Scoped storage (developer.android.com/preview/privac) will finally remove the legacy approach to shared storage, by getting rid of storage permissions to request global external storage read / write access. It emulates the legacy approach with a scoped directory but it's not the intended use.
Conversation
developer.android.com/guide/topics/p is how apps were supposed to access storage since Android 4.4. It opens a system file picker and the user chooses the files / directories. This way, there are no permissions, and they can select files / directories from external drives or app providers.
1
1
3
Unfortunately, there was massive pushback against Scoped Storage from anti-privacy app developers. They successfully misrepresented the feature and used journalists and power user communities as tools to fight against it. Apps can now opt-out of it until the Android R API level.
1
2
3
Is there any mitigation in a foreseable future? Can deal with this situation and support the Scoped-Storage-like features?
1
1
Scoped Storage will be available within a month or two. The approach is fully compatible with legacy applications as I explained above. There is no need for something like Scoped Storage rather than using the actual feature so I don't really understand the question you're asking.
2
1
GrapheneOS has planned to have a feature like Scoped Storage for many years. This issue was filed in 2016, but it was planned long before that: github.com/AndroidHardeni. The project hasn't had the resources to implement it, but now it can simply fully enable the standard feature.
1
1
3
It would have been better for GrapheneOS if the campaign against this privacy / security enhancement hadn't been successful. Apps using the Storage Access Framework (i.e. having users choose files / directories via the system UI) provides better UX than scoping legacy access.
2
1
4
Any idea who led the lobby against the enhanced privacy approach?
1
1
There were a few people dedicating hours every day to spreading misinformation and dishonest claims about it. They lobbied communities like /r/Android and /r/androiddev on Reddit (but also across many other sites) and turned communities against it by misrepresenting the feature.
1
1
Journalists jumped at the opportunity to push the narrative that Google was removing functionality and the ability to have things like third party file managers. They didn't make any real attempt to provide accurate or honest coverage and just jumped on the outrage bandwagon.
1
1
It's a systemic issue with journalism and isn't at all specific to this. There's little interest in actually informing people with accurate and honest stories. They would much rather push populist narratives appealing to people's desire to be outraged and ignoring the real facts.
I can think of many other ongoing examples tied to tech privacy/security. It's a bit silly having news stories like arstechnica.com/information-te from a publication pushing back against changes designed to address the issue at the same time, where they dismiss these issues as relevant.
1
1
2
In an article pushing back against a security improvement they'll dismiss the security concerns it addresses while focusing solely on the downsides. At the same time, they portray the consequences of not having the improvement as a crisis without mentioning work on resolving it.
1