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Comment by theamk | Hacker News Reader

I have a pretty good idea on how to fix this (and many similar) problems: "hibernate app" option. Its a new app state where app icon icon has some mark (like being semi-grayed out) and all the background app services are disabled (tracking, promotional popups, periodic wakeups, etc...). The app is only un-hibernated if user explicitly clicks on it, it cannot do it by itself. The app can be hibernated by long-press menu on app icon or notification.

So the first time you get an ad notify, you click "hibernate" and you are good. And if it is time to make another order, app is woken up, so you cannot miss notifications by accident.

Sure, it is not as good as having separate "show ads" toggle, but it requires no cooperation from app whatsoever,

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On Android, Shelter (available on F-Droid [0]) is a close implementation of this. Apps installed in the "shelter" (read: Android work profile) can be automatically frozen when not in use, and launcher shortcuts can be created to temporarily unfreeze and use the app. This doesn't require root, and frozen apps cannot run services, send notifications, or anything really. As a bonus, for the most part they don't even show up as installed when frozen and are completely isolated from main profile apps. The filesystem is separate however, but you can use an app that allows file sending via share contexts such as Phone Saver [1] to send files between your main profile and your shelter profile.

[0]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/

[1]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/link.standen.michael.phonesa...

For Android I think the only thing needed for this is for disabled apps to show as grayed out in the launcher instead of hidden. I wonder if that's information available to launchers or only available in the system app menu.

On Android, paused apps turn gray on the home screen and in the app drawer. However there's sometimes a delay of ~10 seconds before it happens

Interesting, which launcher is that with? Trebuchet? Using Nova they just disappear for me which is... not exactly convenient for turning them back on lol.

Just the stock Pixel launcher (and just to clarify, that's for "Paused" apps, not disabled ones)

Ah, might be time for a new phone with newer Android it seems :). Thanks!

This is a great idea.

I have never looked into Shortcuts on iOS, but I wonder if something similar could be implemented there.

Lots of ways to do this on Android. Ice Box is an example of an app that all help do it for you.

Ice Box seems to require root fwiw.

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