We install many apps on our phones, maybe too many. It’s interesting and even fun to try a new app or game, but sometimes we are not very careful about what this app can do, or what he asks us to do. Sometimes an application to do something completely simple like download wallpapers, for some reason requests access to our location. And by oversight, we granted it to them.
Fortunately, Android has ways to combat these types of actions and protect user privacy, and in the case of One UI, Samsung’s custom layer, there are tools in the system that allow control in detail what each of the applications we install can do on the mobile. If you want to have greater control over what an app can do, and what you don’t want it to do, it’s very simple: just follow the steps below, and you won’t have to. don’t need to install anything at all.
Don’t let apps access your location or camera if you don’t want them to
It is understandable that an application like WhatsApp or Telegram asks us for permission to access the camera or notifications, after all, sometimes we take photos directly from the application to send them in a chat and make video calls , and we want to know every time we receive a message or a call. What is not normal, or should not be, is that a random game requires you to have constant access to your phone, contacts and photo gallery.
First of all, the main thing: you have to be a little careful with the applications you install. But after clarifying that, there are two ways to control access to what an app can do on a Samsung Galaxy mobile.
The first comes from the so-called Permissions Manager, a menu section that Groups by category all applications that access certain functions: for example, everyone who can access the location, so we can clean up those we don’t want to grant any permissions to.
- Go to the mobile settings menu, then press Ssecurity and privacy
- Scroll until you find the option Authorization Manager
Next, we will see all the available categories: camera, contacts, location, physical activity, photos and videos (the gallery), notifications, phone and more. This screen tells us how many applications have access to each category. If we click on one of them, for example, camera or location, we will know Which applications have this permission? granted permanently and only during use.
It’s best to allow apps to have these permissions “only during use”, but some important apps or system functions (in many cases, native mobile apps) require permanent permission. In this section We can click on an app and remove the permission, or configure the app to always ask if we wish to grant you access.
Set app permissions, one by one
The other way to control app permissions on Samsung Galaxy devices is not by category, like the previous method, but by app. If what we want is know what permissions a specific app hasand revoke or modify them, just follow these steps:
- Go to the system settings menu and then to the section Applications
- Find the application whose permissions we want to check
- Once we have selected it, click on Permissions
In the previous image we can see that WhatsApp, as we mentioned a few lines ago, has many permissions granted, the application needs them to function correctly. The menu even shows us When was the last time the selected app used one of these permissions
If we click on one of these permissions we can configure it specifically by choosing between: allow only with the application in use, always ask or do not allow, this last option of course eliminates access. We can also click on “See all applications that have this permission”, which takes us to the panel of the previous method.
On each app’s permissions screen, there is an option called “Pause in-app activity if you are not using it”, which we recommend enabling, although it is usually active by default . This option means that if you go too long without using an application, It will disable all permissions until you use it againfor security reasons.
In general, if we have doubts about what a specific application does and we do not want to uninstall it, these methods allow us to check everything the application can do, to what parts of the mobile and our data it can access, and to eliminate this access if we wish. A regular game, for example, should not have access to the camera, phone or contact book.
Cover photo | Alejandro Alcolea for Xataka
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