Second Android 14 Preview is out with privacy changes
Last month, Google released the first preview of Android 14, the next major version of the mobile operating system. Google publishes a new Android version each year. Development is extensive, and includes developer previews, beta releases and platform stability work before the final release.
The second Developer Preview of Android 14 is now available. It is the last preview before the first Beta release in April 2023.
The first preview introduced a wide range of new features, including support for passkeys, an upcoming security feature that allows third-party apps on Android to manage passkeys for users.
Second Android 14 Developer Preview
The second Android 14 release includes refinements for features introduced in the first preview and new features and changes.
Here is an overview of important changes in Android 14 Developer Preview 2:
- Partial access to photos and videos -- Android users may grant partial access to photos and videos to apps in Android 14. Next to the already existing full access and deny access options, Android users may now select photos and videos that they want an app to have access to.
- Device screenshots detection -- Android 14 includes a "privacy-preserving screenshot detection API" that informs apps when user's take screenshots using hardware buttons.
- Android users may dismiss non-dismissible foreground notifications -- Android 14 users may dismiss foreground notifications that are configured to be non-dismissible. The new behavior does not apply to non-dismissible notifications when the phone is locked or a clear all notification action is selected by the user. Also worth nothing is that it does not apply to some use cases as well, e.g., notifications created using MediaStyle.
- Improved regional preferences settings -- Android 14 users may set regional preferences regarding the temperature, first day of the week and numbers under System > Languages & input > Regional preferences in Android 14.
- Media owner package names may be redacted -- Android 14 may redact the owner package name, unless the application's package name is always visible to other apps or the querying app has the QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission.
- Restrictions on starting activities from the background -- The changes, which you find here, are designed to protect users "by preventing malicious apps from abusing APIs to start disruptive activities from the background".
- Apps can only kill their own background processes in Android 14.
- App Stores improvements -- Install approval may be requested before downloading, there is a new method to claim responsibility for future updates, which permits only the update owner from installing automatic updates, and application updates at less-disruptive times.
The second Android 14 developer preview addressed a Google Wallet bug that prevented cards from being activated.
Android users interested in testing the new preview should take a look at the top open issues first. The preview is available as a manual download. Google created previews for certain Pixel devices (from Pixel 4a 5G and newer).
Instructions are provided on the official Get Android 14 website, linked above.
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?