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Comment by Spittie | Hacker News Reader

I gladly welcome this. While it's not nearly as powerful as OpenPDroid or similiar, it's a good option designed for the "average user".

I know that the average user isn't going to flash a new rom, but that's exactly the feel that I get from CyanogenMod: a polished additional experience over AOSP, that even the average user could use and enjoy.

Other custom rom, like AOKP, already include a more featureful permission manager. It gives all the control you'll ever need, but it's not as easy to use and it might cause some applications to crash. And the "advanced" user can always flash OpenPDroid over CyanogenMod, thanks to the auto-patcher it only takes few minutes.

Keep also in mind that this is designed pretty much for Facebook, the most hated application on Android.

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I'm not an Android user, so I'm curious: what's so bad about the Facebook app?

If you do a quick search of the Android Forums, a general complaint is just the performance of it while Facebook runs in the background as a service (impacting the currently used app) . Also tends to be a battery hog from all the syncing it does. I don't want to get into the whole privacy debate on it, so I'll let someone else field that part.

However, Android Permissions are "all or nothing" when you install an app. Combined with apps being able to potentially access much more than other platforms based on the permissions an app requires (as well as any app can read your sdcard without permission prior to Android 4.1 [though it's still disabled by default on 4.1 so apps not accounting for that permission don't crash]) and the need of some people to install certain apps, they must choose what is more important--potentially giving into whatever permissions this app wants or doing without.

I don't personally use it because I don't want Facebook on my rooted Android device (though I'm like that for most apps), but I have seen those reoccurring complaints over the last few years.

Can I get away with uninstalling the main Facebook app but keeping Messenger to save battery, or will I have to opt for an IM client that doesn't work with Facebook chat groups?

I never used the Facebook app on Android personally, so I do not know. Was not even aware they were two separate apps. Perhaps someone else can chime in.

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