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Comment by bloak | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't work so well when the app is some snazzy file manager or back-up tool. Of course the OS ought to provide good enough tools that users don't need to install dodgy apps for such things but sadly the attitude nowadays seems to be "there's an app for that", even if you only want to do some trivial file conversion. Unless the OS is Debian, in which case the OS includes a gazillion different tools for transforming PDFs, a big helping of astronomical data, and several alternative kitchen sink implementations.

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that would work with "some snazzy file manager" or back-up tool, you just have to give the app partial/full file-system access with a big fat warning, or it has to use the OS's file manager to access the files. The OS then decides whether to query the user, or use previously configured settings (like the trivial file conversion example below)

"Trivial file conversion" tool can be implemented the same. The app tells the OS "hey, I want some files to convert" and the OS either grants access to a set of files/folders, or queries the user which file(s) (s)he wants to provide. IE the "open file" modal is the only window to accessing files. You can think of it like the HTML5 File upload & Drag/drop APIs, but a bit extended & more user-friendly.

Obviously smart engineers can think this through for longer than 3 minutes like I just did, and come up with better/user friendlier/safer solutions. But it breaks all backwards compatibility in almost any desktop OS

So what? At least only my snazzy file manager and media player get access to /sdcard - they still can't access other application's data to dump my browser credentials or modify those applications binaries to behave differently, the most harm they can do is delete my downloaded TV and pictures.

Only my backup tool gets root and can access other application's data - random trash games I download or even if I were to install them from pirated sources are unable to do that.

It's a vast improvement at the very least, even if not a perfect one.

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