Android Moronic Monday (Jan 06 2020) - Your weekly questions thread! |
- Moronic Monday (Jan 06 2020) - Your weekly questions thread!
- Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite hands-on: but why?
- We just hit 2 million members on /r/android
- Samsung starts Android 10 testing for Galaxy A6, A6+ and A7 2018.
- Android 10 rolls out to Sony Xperia XZ3, XZ2, XZ2 Compact, XZ2 Premium
- Android version statistics
- HTC had a terrible 2019
- Samsung to Introduce a Method of Typing Using the Front Camera at CES 2020.
- @IceUniverse on Twitter: "Galaxy S 120Hz S 120Hz + S 120Hz Ultra"
- Official /r/AndroidGaming's Best Games of 2019 - Nominations
- From OnePlus to Huawei and back again: What I learned from switching brands - Android Authority
- Huawei Mate X: You'll want to fold and unfold this smartphone over and over - CNET
- Chinese Spyware Pre-Installed on All Samsung Phones (& Tablets)
- Small rant on the current state of Android from a new iPhone user
| Moronic Monday (Jan 06 2020) - Your weekly questions thread! Posted: 06 Jan 2020 03:15 AM PST Note 1. Join us at /r/MoronicMondayAndroid, a sub serving as a repository for our retired weekly threads. Just pick any thread and Ctrl-F your way to wisdom! Note 2. Join our IRC, and Telegram chat-rooms! Please see our wiki for instructions. [link] [comments] | ||
| Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite hands-on: but why? Posted: 05 Jan 2020 06:36 PM PST
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| We just hit 2 million members on /r/android Posted: 06 Jan 2020 01:17 AM PST | ||
| Samsung starts Android 10 testing for Galaxy A6, A6+ and A7 2018. Posted: 05 Jan 2020 08:04 AM PST
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| Android 10 rolls out to Sony Xperia XZ3, XZ2, XZ2 Compact, XZ2 Premium Posted: 06 Jan 2020 01:13 AM PST
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| Posted: 05 Jan 2020 11:16 AM PST Hi, I am a developer and thought to share some Android version statistics with you. Please note that this information is not 100% representative, as it is collected from one application. Both charts are adjusted to the total number of installs. Also, keep in mind that the minimum API level of my app is 21, so the chart only shows distribution starting Android Lollipop. Versions from Android 5 to 10 add up to 100% on the chart. In spite of all these, it shows well the speed of adoption of each Android version relative to each other. Android 8.0 does not include Android 8.1 and the total number of active installs (the data set) is roughly 200k. See demographics, darker country = more devices. [link] [comments] | ||
| Posted: 06 Jan 2020 02:15 AM PST | ||
| Samsung to Introduce a Method of Typing Using the Front Camera at CES 2020. Posted: 05 Jan 2020 05:46 AM PST Link of Source from Samsung Members (Translation)
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| @IceUniverse on Twitter: "Galaxy S 120Hz S 120Hz + S 120Hz Ultra" Posted: 05 Jan 2020 07:01 AM PST
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| Official /r/AndroidGaming's Best Games of 2019 - Nominations Posted: 05 Jan 2020 08:22 AM PST | ||
| From OnePlus to Huawei and back again: What I learned from switching brands - Android Authority Posted: 05 Jan 2020 06:35 PM PST
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| Huawei Mate X: You'll want to fold and unfold this smartphone over and over - CNET Posted: 05 Jan 2020 06:01 PM PST
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| Chinese Spyware Pre-Installed on All Samsung Phones (& Tablets) Posted: 06 Jan 2020 04:21 AM PST I know the title is rather sensational, however it couldn't get any closer to the truth. For those who are too busy to read the whole post, here's the TL;DR version: The storage scanner in the Device Care section is made by a super shady Chinese data-mining/antivirus company called Qihoo 360. It comes pre-installed on your Samsung phone or tablet, communicates with Chinese servers, and you CANNOT REMOVE it (unless using ADB or other means). This is by no means signaling hate toward Samsung. I have ordered the Galaxy S10+ once it's available in my region and I'm very happy with it. I have been a long time lurker on r/samsung and r/galaxys10 reading tips and tricks about my phone. However, I want to detail my point of view on this situation. For those who don't know, there's a Device Care function in Settings. For me, it's very useful for optimizing my battery usage and I believe most users have a positive feedback about this addition that Samsung has put in our devices. With that being said, I want to go into details regarding the storage cleaner inside Device Care. If you go inside the Storage section of Device Care, you'll see a very tiny printed line "powered by 360". Those in the west may not be familiar with this company, but it's a very shady company from China that has utilized many dirty tricks to attempt getting a larger market share. Its antivirus (for PC) is so notorious that it has garnered a meme status in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Chinese speaking countries' Internet communities. For example, 360 Antivirus on PC would ACTIVELY search for and mark other competitors' products as a threat and remove them. Others include force installation of 360's browser bars, using misleading advertisements (e.g. those 'YOUR DEVICE HAS 2 VIRUSES, DOWNLOAD OUR APP TO SCAN NOW' ads). These tactics has even got the attention of the Chinese government, and several court cases has already been opened in China to address 360's terrible business deeds. (On the Chinese version of Wikipedia you can read further about the long list of their terrible misconducts, but there's already many on its English Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qihoo_360). If the company's ethics are not troublesome enough, let me introduce you to the 'Spyware' allegation I made in the title. A news report from the Chinese