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Comment by amluto | Hacker News Reader

I really wish that both Android and iOS had an option to outright prevent an app from doing anything in the background. No sensors, no location, no push notifications, no network access, no CPU time, URL protocols, no nothing. If I don't click the little app icon, the app shouldn't run, full stop.

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I wish iOS forced all apps to offer "Always/While Using/Never" for location info. It's bullshit that Uber can refuse to offer the middle choice.

A thousand times this.

So...Uber has Always/Never functionality and you propose and change that makes the user choose Always/Never/Never?

You can install Greenify to do exactly this. It helped me kill some pernicious apps that I needed once in a while but that would run all the time, killing my battery (I'm looking at you, Mi Fit).

The only annoying and inexplicable thing is that some apps run their own background process for push notifications, rather than using GCM, so pushes stop coming in if you kill those.

I think it's ridiculous that you need an app to approximately control other background apps. Denying background access to the phone should be the default. Anything else should need a permission popup IMO.

iOS gets close to what you want. Apps have to ask for specific permission for specific reasons (location, background download, etc), otherwise it just get killed after a few minutes.

Security is always at odds with convenience. It's easy to require a pop up to ask for permission every time and have user getting so used to these pop ups that they just automatically tap "yes"

I agree. Apps shouldn't be able to just run background processes willy-nilly, and I hate how that drains my battery for no good reason.

> The only annoying and inexplicable thing is that some apps run their own background process for push notifications, rather than using GCM, so pushes stop coming in if you kill those.

There are valid reasons for this, e.g., if you want your app to work on Android devices without the proprietary Google applications.

I don't know which android distribution you're using but mine has that. Can recommend Cyanogenmod with privacy guard to everyone: it allows you to deny wake locks to applications. After doing this my battery chart is flat for 6 hours straight if I don't use my phone (I think that's the longest time I've tried).

Telegram is the only application with wake lock permissions left. I once even tried denying my lock screen the permission, which was a mistake... Took a while to turn the device back on.

I use CyanogenMod, and denying wake locks doesn't solve this problem. An application can register to receive any number of events that will wake it despite a lack of wake locks, like geofences, alarms, push notifications, waiting for another app to wake the device, etc.

It's the same reason that denying the permission to automatically run on boot is basically useless from a privacy perspective -- the application will just automatically run when some other event happens.

iOS gives you the option to disable Background App Refresh either for all apps, or for individual apps: Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh

so this will disable location and all other data for uber if its not in the foreground?

That's a separate option.

Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Uber -> Never

I'm don't know why you were downvoted, background refresh has nothing to do with the location setting.

Per Apple's developer docs, if background app refresh is off, the app can't process location updates in the background. This was mentioned elsewhere in this thread as well.

thanks!

It's tricky to get the ux of this right. Say you don't want to give Firefox background access because it should only be active while you are actively browsing. Then that one time when you are about to download a 4GB iso, you start the download and minimize the app or even close the phone, when you get back the download was cancelled after just 2%. :(

Not saying it can't be done, just that there are many corner cases that can easily "break the internet" for non tech users if not handled in a smart way.

I think that many of the corner cases (background downloads) are cornery enough to justify giving users the options. The UX is hard, totally, but it's worth it.

Android can do that if you enable developer tools. Not sure if it can be easily overridden by an app or not

If you kill an app on the iOS, it stays dead until you launch it again, iirc.

it stays dead until the system decides to reload it. It may decide to do this for various reasons such a entering a geofence, significant location update, or push notification. But turning off background app refresh should prevent all of these things from turning on your app I think.

Also low power mode can also be used as a sort of incognito mode because it stops all background activity to preserve battery.

And you can turn all of those items off in the app's settings. It might be annoying although because it wont work as you want. It would be nice if apple added a general 'turn off all background activity' permission switch.

Have you checked? I stumbled on it myself with background network, background upload requests get killed when the app is killed, and they don not resume even if you relaunch the app. I have a hunch all other background actitivity is the same way.

Geofence, significant location change, and push waking up the app don't happen on user forced shutdown. App urls though are a different matter. :)

I am not totally sure of geofencing.

>" It may decide to do this for various reasons such a entering a geofence..."

Can you elaborate on this? Whats the connection with relaunching and a geofence?

I haven't worked with goefences, but I'm guessing you can tell the OS you're interested in receiving particular geofence events such as when a user enters one. So the OS will relaunch apps which subscribed to those events so they can act on it.

Someone who has actually worked with geofences, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Geofencing notifies your app when its device enters or leaves geographical regions you set up. If the App is terminated iOS will relaunch it IF the user gave it "Always" authorization for sharing location.

To prevent data from being used by the Uber app on Android I enabled data server mode, and from there denied the Uber app from having unrestricted data access (settings > apps > special access > unrestricted data access). This allows me to still use the Uber app and request a ride, and I'll receive texts once the car is near.

Last week during Thanksgiving travel I received a advertisement from the Uber app (as a notification) when I arrived at the SFO airport, even though I did not use the app at all that day. That's when I decided it was time to take away the unrestricted data access. I do agree that it would be nice to have better privacy options for each app, but I thought I'd share this workaround for the time being.

I thought that Cyanogen had something like what you are describing. Can anyone confirm?

Confirmed. See my previous comment.

I'm pretty sure with most Android phones you can kill applications that are sent to the background immediately.

Would be nice. But, then only the carriers and the platform owners get to track you. That's not really fair, either.

I want effectively a phone that works like Sandstorm. :) If I want it to have a right outside itself, I'll grant it.

Turning off Background app refresh and removing the app from the recent apps list will accomplish this.

You can do that already with user exposed controls on iOS. Just force shut down the app.

Not even for messaging app?

I don't think they're suggesting a single toggle for the whole phone, just that it be a setting you can force for individual apps. You'd only do it to apps that have no business running in the background like Uber.

An option. Not a requirement for all apps.

iOS does that?

You can set location permission for App with "Never/While Using/Always".

You can disable Background App refresh for individual App. iOS App didn't even have ability to run in background in previous version.

You misunderstand. The App apparently can refuse to opt-in to the While Using option (Uber now only has Never/Always). This is ridiculous, and Apple's fault.

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