 3G and Wireless. Very useful.
One problem though: Waze is failing in the same way as with LeSec. Even if I make it a 'trusted' app. It seems the latest version of Waze simply does not like to be looked at too closely.

anti theft
I cannot input number In anti theft . for ex if I write +35989xxxxx I need two more digits but it does not allow it. If I write in national format 0899.... I have to write more digits than the phone number has. Any solution?

As mentioned, while I started enthusiastic about LeSec, it is now focussing too much on China alone. Not as good internationally.
Try using one of the other anti-theft solutions.

[Q] Option for to "Use ART" for Runtime is Missing

Hey everyone - just a quick question... I wanted to mess with the ART runtime to see how it runs, if any of my regular apps don't like it, etc. However, I don't have this option in the Developer options (see attached image)
The phone is a Verizon Galaxy S III (SCH-I535) upgraded to the latest Android version available 4.4.2 (see attached image). The phone is rooted, but running the stock OS.
I looked all over Google and XDA but didn't find anyone else with this problem. Has anyone else come across this?
Thanks!
-- Jim

Wondered the same thing

You're not going to find Android’s new runtime ART on Samsung as it seems TouchWiz isn't compatible with it yet. Maybe in 4.5 when it becomes mandatory. Right now it's still Goggle experimental.

DigitalMD said:
You're not going to find Android’s new runtime ART on Samsung as it seems TouchWiz isn't compatible with it yet. Maybe in 4.5 when it becomes mandatory. Right now it's still Goggle experimental.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I'm not going to get my hopes up - it was my understanding that this last update was probably the last one the S3 will get, correct? Sounds like when we get to that point, I may need to go with a custom ROM.

In CyanogenMod, its under development settings, tap Build several times to enable it.
I doubt stock has that option, but it might be worth a try.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using XDA Free mobile app

Is build prop no longer able to fool the play store?

I have a device on actual 5.1.1, and a device fooled to 5.1.1 which is actually 4.0.4 (I know, they're both older)
The real 5.1.1 has much more in the way of updates on the play store than the fooled one. When I had first played with build prop it did work quite well in letting me install a game I wanted to keep using. Now I went in to try and download Zedge, the fooled one is saying incompatible while the real 5.1.1 downloaded the updates no issues. So.... What's the new fix?
To go into about phone, both say 5.1.1
Anyone know the latest workaround? I tried transferring the apk from one to the other, but "there was an issue parsing this package" or something to that effect, on my older device...
I'm hanging onto the older one for both physical size and preferred more basic operation. My real 5.1.1 I use as a tablet as it's just too wide for my hands for frequent ambidextrous swipe texting. The odd typing that isn't time sensitive I don't mind my larger device, but for everyday conversation use I much prefer my older smaller model. I love Samsung, wish they still made mini models. Now they're forcing the edge too... I know I'm in the rare few but I enjoy touchwiz too. (Just for those who will want to say just get a new phone, I've covered all the bases lol)
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app

[Q] WhatsApp for Android 2.3 Gingerbread??

Hi!
I recently bought an Samsung Glaxy Y Pro (GT-B5510) which runs Android 2.3.6, tried to install whatsapp from both play store and whatsapp.com/android (which says that it's the minimum required version) but no luck, it doesn't install. Throws "invalid package".
The WApp support page says that Android 2.3.3 is the minimum, but i've decoded the apk using apktool and the AndroidMainifest.xml's minSdk is 15 (4.0).
Is possible to install WhatsApp on a Android 2.3.6 device?

Honestly, I don't know which Android version should be the minimal to install WhatsApp...
Why don't you try to install an alternative version like GBWhatsApp or YoWhatsApp to see if one of those is compatible with your device?
Sent from my Redmi 5 Plus using Tapatalk

xddd00 said:
Honestly, I don't know which Android version should be the minimal to install WhatsApp...
Why don't you try to install an alternative version like GBWhatsApp or YoWhatsApp to see if one of those is compatible with your device?
Sent from my Redmi 5 Plus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Effectively, those alt versions requires 4.0 as minimum, like the original WhatsApp APK does.
Check https://whatsapp.com/android to see the minimum required version.

A bit of a late reply, but I've been looking into getting Whatsapp for Android 2.3.4. I did get it working by downloading an older version of Whatsapp from the APK Mirror website. It's a pretty useful site as they seem to archive all the updated versions of Whatsapp (and other apps).
Unfortunately Whatsapp have stated that they intend on ending support for 2.3 firmware at the end of the year. This sucks as I've been using an old Xperia Mini Pro phone which is difficult to update its firmware. I use the phone because I think it's a beaut of a phone, even though it's old and under powered.
I've been looking into Whatsapp alternatives like YoWhatsapp and GBWhatsapp, and others. I can't seem to get any of them to work on Android 2.3, even if it states that it's compatible. It's a shame because I would really like to keep using Whatsapp to stay in touch with people, but it seems like Whatsapp is making it incredibly difficult.

BebopSnek said:
A bit of a late reply, but I've been looking into getting Whatsapp for Android 2.3.4. I did get it working by downloading an older version of Whatsapp from the APK Mirror website. It's a pretty useful site as they seem to archive all the updated versions of Whatsapp (and other apps).
Unfortunately Whatsapp have stated that they intend on ending support for 2.3 firmware at the end of the year. This sucks as I've been using an old Xperia Mini Pro phone which is difficult to update its firmware. I use the phone because I think it's a beaut of a phone, even though it's old and under powered.
I've been looking into Whatsapp alternatives like YoWhatsapp and GBWhatsapp, and others. I can't seem to get any of them to work on Android 2.3, even if it states that it's compatible. It's a shame because I would really like to keep using Whatsapp to stay in touch with people, but it seems like Whatsapp is making it incredibly difficult.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just like with any operating system, at some point old versions are no longer supported and newer programs and apps no longer work. One reason is security, 2.3.4 is not as secure as newer versions. Another reason is because very few people are still using gingerbread, they've all had the good sense to upgrade to keep from being left behind. Dropping support for older versions that are virtually no longer in use saves a lot of work when creating new developments. Why should they put all that hard work into supporting an operating system that is no longer viable?
This scenario can be compared to using a PC with Windows 95, ME or XP. Those are too old and insecure, using them leaves you open to a lot of vulnerabilities and hacks.
Do the smart thing, upgrade to something with a newer, safer, more supported operating system. You'll be much better off if you do.
Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk

We talked about WhatsApp on my updated Rom for the Galaxy Ace / Android 2.3
Starts from post #8