Fix the New Google Play Store Permissions System Using Xposed

Just a few days ago, we talked about how recent changes to the Google Play Store permissions system potentially open the door to a world of new rogue applications. For those in need of a quick refresher, this all boils down to Android’s entire permission system being collapsed into 13 categories. Users running the latest versions of the Play Store are by default only shown the applicable categories, rather than individual permissions themselves. And to make matters worse, permissions changes are not even presented to the user when updating apps if they fall into existing permission categories.

Needless to say, the latest changes to the Google Play Store are pretty unfavorable from a security standpoint. And although the shift to permissions categorization may be good for novice users who have difficulty understanding more granular permissions, it helps no one when permission changes within any given category are not shown.

Luckily for security-conscious users, there is now a solution for the security issues introduced into the latest versions of the Google Play Store, and it comes in the form of an Xposed Module from XDA Forum Moderator GermainZ. With this module, the Play Store will now default to show you every single permissions that is requested. And more importantly, you will now have to manually allow application updates that ask for new permissions, regardless of parent category.

It’s unfortunate that in trying to make the Play Store more user friendly that Google has chosen to severely curtail user privacy and security. Luckily, however, the aftermarket development community has pulled through yet again to bring back what Google has taken away. You can get started by heading over to the module thread.

[Many thanks to Forum Moderator Whiskey103 for the tip!]

The post Fix the New Google Play Store Permissions System Using Xposed appeared first on xda-developers.

source: xdadevelopers