Question on permissions

[IzzySoft]

My scanner got a few additional checks in January, and on today's update of your app reported:

! repo/de.benibela.videlibri_2783.apk declares sensitive permission(s): android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE*
! repo/de.benibela.videlibri_2783.apk contains signature block blobs: 0x504b4453 (DEPENDENCY_INFO_BLOCK; GOOGLE)

The asterisk signals READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE was granted implicitly because WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE was declared. Can you please clarify what storage access is needed for here?

Ah, that DEPENDENCY_INFO_BLOCK is easily avoided:

android {
    dependenciesInfo {
        // Disables dependency metadata when building APKs.
        includeInApk = false
        // Disables dependency metadata when building Android App Bundles.
        includeInBundle = false
    }
}

For some background: that BLOB is supposed to be just a binary representation of your app's dependency tree. But as it's encrypted with a public key belonging to Google, only Google can read it – and nobody else can even verify what it really contains.

Thanks in advance!

[benibela]

The asterisk signals READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE was granted implicitly because WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE was declared. Can you please clarify what storage access is needed for here?

for import/export

https://github.com/benibela/videlibri/blob/master/android/android/src/de/benibela/videlibri/activities/ImportExport.kt

Ah, that DEPENDENCY_INFO_BLOCK is easily avoided:

android {
    dependenciesInfo {
        // Disables dependency metadata when building APKs.
        includeInApk = false
        // Disables dependency metadata when building Android App Bundles.
        includeInBundle = false
    }
}

do I not need that when uploading it in the app store?

[IzzySoft]

for import/export

Thanks, so I got that right 😃

do I not need that when uploading it in the app store?

If you mean PlayStore: you probably upload the AABs there, right? In that case simply skip the includeInBundle = false line and just put includeInApk = false, so the toy shop gets it's opaque blob to play with and the FOSS folks are spared 😉

[IzzySoft]

Thanks!