To date, there has been no way to run apps on Android with real and reliable privacy controls. Android version 4.3 and higher take a huge step in the right direction, letting users install apps while denying some of the apps' attempts to collect the user's data.
Android was built from scratch to have quite a sophisticated and strongly enforced system of per-app permissions. But many of the privacy-sensitive permissions are poorly delineated and confusing.1 And the way the OS and Google's Play Store worked, users could not install an app but say "no" to that app's demand that it be able to read their address book, track their location, or grab their phone number or IMEI.
This turned out to be the fundamental problem with the previous Android model: installing an app was an all-or-nothing proposition, and there were few practical ways to protect yourself against the apps you'd installed, or even really see what they were up to.
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