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.
I hate the whole bloody smartphone ecosystem for shit like this. Microsoft Palladium was widely seen as a nightmare scenario a couple decades ago 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.
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 🤷🏼
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.
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.
GOS does allow taking screenshots, but they come out to be an empty black image.
GOS allows that to be bypassed?
Well fuck me, I wanna use Samsung Tags to track my cat, so can’t really get a Pixel to use GOS.
Soooo… Any Magisk module that allows one to bypass this?
There’s is an LSPosed module called Disable-FLAG_SECURE that does this
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!
god bless Digital Restrictions Management
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.
Netflix does this on windows too
I was able to use snipping tool to take screenshots when I had Netflix, but I also used it through my browser.
There’s an option in Developer options that’ll allow to bypass that setting
Edit: this is on lineage OS but I can’t find it in version 21 maybe it’s on 20
What option is that? And which Android version?
Not sure what OS you are using. Are you using Graphene OS or something like that.
I’m on One UI (Samsung Variant of Android) and I just check through every row on Developer options, the only thing remotely related was an option that allows apps to overlay over the “Settings” app, which still wouldn’t bypass an app specific restriction.
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…
What on earth are those in charge of certification standards thinking they’ll achieve with requirements like this?
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.
It’s probably to stop third party apps from screenshoting the banking app.
Accidentally screenshotting your bank acct and routing number is the only one I can really think of.
Or your “time clock earth sounds” app from the not so well policed appstore takes silent background screenshots, grayscales them and sends them to their host for OCR.
I agree this permission is annoying. But I differ in I feel it should be system controlled and can be invoked by apps that identify specific fields to be blocked, instead ofnjusy disabling it outright.
Not sure how this is relevant, these numbers are routinely shared with clients and suppliers.
Why did you capitalize “must”?
Probably a nod to the written style of RFC definitions, which have the word entirely in capital letters, as in… the implementation MUST do such and such, and SHOULD do this other thing. In this case, the relevant security standard(s)
We have italics and bold characters for that.
RFCs were being written back when line printers couldn’t do either.
I misread your comment and thought you said “RFK”. I have no idea what an “RFC” is. Some sort of teletype thing?
RFCs are Requests For Comment, published technical documents describing proposed standards.
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.
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…
Or changing or just adding a system font.
Or setting a charge capacity limit.
Or adding separate quick access tikes for wifi and cellular.
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.
Unless they changed something in Android 15, which I haven’t been able to try yet, I don’t think the separate WiFi / Mobile Data tiles were ever removed. At least they still exist on LineageOS 21 (Android 14), just hidden in the tile editor. You might want to check if you still have them there.
I just have “Internet”
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.
There is already a solution:
Third-party apps, unless a user specifically go to settings and find that option, don’t have the permission known as “Draw Over Top” that’s required to do screen recordings/screenshots.
So by default, a user is already safe from a malicious app trying to steal info. (That is, unless they just be an idiot and give the app “Draw Over Top” permission)
Some password managers want draw over top.
Bitwarden required it, iirc
I just looked at my bitwarden permissions and that’s not listed there…
Well you are gonna be trusting the password manager anyways, since its literally storing all your passwords. If you trust Bitwarden to store all your passwords, then you can trust it to not abuse the “Draw Over Top” permission.
For me and my family, I think the best solution would be to leave it as-is but with a way to lift the restrictions for power users that doesn’t involve root access. Something akin to enabling developer mode without having to buy a specific rootable phone
They changed it the other day where airplane mode doesn’t require root. That one’s nice for me.
Never mind that shortcuts on iOS has been able to do that simple task from its inception.
When did airplane mode ever require root?
He means just for “tasker”. Not for manually selecting airplane mode.
Up until Android 14 I think. Android 13 for sure does not support it.
Unless an ADB trick counts https://tasker.joaoapps.com/userguide/en/help/ah_secure_setting_grant.html
You used to be able to do everything I wanted through tasker without root but Google has been stripping away functionality for years
Third-party apps, unless a user specifically go to settings and find that option, don’t have the permission known as “Draw Over Top” that’s required to do screen recordings/screenshots.
Fair enough, though experience with my unsavvy family makes me think a lot of people will do whatever an app tells them to do
Ok but why is my browser doing this in incognito mode? Incognito mode isn’t a banking app. It’s me not wanting my browser to save my Facebook login info or history.
The target use case for incognito mode is to prevent the device from saving your activity during the browsing session through things like cookies and history. To that end, incognito also blocks it to prevent other apps from saving your activity through screen recordings or screenshots.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
It’s a really good feature imo and I’d love to see it be more common. This is how iOS does it:
It could be nice, but also annoying in some cases. I would at least want to have an option to allow all the time.
Oh yea, something needs to be done about the clipboard. It’s unsettling to know that a random app can just get your clipboard. Sometimes bitwarden doesn’t detect a password field for some reason so I have to copy it to the clipboard 😖 don’t feel safe…
Does it have a virtual keyboard?
Not as far as I know.
I believe Bitwarden has a setting to “wipe” the clipboard after some time.
Not perfect, but better
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.
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.
As an IT guy that manages MDMs, no we cannot see communications on the device
As another guy that does, yeah we can push ediscovery apps to the phone and pull all kinds of data
Something I’ve been dying to ask an industry expert. If your users setup a second user profile on android , and exclusively uses the second profile for work-related apps (assume full control), can you see the contents of the first (unrelated) user profile?
They are okay with it because it isn’t their phone. It’s a free phone that comes with the job.
“Free”
hmm I rather not… like its not just “privacy” you’d have to worry about, there can be potentially a rogue employee of the company just stealing all your bank info and possibly steal your identity. Might be a “free” phone, but there’s just much more risks than just getting a cheap android phone. People don’t think this though and only think about the “free”. Dealing with identity theft is not fun. If only people understand the risks… 🤦♂️
Don’t put personal stuff on your work phone. Use your own phone for that. If you have trouble carrying both, hit the gym.
Yea exactly. I would just carry 2 phones, but I’m just saying: I don’t understand how other people just use their work phone for personal use simply because it’s “free”
Yes it’s just a terrible idea. People do all sorts of dumb things though.
My work phone battery lasts for like 5-6 days because I only have Slack, MFA app, and outlook on it. It’s crazy to use it for personal use
I have never heard of copying and pasting being disabled in iOS. I’m sorry, but this claim is dubious.
I understand that for security compliance reasons. But beyond that, yupp. It sucks.
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.
Like, its my phone, and some app can just decide to disable a fuction of my phone.
Is it your phone though?
🙃
It should be, but the reality is that is isn’t.
Yes, and we should not give app developers a free pass because “everybody is doing it”.
iPhone absolutely has this concept
Interesting, I never seen an app in iOS that can block screenshots.
You can hit “take screenshot” but it results in a black frame iirc. Same for screen record.
I know Netflix has/had this if you video recorded. I thought I found a great way to download shows/movies until it was just a black screen.
Ticketmaster.
You can’t screen shot in streaming apps like Netflix and Disney. When you do the resulting image is just a black screen
I remember one (snapchat maybe?) that couldn’t block it so it just alerted the other person you took the screenshot. Maybe it’s changed in a decade.
I get banking and financial apps doing it. But shopping apps yea, wish we had a permissions override
