this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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Android

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Not sure if this is the correct place to post, but I just wanna kinda rant a bit.

I'm not the only one that hates this, right?

An app can just do a "This App Does Not Allow Screenshots"? Like... wtf?

Like, its my phone, and some app can just decide to disable a fuction of my phone. It's my phone and if I wanna take a screenshot, I'm taking a screenshot. I don't care about whatever "security" the app developer wants.

Imagine if every online shopping app whether fast food or amazon, just used this to block you from taking a screenshot so you can't save the records in case of a dispute.

Which android developer thought it was a good idea to let an app disable a function on your phone. Even iPhone doesn't have this stupid concept.

Sorry for the rant.

Anyone wanna share your stories?

(P.S. I have a cheap secondary phone to take photos of the screen. "This App Does Not Allow Screenshots" my ass lmao, I'm taking the screenshot whether the app wants it or not.

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[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The point of many of android's "protection" features isn't to protect the user from apps, but to protect apps from the user. I hate it.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 week ago (14 children)

In this case, I think it's protecting apps from other apps. No secret screen recording going on while you're looking at bank statements, etc. I find that annoying, too, but I'm less annoyed by the reasoning in this case.

Now if Google could explain why toggling wifi through Tasker requires root, I would LOVE to hear the reasoning...

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or changing or just adding a system font.

Or setting a charge capacity limit.

Or adding separate quick access tikes for wifi and cellular.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (6 children)

The first two don't bug me but dam, give me my 6 buttons back!! I hate these fat notification tray icons. And yes, fuck Google for making it take MORE clicks to toggle wifi/cellular than before.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

In this case, I think it's protecting apps from other apps. No secret screen recording going on while you're looking at bank statements, etc.

I think with all the engineers at Google developing Android they could come up with a solution of how to discern whether the act of screenshot was triggered solely by the user, or an app on the phone. They are the ones in power of all the APIs that allow other apps to capture the screen content in the first place. Maybe I am simplifying it too much, but this seems as a bad excuse to me.

Maybe it would be too hard of a solution since there's so many ways third party apps could capture screen content (including for example the Android accessibility service which also allows apps to read content of the screen and even simulate screen touches and gestures which many automation apps make use of) that blocking the screenshot alltogether is by far the most feasible solution.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Protections" are fine, as long as there's an override for it.

User doesn't like potential malware from "sideloading"? Then don't enable "Install from Unknown Sources".

Same thing with everything else, there should be an override switch.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Being able to block screenshots is "supposed" to protect users from having malware take screenshots of banking apps and other such information.

If app developers were good, this could have been a good feature.

But I agree with OP. It still should be the user's choice.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

My Banking App does have the option to disable this feature.

It's all fine if it's a user choice, very annoying if it's not.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I fuckin hate that Playstation 4 and 5 do this for taking screenshots from movies. I just want to get a good screen grab for meme purposes! Do you think I'm going to screen shot every goddamn frame of a movie, one at a time, paste those back together as a video, then somehow rip the audio too, and then share this necromantically-assembled abomination with all my pirate buddies? Fuck you!

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Now that is really stupid, especially given how easy it is to just fire up the movie on your PC and take a screenshot from there.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Netflix does this on windows too

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I was able to use snipping tool to take screenshots when I had Netflix, but I also used it through my browser.

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I work for a company that builds an app /sdk that handles credit cards / payments. It's one of the (many) requirements for getting an industry standard certification (like PCIDSS / MPOC). The app Must block screenshots, and Must disable the camera while using it...

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (5 children)

What on earth are those in charge of certification standards thinking they'll achieve with requirements like this?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's probably to stop third party apps from screenshoting the banking app.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

The same functionality that you use to take screenshots can be hijacked by bad actors to get access to your stuff. It's especially bad if they can see your MFA apps or other sensitive info.

Not saying the functionality is always used for the best of intentions, but there are many situations where I see it as necessary.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's nothing. My workplace disabled copy/paste on everyone's work iPhones completely. Not in their own apps but system wide. Apparently that's something ios allows them to do. Doesn't affect me much because I use the phone as a glorified dual auth token but some people have it as their primary phone.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

work iPhones

some people have it as their primary phone.

Bruh, I have no idea how people can put up with their employer being able control their device. Like... the employer can freak out about some perceived "security breach" and decide to wipe everyone's phone and you lose all your data like photos. Also, their employer can see if they are shit talking about the employer or mangement people, and it's a terrible idea if they want to unionize.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I like that it's possible, but I think it should be treated like a permission with a user accessible toggle in settings for each app.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

I would like to see the same thing for clipboard read access. In the same way app has to prompt you for location permission it would have to prompt you to read the clipboard and you would actually have the option to allow it all the time which is handy for some apps like clipboard manager, or don't allow it alltogether which is handy for some random apps you don't trust.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It’s a really good feature imo and I’d love to see it be more common. This is how iOS does it:

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Aaaah! I'm so frustrated by this BS. Its MY phone. It should be MY choice.

Switching to GrapheneOS soon, and if the bank app(s) don't work, too bad. I'll use a (Linux) computer.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Like, its my phone, and some app can just decide to disable a fuction of my phone.

Is it your phone though?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

🙃

It should be, but the reality is that is isn't.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I hate this "feature" of the Dexcom GCM app. They seem to believe that HIPPA law prevents me from sharing my glucose readings with anyone I choose to.

To send readings to people, I can't screenshot the app but I can screenshot the notification which contains the same info 🤷🏼

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Yep, same with the-shitty ass Kaiser Permanente app, which itself is just a webview wrapper around the crappy kp.org website. I cannot screenshot my test results, or any other screen within the app, but I can go to the same-ass page in my browser and take my screenshot from the website.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

iPhone absolutely has this concept

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Interesting, I never seen an app in iOS that can block screenshots.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

I agree that it's infuriating! I downloaded an LSPosed module called CaptureSposed that overrides it.

It shouldn't take a specific module hack on a rooted phone with a custom OS with an unlocked bootloader to get this functionality back.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I hate the whole bloody smartphone ecosystem for shit like this. Microsoft Palladium was widely seen as a nightmare scenario when it proposed ceding a bunch of user control to the OS and app developers a couple decades ago, even by the mainstream press. It seems Apple and Google used it as a roadmap, likely because people don't know how to use computers, and that doesn't seem to be improving.

The part of the modern mobile OS security model that does have merit is that apps aren't trusted. The PC model, even in multiuser operating systems with fancy permissions was that apps are user agents which are always doing something the user asked for, and therefore trusted as much as the user. The glut of spyware for Windows in the early 2000s proved that false.

The fact that somebody else doesn't know how to use a computer shouldn't force me to cede control over mine to participate in the modern world. Root is a bit of an escape hatch, but it's a blunt instrument on Android, and Google tries to help app developers stop me from using that as well. I'm starting to feel like Richard Stallman was right about everything and I should go be a digital hermit, only running software I compiled from source.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Soooo... Any Magisk module that allows one to bypass this?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

I get banking and financial apps doing it. But shopping apps yea, wish we had a permissions override

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've seen public transportation apps doing that to curb sharing the ticket/barcode with someone else.

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