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Holy shit Android 14 is really bad (szmer.info)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

No combined notification+ringer volume control? No non-dismissable notifications? ~~No disabling of the bottom search bar?~~ fair point this is launcher issue What the fuck is that shit?!

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Since Android 10 the OS has really gone downhill IMO.

IIRC they have also been ripping out workarounds that people use to keep their apps open, so expect things like Syncthing/OpenVPN/Element/Termux etc to no longer be able to survive in the background - I believe the non dismissable notifications are a part of that too. To me this also means apps using their own push services are now being forced into a position where they'll need to consider Google Cloud Messaging.

The OpenVPN one is pretty poor because unless you have it set to be always-on, Android can kill it freely now, then completely bypass your VPN preference because "it's not working"

These new changes in A14 kind of show everything wrong with having an ad company in charge of a mobile OS

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Set the battery usage of your essential apps to Unrestricted and your persistence problem is solved. Android has vastly improved its security by cutting off the workarounds shady (and legit) apps have used to persist. Some of these improvement are from GrapheneOS devs hardening the AOSP pipeline and increasing everyone's privacy. You mention VPN apps getting neutered. I've never experienced Wireguard getting killed by Android and I use that app nearly continuously. I also use Syncthing all day. Setting its battery use to unrestricted keeps it working just fine. I use the app's internal options to disable syncing when my battery tapers off. The hacky workarounds you speak of to maintain persistence on A14 should be killed off to improve everyone's privacy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Set the battery usage of your essential apps to Unrestricted and your persistence problem is solved

The background app battery usage feature (otherwise known as "allow background activity", "battery care", or "Adaptive battery") is a different feature to what I'm talking about here sadly AFAICT, and doesn't affect the relative importance weight of apps when Android's memory management is looking for things to kill.

The only thing that the background app battery usage restriction does is stop "inactive" apps from running in the background if they are using up a lot of CPU time, and if the app is not being interacted with frequently: either directly by the user, indirectly via Google Cloud Messaging, or by another app on the device. From what I can tell, it's completely separate to Android's memory management and solely exists to extend battery life.

Android has vastly improved its security by cutting off the workarounds shady (and legit) apps have used to persist.

Shady apps already persist using Google (Firebase) Cloud Messaging, and this change does not impact them. Even if they are killed by the separate background battery app usage feature, a simple push message typically brings these back.

The hacky workarounds you speak of to maintain persistence on A14 should be killed off to improve everyone's privacy.

I wouldn't exactly categorize this as a hacky workaround, since it follows the documented relative app importance weights used by Android's memory management. Users can even bypass this themselves by swiping on the persistent notification, and hiding those types of app notifications.

If anything IMO it forces apps to be less transparent about their activity, since they cannot communicate to the user that they are running

If I'm wrong about the background battery app feature's seemingly lack of impact on Android's memory management please do let me know - I've yet to come across anything suggesting it does ☹️

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Interesting, thanks

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

It's supposed to, but on my Realme X3 it just does whatever it wants irrespective. Not Android 14 admittedly, but I have little faith that any future phone will behave in this regard.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

and yet plenty of stuff still runs in the background for me, eating my battery when I don't need it to be in the background

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Stop downloading all those free-to-play-pay-to-win games. Basically any app that is advertised for but free to use is going to maximize the amount of data they harvest and the number of "notifications"(ads) they send you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Did they something in their recent API? How come OS van kill background apps if battery set to unrestricted?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

If the foreground apps need the resources (RAM, CPU) the OS will kill apps that are in the background. There used to be various things apps could do to reduce the risk of being killed, but these options have gradually been reduced in recent years.