You can use scrcpy (https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy) to bypass the policy if you really need to have a screenshot. All you need is to have a Linux laptop at hand, debug mode enabled, and a USB cable plugged in. Super simple stuff right? (this is satire!)
Now, I'm as frustrated as anybody else here that I'm forbidden to use whatever feature I want from MY phone, for which I paid, with MY MOENY (and nobody else's apart from mine). But then again, what choice do I have? Not buy a phone? Switch to what? There are no viable and practical alternatives. It's a "take it or leave it" situation.
> Now, I'm as frustrated as anybody else here that I'm forbidden to use whatever feature I want from MY phone, for which I paid, with MY MOENY
Samsung disabled the oxygen sensor (SPO2) on their phones for Canada. For other countries they moved access for the SPO2 feature further into the Samsung Health app. But for Canada SPO2 sensor access is gone not accessible.
No warning (probably buried in an email) just one day my SPO2 sensor stopped working. I suppose it was due to some legal thing but it certainly pissed me off. I'm never buying Samsung again why blow $1000 on a phone only to have physical hardware disabled?
Same frustration with samsung, they always undo settings I customized buried deep in the settings menu somewhere and this constant cat and mouse game trying to figure out what has changed so I can change it back to my preferences is infuriating to say the least. Respect my menu settings Samsung, you lost a customer for life! I'm all in on Apple when the right black friday iphone deal drops later this month.
This is the same reason I dropped Windows completely recently. I kept having settings changed and would have to make group policy to get them to stick. Not allowing me to turn of automatic updates really grinded my gears too.
What happened to letting the user at the very least have the choice to just disable all of the hand holding?
This is precisely why I am a hardcore Mac user, the settings are straightforward and do not auto-revert and fail to stick anywhere close to the level of Windows.
Maybe some kind of patent infringement settlement in that area? Or liability? A specific region feels like an ip or legal issue...
I see this thread below and there is a phone number you could call to get answers. I believe there are legit sites with older versions of apks you might try as a test.
Why should you, as a consumer, care about internal legal issues between the manufacturer of your phone and some other company? If the manufacturer decides, for whatever reason, to remove features from the phone after you purchased it, I think it is reasonable for the transaction to be reversed, i.e. refund me the full amount for the phone and I will return the phone.
If a publisher is found to have published a book without license, would it be reasonable to find all who bought the book, break into their homes, take the book, and leave in its place the purchase price in cash?
If not, then why is doing the same, but on a computer, remotely reasonable?
If you’re geeking out on health data, would you entertain an Apple Watch? It features an O2 sensor which to my knowledge hasn’t been neutered. Do you think it’s a patent issue? I recall Apple modifying the active noise cancellation in the AirPods Pro.
They tell you up front though, as far as I know they’ve never sold a health sensor into a country and then disabled it later, which is what it sounds like parent comment is describing
I have a Samsung Galaxy S8+ I used the SPO2 sensor all the time. Then I think it was last year (2019) when it was removed without warning. But like I said Samsung probably buried that info in 5000 lines of an update notification.
I can understand new devices being sold would not have the device enabled due to some patent or legal issue. But to have Samsung disable a physical device on a two year old phone is frustrating. I bought the phone I own it Samsung shouldn't allowed to do such a thing or at least make it more obvious and give the option to opt out of the change.
Thats because of legal reasons. ECG is a medical feature that most countries require meets medical accuracy standards which it likely does not in many countries.
I'd love an Apple watch, but they don't support even basic functionality with Android (albeit maybe due to hardware incompatibility). Seems like they miss a market to be honest, Apple Watch is clearly the best on the market.
Linux phones!!! There’s still a lot of dev work to be done but this is exactly why I’m on board with the pinephone. not a daily driver yet, but if you’re a programmer looking for something to contribute to, go check it out
He wants to cross a bridge without paying a toll. Telling him that he can take a rickety bridge, an unsupported bridge, build his own bridge, or wait for a new bridge to be finished doesn't get him to the other side.
I crossed that bridge when I came to it - trip trap! trip trap! trip trap! - and lo! I heard a voice: "Who is it what cross my bridge? I am very hungry, and I will eat you up!!" Shuddering in fear, I told the hungry troll "I am but a tiny me. You should eat my brother who comes along soon!" The greedy troll, let me go, and I watched from the bushes as the troll gobbled up my brother. I was sad, but then remembered that I am still alive, not eaten
I got so sick of these kind of shenanigans, I built a simple, non-mobile phone with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, a Raspberry Pi 7 inch touchscreen, and a Logitech headset. It runs off Wi-Fi or Ethernet only.
