kelown wrote on 28.07.2021 10:30
>> That's an important distinction because it means those apps can't
>> phone home with your location.
>
> Sounds good to me.
Hi kelown,
I think it's great people report the news about Android on this newsgroup.
I have Android 11 but I hadn't noticed this behavior until the OP mentioned
it, even as I use OpenCamera, SimpleCamera, and the Google Gcam ports.
My feeling is that Google implemented a sophomoric solution, much as Apple
almost always seems to implement (by dumb yet Draconian locking of all the
users' options, which doesn't take all that much by way of design to do).
It's kind of like how Google forced us to turn on Location just to check
Wi-Fi signal strength (which itself doesn't need Location), where I suspect
Google did that more to force people to keep Location on so _they_ could
benefit (given most people take the easiest way out by leaving it on).
Luckily the market (and Google) allowed full time location spoofing (with or
without location on) which allows us to at least spoof that location.
Interestingly, the Wi-Fi graphing apps works just fine without Location
being accurate (which is why it's a sophomoric solution by Google as it was
clearly unnecessary to force us to turn Location on just to graph Wi-Fi
signal strength at home).
To be clear, Google pulls sleazy hidden tricks with Location when it's in
the act of being turned on, so this is perhaps just another Google trick.
As an example of Google's sleazy tricks, when you turn on Location from the
Google Map "Activity", sleazy things happen which don't happen with _any_
other app that turns on the location "Activity", simply because all apps
except Google apps use the Android settings Activity while the Google apps
use the "gms" (Google Mobile Services" Activities (which do sleazy things).
com.android.settings.Settings$locationSettingsActivity
versus
com.google.android.gms.location.settings.LocationAccuracyActivity
While that hidden sleazy trick by Google is the worst offender that I know
of, there are other hidden sleazy tricks by Google I've found.
For example, "Opt out of Ads Personalization" is automatically turned off
and "Emergency Location Service" & "Send ELS Location" is automatically
turned on and "Find My Device" is automatically turned on (even if you had
them all off, as I do) whenever you clear your cache using the "Google Play
services storage" built in "Activity".
com.google.android.gms.co.g.Space
Who knows what _else_ is secretly turned on when you clear your GPS cache.
Once you know those are turned on, you can set up a series of homescreen
shortcuts to subsequently turn them back off any time you reset cache.
1.
Shortcut name: "Ad ID Reset"
Shortcut Activity: com.google.android.gms.ads.settings.AdsSettingsActivity
Action: Slide "Opt out of Ads Personalization" back to the off position.
2.
Shortcut name: "Location"
com.google.android.gms.security.settings.SecuritySettingsActivity
Action: Turn "Emergency Location Service" back to the off setting.
or
Shortcut name: "Google location settings"
com.google.android.location.settings.GoogleLocationSettingsActivity
Action: Turn "Emergency Location Service" back to the off setting.
or
Shortcut name: "Emergency Location Service"
com.google.android.gms.thunderbird.settings.ThunderbirdSettingsActivity
Action: Slide "Send ELS Location" back to the off position.
or
3.
Shortcut name: "Find My Device"
com.google.android.gms.mdm.settings.AdmSettingsActivity
Action: Slide "Security" > Find My Device" back to the off position.
4. It may even turn Earthquake Alerts on (I have to doublecheck that).
<
https://9to5google.com/2021/04/28/android-earthquake-alerts-warning/>
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