government's mouthpiece ChinaDaily back in 2017 reveals 360's plan to partner up with the government to provide more big data insights. In another Taiwanese news report back in 2014, 360's executive even admits that 360 would hand the data over to the Chinese government whenever he is asked to in an interview (https://www.ithome.com.tw/news/89998). The Storage scanner on your phone have full access to all your personal data (since it's part of the system), and by Chinese laws and regulations, would send these data to the government when required. With that in mind, for those who know intermediate computer networking, I setup a testing environment on my laptop with Wireshark trying to capture the packets and see what domains my phone are talking to. I head over to Device Care's storage section and tapped update database (this manual update function seems to be missing from One UI 2.0), and voila, I immediately saw my phone communicating to many Chinese servers (including 360 [dot] cn, wshifen [dot] com). I have collected the packets and import them into NetworkMiner, here's the screenshot of the domains: https://imgur.com/EtfInqv. Unfortunately I wasn't able to parse what exactly was transferred to the servers, since it would require me to do a man in a middle attack on my phone which required root access (and rooting seemed to be impossible on my Snapdragon variant). If you have a deeper knowledge about how to parse the encrypted packets, please let me know. Some may say that it's paranoia, but please think about it. Being the digital dictatorship that is the Chinese government, it can force 360 to push an update to the storage scanner and scan for files that are against their sentiment, marking these users on their "Big Data platform", and then swiftly remove all traces through another update. OnePlus has already done something similar by pushing a sketchy Clipboard Capturer to beta versions of Oxygen OS (which compared clipboard contents to a 'badword' list), and just call it a mistake later. Since it's close source, we may really know what's being transmitted to the said servers. Maybe it was simply contacting the servers for updates and sending none of our personal data, but this may change anytime (considering 360's notorious history). I discovered that the Device Care could not even be disabled in Settings. I went ahead and bought an app called PD MDM (not available on Play Store) and it can disable builtin packages without root (by abusing Samsung's Knox mechanism, I assume). However I suffered a great battery performance loss by disabling the package, since the battery optimizer is also disabled too. After a bit of digging, the storage cleaning in Device Care seemed to be present for a long time, but I'm not sure since which version of Android. It previously seemed to be handled by another sketchy Chinese company called JinShan (but that's another story), but got replaced by 360 recently. Personally, I'm extremely disappointed in Samsung's business decision. I didn't know about 360 software's presence on my phone until I bought it, and no information was ever mentioned about 360 in the initial Setup screen. I could have opted for a OnePlus or Xiaomi with the same specs and spending much less money, but I chose Samsung for its premium build quality, and of course, less involvement from the Chinese government. We, as consumers, paid a premium on our devices, but why are we exposed to the same privacy threats rampant on Chinese phone brands? I get it that Samsung somehow has to monetize their devices with partnerships, but please, partner with a much more reputable company. Even Chinese's Internet users show a great distrust about the Qihoo 360 company, how can we trust this shady and sketchy company's software running on our devices? This is not about politics, and for those who say 'USA is doing the same, why aren't you triggered?', I want to clarify that, no, if the same type of behavior is observed on USA companies, I will be equally upset. As for those who have the "nothing to hide" mentality, you can buy a Chinese phone brand anytime you like. That is your choice. We choose Samsung because we believe it stand by its values, but this is a clear violation of this kind of trust. If you share the same concern, please, let our voices be heard by Samsung. I love Reddit and I believe it's a great way to get the community's attention about this issue. Our personal data is at great risk. [link] [comments] | ||
| Small rant on the current state of Android from a new iPhone user Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:51 PM PST I use my phone like a full on computer, and for the type of user I am Android just does more and thats just a fact. Every couple years or so though, I like to try out iPhones and see what the hype is about. My friend sold me his 128gb iPhone 11 for 500, so at that price I was in and sold my Galaxy s10+. So far from my findings, iOS and Android are similar now like everyone says, but things are definitely still very different. My annoyances so far with the iPhone:
These are main gripes, but even with these issues on iPhone it made me realize the sad state android. At the end of the day what other Android phone deserves 800 to 1000 dollars of our money?
As it stands right now I cannot think of any Android phone that deserves my money anymore. With a new iphone you can expect updates for at the very least 4-5 years and if you need the battery replaced, there are easy options. You can buy cases just about anywhere and the "it just works" has never been easier for me to believe. I feel like if I wanted to stick with this phone for 3 years, I could easily do that and be just fine. The only android phone I think I could do that with is the OnePlus, but even then my hit to camera and video isn't worth it. Any thoughts? Because I have just finished the Mandalorian... I have spoken. [link] [comments] |
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