It does voice and SMS only, but it does what it does very well. I wrote all the software myself (Python3 and C).
I've been using this as my daily driver for over a year now.
I'm planning to make it available to the public soon. All of it will be open source, of course. My goal is an open source alternative to Apple/Google.
I'll post here on hacker news once I get a web site up and running. Look for a post from this user name (another_comment). I'll also post here in the comments of appropriate posts.
I believe there are even actual Google employees that read these forums. And barring them, I believe there are even tech executives responsible for these policies that read this forum.
It's as if the last 30 years of technical evolution never happened and we are back at faxing signed forms and for extra security and applying triple rot-13 to guarantee no unauthorized access.
Yeah the big tech companies want to destroy the ecosystem of opportunity they benefited from, in order to protect their power. If it means a world with more needless bullshit for everyone, so be it
Sadly reminds me of the very early days of online video, where speed runners would video their televisions because screen capture devices were terribly expensive.
I'm not so sure. Back in my Windows days (95? 98, maybe?) if I played a DVD on my computer, the window that the video was playing in would be black if I took a screenshot.
A lot of early computer DVD playing was using hardware accelerated decode, with the resulting images bypassing the framebuffer. That means it won't show up on your screenshots, but it wasn't necessarily detecting a a screenshot and blanking the output (although, once software decoding was feasible, that may also have happened).
I remember this. I also remember the colour of the video window was something like 030303 and if you had that colour on any other window (including your wallpaper) you would see the video there as well.
Won't unlocking the bootloader make banking apps not work anymore? Had this issue when I tried LineageOS on my old phone, and I really like the convenience of those apps as opposed to using the website, which is extremely bad.
Also, how do I do all you said above? (I need a step by step tutorial). Also is it reversible? Are there any other security implications?
> Won't unlocking the bootloader make banking apps not work anymore?
Depends on how paranoid your bank is. There's this SafetyNet thing that checks for "system integrity". It's part of Google Services. For now, it's possible to bypass these checks using Magisk, but I've read that Google is testing the new method involving TrustZone — a hardware trusted execution environment within the SoC where you aren't one of the trusted parties.
> Also, how do I do all you said above? (I need a step by step tutorial).
There should be plenty on xda-developers.com
> Also is it reversible?
On Google devices, yes, completely. You can reflash the factory images that Google provides and relock the bootloader. On others... it varies, on Samsung especially.
> Are there any other security implications?
If you leave the bootloader unlocked, anyone with physical access to your device will be able to reboot it into the bootloader and load arbitrary code with OS kernel privileges. From there they'll be able to modify the installed system. They won't be able to read the /data partition [right away] because it's encrypted with your password/pattern.
IMO it's really a shame you can't re-lock the bootloader with your own signing key.
TIL about `fastboot flash avb_custom_key`. Certainly better than nothing, but seeing how it shows a warning on each boot in this mode, it most probably trips SafetyNet as well.
The worst I've found is a few apps that complain and push a bullshit scare story at you ("your device is insecure" LOL. My house is technically less secure because I have a key to it, too). Bank accounts are commodities and most banks have no monthly fees with no minimum balances. The easy answer is to choose banks based on who doesn't engage in user-hostile shenanigans (see also: snake oil "2FA"). Moving between accounts over the course of a few months is quite easy, especially if you do not write checks.
Also, if the phone has a vendor supported way of unlocking the bootloader, it will typically also trigger a wipe / factory reset (presumably because to keep DRM enforcers etc happy).
Your mileage might vary, but I'm using 4 banking app (one of them even disallow taking screenshot in Android 10) but they are working on custom rom (lineageos) with unlocked bootloader as long as I don't install root.
It's a cat-and-mouse game and unfortunately over the past handful of years it's been a losing battle for root hiding. It's why I gave up bothering with root despite having done it for nearly a decade.
If you live in a country where you have to use your phone for banking and can't use the web then you need to talk to your politicians. That seems like a pretty extreme violation of your freedom.
As much as I dislike the US at least we don't have that.
I live in the UK and have used 5 banking apps so far (not all of them at the same time):
- Barclays (App won't work with LineageOS, website is horrible).
- Monzo (App only, no website, works with LineageOS).
- Revolut (App only, no website, works with LineageOS).
- TransferWise (Web and App, both work well, but never tried it on LineageOS).
- ING Home Bank (App won't work with LineageOS, website is manageable, but still a pain compared to the app).
