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Talia Ringer

@TaliaRinger

Feb 10

It's 2022 and why is mobile access control in Android still like this? Granularity guys

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It can do better, but it depends on app developers updating their permission handling to use the newer permission apis

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Why is using the old ones still an option for newer Android? It's so dangerous

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This is for authorizing an app to be a file manager. It's not a normal way for apps to access files/directories outside their app sandbox. It also isn't something they can directly request via a dialog. They can send you to the Settings app after telling you to enable it though.

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Support for the legacy file access system has been dropped from apps targeting the current API level. This is a remaining system for authorizing an app to be a full blown file manager. They could remove it, but many people would be quite unhappy about that happening so it hasn't.

6:17 AM · Feb 10, 2022Twitter Web App

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Look at the outcry against scoped storage being enforced with apps forced to use the system file manager. It was delayed for a year despite scaling it back and leaving support for requesting bulk access to indexed media (but not generic file access including non-indexed media).

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People have been far more vocal against these improvements than they have been in support of them. If they removed support for alternative file managers, which is being abused by that app, especially if it refuses to work without it, a lot of people would be even more unhappy.