Android apps themselves can't run as root. The apps that do perform operations "as root" do so by spawning a shell process running as root, usually using `su -c`. That's on a rooted device. Normally, all privileged actions are done by system daemons that run with appropriate permissions and that apps communicate with through the "binder" IPC mechanism. Those daemons also handle access control — both the regular Android permissions and the god mode for "system privileged" apps.
Thanks for the explanatin, I'd never looked into it.
> The apps that do perform operations "as root" do so by spawning a shell process running as root, usually using `su -c`. That's on a rooted device.
So in a scenario like what we're discussing here (a dev deciding to build an uninstaller their own way), on a rooted device (as per the GP's context of "this coming to Linux and Windows"), the app in question could still run as root, and this permission set from Android would solve nothing?
An app that has root access can grant permissions to itself. It can as well remount /system as writable and make itself privileged by copying its apk to /system/priv-app