Of course I don't have to use any of these, but there are clear advantages to using any of them, depending on the situation (you wouldn't take a mortgage from TransferWise, split bills with Barclays, and hold foreign currency in Monzo, mainly because they don't support that). Also you don't have to use a phone, just walk around without one, make people email you instead of calling, and ask people for directions instead of looking at a GPS map.
My point is, I paid for my phone (me alone, nobody else chipped in) so I want to use every feature it provides without restrictions, as it is my property. That goes for both taking screenshots and using apps. And when it's not possible, I look for alternatives. Right now none are practical, nor feasible, so all I got left are tricks like scrcpy and rants on forums ;).
Question: if there's no website, how TF are you supposed to use Monzo or Revolut from a proper computer? Is there really no way to do something simple like xfer money or view balance without using your phone? If so, why did you even open an account, I'm assuming that since you are on this site you are at least a little bit technically inclined.
Just looked, and apparently Revolut is 1) app only 2) tied to a mobile number. So not only is it annoying to use, but likely also susceptible to sim jacking. Again, why would anyone want to use this; I hate having to deal with wells fargo (they bought a loan I have) but even they seem less crappy. Not trying to hate on OP, I'm just shocked at how crap their service appears to be.
> Question: if there's no website, how TF are you supposed to use Monzo or Revolut from a proper computer?
You can't. That's why you don't use them for serious work.
> why did you even open an account
Different use cases, different circumstances. I don't depend on them but they give good exchange rates and zero fees when transferring or spending money abroad. It's the "it just works" and "fast and cheap" effect that the traditional banks don't have. And opening an account is done online, and you get access to your account in hours, compared to Barclays which took 2 months of ping pong, when I first moved into the UK (since I did not have a bill issued in my name at my UK address I could not open an account, so I could not pay my landlord rent so I could get an address to open an account, fun times). Without that Monzo account I could have not been paid in my first 2 months.
But if you want to know how crap Revolut really is, try contacting their support to report a bug in their app, they don't have an email, but instead ask you to get in touch with them on Facebook.
Oh wow, that's even worse than I thought. Thanks for the explanation, that does make sense. I wonder if they could get in trouble for AML, or possibly Barclay's is just being overly picky with who they want as customers.
But seriously, not even a support email? Good God, I would trust PayPal with my money more than that; but I suppose they needed to hit all the fintech bingo buzzwords.
They have to do a KYC (know your client) check, which I assume they do a credit check on you, probably via Experian or another one of these. You also send a picture of your ID, and record a video of yourself saying "Hello, I'm $NAME and I want to open an account with $COMPANY".
The Barclay's part is just an old practice. How I ended up doing it after two months was by having a letter from my employer stating that I'm registered with them at a particular address. But what I learned from somebody else that went through this, after those two months, is that they could have said my "home" address was the address the company is registered at instead. This is how they've used to do it with other people that have hit this problem, it just didn't occur to me to ask for something like this, and it didn't occur to them to suggest this either since they assumed I had everything in order (since I already submitted my Monzo account for salary payments).
Monzo have a pretty comprehensive API that you can build your own web based interface around if you wish. If you look on github a ton of people have done that, all you need to do is clone the repo, plop in your Monzo api key and the jobs a goodun.
Monzo only seems to have and login for their business accounts. For personal accounts it's still phone only. And business accounts are a recent addition.
Revolut has login now, but you can't do anything there, except viewing your balance and blocking your card. And this is a new thing, maybe and beta version, otherwise they would have officially announced it somewhere, like in the bragging emails they like to send from time to time.
Some banks and bank-like products only make themselves available by mobile app. It's a commercial decision, and seems to have been a trend with some "challenger" banks.
I have two of those, and I chose them because of unique banking features (not the mobile app) not offered by other banks which I found valuable. It's nothing to do with the country.
To be honest it would be nice to have web access as well (or even phone banking), but we take what we can get.
It's never safe to bank from a computer you can't control. I would always consider a phone to be compromised. These are the richest targets going for exploits so why risk it.
Although I agree with you, it turns out which banks and similar facilities you use can greatly affect the amount of credit you have access to, how you can use it, and how long the process takes.
During this pandemic I've found that to be a big deal, much more important than whatever technology or access method is offered.
In Thailand the bank I have, Kasikorn, charges for ATM usage outside of the registered province even from the same network... UNLESS you use their cardless withdraw that uses some QR code for TOTP that requires the app (that will attempt to block phones with root access). You can use the website as well for some things, but it requires SMS-based OTP with no supported alternatives.
