Facebook Messenger vs. Google Hangouts: A side-by-side look at permissions

We put Facebook's much-maligned messaging app permissions up against Google's Hangouts app

Not to belabor the point — because I think most everyone who read our takedown of all the FUD and confusion surrounding the ill-informed stories about Facebook Messenger got it — but here's an interesting exercise. We recently recommended that when you have questions about the permissions an application is declaring, you should look at a similar app. It might not tell you the whole story, but it should give you a pretty good idea of whether an app has the power to do something nefarious.

If, say, one wallpaper application has the ability to make phone calls and another doesn't, you need to look for why it needs that ability. Make sense?

So let's put Facebook Messenger up against another popular messaging app — Google Hangouts. If you somehow haven't used Hangouts before, it's Google's messaging service, and it also now is Google's preferred text messaging app. (Though you'll still find other messaging apps on most manufacturers' phones, even if they have Hangouts installed.)

Let's put the permissions side by side — as copied directly from Google Play — and see what it looks like. All in the name of science.

source: androidcentral