CyanogenMod Adds Support For Revoking App Permissions

The latest CyanogenMod nightly build is coming up with an option to revoke the app permission, thus letting you have the more control over the apps you have installed on your Android mobile phone. Whenever an user installs an app from Android market, it lets you see the permissions that the application require in order to function properly. But then you can only see the permissions requested by the app but you have no control over them. You can’t revoke a certain permission requested by an app. This could be a concerning issue for at least some users who are worried about an app accessing their contact list on the phone or any other data which they never wanted to be accessed by a third-party app in the first place. Of course you can always uninstall the app if you feel it is invading your data. But that can’t be an ideal option always, since one just bad permission request and you blacklist it, which means that you are forced to be deprived of the features that the app provides.

CyanogenMod Android

Fortunately, we have the new CyanogenMod nightly which add the much needed app permission control feature for your Android build. If you are already using CyanogenMod 7, all you need to do is to download the new CyanogenMod nightly build (link added at the bottom of the post) and follow these simple steps:

Once the CyanogenMod nightly is installed on your Android, go to CyanogenMod settings > Permissions > select Enable management. Then navigate to Settings > Manage Applications > and here you will find all the permissions requested by the applications. Tap on any permission to revoke it. All the revoked permissions will be marked by a “strike through”. The permission revokes will go into effect instantaneously for most of them but for reenabling “Network communication” which requires a reboot.

When you revoke a permission to any app, usually it will be stopped from accessing the data from phone which results in the application to “force close”. But the new CyanogenMod build works in a smart alternative way using “spoofing” of access. Instead of not sending any data from phone, it sends a false data (like phone state, phone ID etc.) and the app will not force close because at least it has some data anyway.

Download CyanogenMod latest nightly

[via Android Police]

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