I'd switch banks or at least branches to this new province, but my current visa won't allow it (and for whatever reason, you cannot transfer accounts but need to open a new one).
It's not only the challenger banks: nowadays banks will also encourage you to use their app for 2FA. You can use a proprietary token instead, but you'd have to pay for it (the app instead is free). 2FA sms is not supported with some banks (and that's good).
I think the UK is an exception, since for 2 of the banks I had accounts with, they just used a 2nd "memorable" password as "2FA" (avoiding the requirement of a smartphone)
In which kind of bubble do you live where not making web apps available for your clients is seen as an extreme violation of freedom? As long as it is possible to go to the bank to do whatever you need to do, I do not think politicians have anything to say.
Sometimes you don't have to, but it's much more convenient. For example, I can use my bank app just with my fingerprint. To use the web app, I either have to login with my phone (reading a QR code) or have to use one of those devices where you insert your card and enter a couple of codes (if I find it...).
If some bank tells me I have to use certain app to make business with them, it's my choice to do it or not, but they are not violating my freedom. And I find saying this is an "extreme violation of your freedom" insulting for those who are actually seeing their freedom violated.
A dangerous game on anything other than Xiaomi phones these days, the only company to provide official bootloader unlock software, but yeah otherwise, go download it from some shady website and not have a care in the world about the most sensitive device you own.
> install Xposed
Last updated 2014 :\
You'd be safer shooting heroin into your eyeballs than installing Android root software from 6 years ago.
There are definitely more manufacturers that provide an official way to unlock. For some others you have to remove the backplate and short some pins or whatever. These days it's probably more convenient to just use one of those root boxes though.
Prove me wrong anytime folks, I'm sure you can at least flail around and try, or at least mash the squeal button that you all like so much.
How exactly do you unlock bootloaders from modern phones (past 2 years)? You get jailbreaks from the internet and sideload them right? Do you disassemble the binary code? Does it void your warranty? Which mobile device manufacturers offer official bootloader unlocks today? There's only one I know of.
Did i happen to mention the big bad China company in a good light to warrant such disdain for my as yet undisputed comment? Is that the problem here?
You install adb from Google and run one command. That's how you unlock a bootloader.
As for root, yes you have to install something which is Magisk which is open source and vetted and had been around for around 5+ years.
My wife that has never done it just did it for her new pixel 4a a few weeks ago. All I did was direct her to a step my step tutorial (I vetted the tutorial) and she did it flawlessly.
My Samsung A40 from 2019 has an unlock bootloader option in the Developer Options. I didn't check what it does neither I googled it but it's promising.
Sorry but it is not really your phone if it runs proprietary software. It is like in medieval times, you didn't own the means of production. Welcome your new digital overlords!!
There is a kind of half-formed philosophy out there which believes we can get back to some false utopian small-collective agri-mercantile worker paradise.
It doesn't exist, and never did. Learn how to adapt and make the most of the systems that exist now.
I dare to say, if you even actually achieved those fantastical scenarios, the damper on economic and population prosperity would be such that you might not have been conceived to wish for it.
It's a little extreme to let a mobile phone's operating system call for the revamp of our economic systems.
Make the most that the owner of the proprietary OS allows you to. I am very thankful of all the people that have been writing free (as in freedom) software which allows us to have alternatives. I do not know about any small-collective agri-mercantile worker paradise, but I am so happy that I can still run Replicant and use things like Mutt+vim+gpg for email. Free software is now more important than ever.
Strictly speaking you are right, but Librem 5 [0] is going to get Respects Your Freedom certification from the Free Software Foundation, which is a high bar. If it's not enough for you, see also: Precursor [1].
That was my point, we are no better than in medieval times. One can however run things like Replicant (I do) and I am aware of some better alternatives like linux phone, pinephone and librem5. I want to learn more about them before my old Replicant phone dies.
Most people don't have the money to afford to own an entire factory, and if they did its still more secure for them to diversify by owning many pieces of many factories in different industries, that's why capitalists figured out how to commodify the means of production as stocks. Its not quite the same, its better.
It's not strictly better, no. As a minority shareholder in Google I have effectively no power to make them stop ruining the internet. Majority control is what gets you something like full ownership, just with some other risks and benefits.
Majority control requires a lot of wealth, you don't have majority control of Google because you don't have that much money. You have no reason to expect a person like yourself to be able to control the amount of capital assets that Google represents. Your access to the means of production is dependent on your ability to buy into them and stock allows you to do that in small increments. If it weren't for stock you still wouldn't have control over anything like Google.
I don't have control either way, that's all I'm saying.
