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Comment by Ultramanoid | Hacker News Reader

Applications require permissions to run.

Many require internet permission although it makes no sense. For instance all Google keyboards have internet permission. And most others. That something that can record and transmit every single thing one types has that permission, to me, seems insane and I certainly will use only keyboards that do not have such asinine requirement.

Edit : https://fixitalready.eff.org/android/#/

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Looked up, thanks. Seems you can't grant or revoke that permission. I don't understand why having it at all if you cannot change it.

I use my own system, based on LineageOS [1], which comes with settings to block internet permission on any application. It's one of LineageOS' features. ( On top of that I root my devices and use AFWall+ [2] which also creates a configurable firewall with iptables. )

[1] https://lineageos.org/

[2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.ukanth.ufirewall/

Well, one use it has is to know when to stay away from something that requires it despite not needing it. Do not install such application.

Even without Internet permission there are easy ways to exfiltrate critical data.

For example, the app could just open the browser set to http://myapp.com/?secretdata=Ultramanoids_password

How are you going to stop that? Have the browser stop and ask before loading the web page?

Wouldn't that be visible?

Yes, but by then your data is already exfiltrated.

There are also a bunch of ways of doing it in non-visible ways by using API's of other apps

Amy keyboards you could recommend? Ideally available on f-droid.

I need Japanese and Chinese, also handwritten for kanji, and the only one that combines both without analytics or internet permission currently is Multiling O [1] but I am hoping for an alternative, because it is only distributed through the Play Store, and I do not use Google services.

Otherwise, open source and on F-Droid there's AnySoftKeyboard [2] and even a build of Mozc [3], this last one unfortunately with internet permission.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kl.ime.oh

[2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkey...

[3] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozc.android.inputmethod...

"Hacker's Keyboard" on f-droid had a long and venerable history.

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