this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Boost For Lemmy

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Community of the Android app Boost for Lemmy Play Store Link

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App Permissions (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I was a long-time user of Boost for Reddit. Now that it is dead, I have moved over to Lemmy, in part because I saw that is what the creator of Boost was doing. My only question is what everyone thinks of the app Permissions for Boost for Lemmy. Right now I'm using Connect for Lemmy and it doesn't require nearly so many permissions as Boost will.require. Particularly purchase history, is that just so it can know if you purchased the app or is it your entire purchase history? And location. I'm not sure why it needs that. Can someone chime in on this. Maybe ELI5 the permissions for me?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Purchase History will be for checking if you've purchased the ad-free unlock. (maybe carried over from BoostForReddit too? Not sure.)

Location is usually less about your location and more about your wifi network. Knowing when to refresh the connection due to network switching or performing actions based on what network you're on.

Your location can be determined from your wifi info + databases of networks that google/apple/microsoft each provide/maintain so location permissions are required to see that info.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can determine if there's an active Internet connection without checking the wifi info.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But knowing whether you're on mobile data or Wi-Fi can be useful for, say, only allowing images to auto-load on Wi-Fi. Those kinds of network-based options require knowing more information about the type of connection, which on android means asking for Location permissions.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Incorrect. If you aren't using WifiManager, you don't need ACCESS_WIFI_STATE or location permissions. ConnectivityManager gives information to know the connection type with only ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, which is granted automatically on install without prompting the user to allow.

And besides that, you should really be checking ConnectivityManager.isActiveNetworkMetered() instead of the connection type anyway, since the user could be on tethered wifi, for instance.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I wish more app developers looked at if the connection is metered or not. I have unlimited mobile data, but there are so many apps who needlessly try to protect my precious data by blocking downloads based on connection type.