Small quantity stock owners effectively serve to slightly reduce risk for big-fish investors. Their investments are like financial fodder. They get an upside of course, but I think the invention of 401ks are more of a help to the financial sector than their owners.
And, big fish stock owners help to reduce risk for small quantity stock owners. The big guys get to crowdsource capital for a big project and the small guys get to invest in a variety of big projects without needing to know much about the details of running any of the companies or risking their entire knot on one venture. The modern notion of stock also helps to reduce liability as it legally prevents the stockholders from being held liable for the actions of the company.
This whole discussion is about whether small fish in a mixed market economy have access to the means of production. They do, to a greater extent than ever before in history. Yes, if you only have $3k, you can't control a company that is worth a billion dollars. But you can invest in it, which option was not available before the joint stock company was invented (in the 7th century in Asia and the 13th century in Europe).
401k is also a boon to workers because it allows them to save for retirement by investing in the means of production at a tax advantage.
"who benefits more" is an interesting question but some of us shy away because it invites intersubjective utility comparison and we're not comfortable with the use of cardinal utility to make judgments of that nature.
Don't use apps. Aside from games and sensor integration they can rarely offer more than a web-based experience. Push for more safe hardware sensor integration in browsers.
Banks often have apps which are quite useful compared to their web-based counterparts. Of course, it doesn't need to be that way, but it's the way things work now.
AFAIK this does not work with apps which have purposefully disabled screenshots, the Android UI is visible on scrcpy but the contents of the app appear black.
What is interesting is that Android appears to be rendering every frame two times, because when I scroll down the notification drawer, which contains some semi-transparent elements under which you can see the restricted contents on the screen of the phone, but on scrcpy the transparent elements have black under them.
The same thing happened when I wanted to use my Android TV as a poor man's HDMI grabber.
I've tried it with the Tesco Clubcard app which has screenshots disabled. Also tried it out with some "Charles Schwab" app somebody else said they had problems in a reply here, scrcpy can record the screen perfectly.
EDIT: also tried recording a youtube video in firefox private mode, worked, but without the sound.
Any idea when it actually applies? Have you seen it in the wild? I don't recall having that message appear legitimately at any point but I guess it might be for corporate phones.
Any Android devs know if it's something that any arbitrary app can turn on?
The link here states, that the screenshot settings were apparently broken due to a bug. So no bad intent from Google here.
Besides that, apps can declare their content as sensitive and add the `FLAG_SECURE` to their activity which then hides the app content form "unsafe screens", the "recent apps" screen and screenshots. But this is a choice of the app developer instead of Google.
Not denying what you said, but I'd want a way to ignore "FLAG_SECURE" as a setting, so when I really want to take a screenshot, I should be able to do it regardless of what the app vendor wants to impose.
The upgrades being provided are for the purpose of maximising the value to you of what you paid for with your money (and nobody else's).
It is not like the company is making ongoing changes that benefit the company's business at your expense.
(This is satire.)
In some cases, life is easier when you decide "I do not have a choice". This allows complaining to be substituted for having to make hard choices and taking responsibility for the consequences.
Analog loophole. Worst case you could always carry a second phone and use it to do screenshots. Maybe we could make an app to calibrate and sharpen screenshots taken by a second phone to make them look as good as real digital screenshots.
We really need to show it to 'em who is boss. My phone ultimately should listen to me, not Google.
Does this require plugging phone into to a computer? When I want to screenshot a stock, I don't want to mess with all that on the go. If I'm going to need a computer, I'd just take the screenshot from there...
I guess my other choice is to carry two phones so I can take a photo of the screen...
Netflix(and I suspect anything displaying streaming media) is one for sure. The screen record only displays a black screen, but you can capture audio...
This year, sure. Next year's phones will probably refuse to photograph copyrighted design elements. But that's OK because you can always use a film camera and develop it yourself and hand-deliver a print.
I actually had to do that due to an app not having a feature to export a receipt and not allowing me to take a screenshot. Felt pretty brain-dead and dumb, if you ask me.
This does not end up solving the issue though. An android setting toggle to "Disable screenshot blocking policy globally" with a consent box saying "I understand the risks" would.
As the owner of the device my desire to take screenshots of anything I want should come first, regardless of what everybody else wants.
Now, I'm as frustrated as anybody else here that I'm forbidden to use whatever feature I want from MY phone, for which I paid, with MY MOENY (and nobody else's apart from mine). But then again, what choice do I have? Not buy a phone? Switch to what? There are no viable and practical alternatives. It's a "take it or leave it" situation.