Until a few years ago, any app you installed on an Android device could see all other apps on your phone without your permission.

Apparently Android apps (even in current Android versions) can check for the presence of other Android apps by listing the apps they want to check for in their manifest file. Nothing stops them from listing dozens or hundreds of other apps, and some do exactly that. Up til Android 11 they didn’t even have to list the other apps in the manifest. Then Google “tightened” things to be almost as bad. Dumb move, Android.

  • solrize@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    5·
    5 days ago

    Pretty stupid since if you use the bank’s regular voice-menu phone service, chances are it asks you to enter your PIN on the touch tone keypad. It has no way to know what dialer app you are using.

    I know that some banks used to give out hardware 2FA tokens and if done right, that’s way more secure than any phone app, but obvs has convenience issues.