---
title: "Everyone knows all the apps on your phone"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-knows-all-the-apps-on-your-phone-lx4hyn0o1
source_url: https://peabee.substack.com/p/everyone-knows-what-apps-you-use
type: article
source: "Hacker News"
published: 2025-03-30T01:02:51.710Z
updated: 2025-03-30T01:03:07.470Z
tags: ["security", "android", "privacy"]
reading_time: 11
upvotes: 50
comments: 1
language: en
---

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# Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

**[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 11 min read · 50 upvotes · 1 comments

## Summary

Until recently, any app on an Android device could access a list of all other installed apps without permission. Although Google's package visibility policy in Android 11 (2022) restricted this access, some apps still find ways around the policy. Notable examples include Indian apps like Swiggy and Zepto, which list hundreds of apps in their manifest files for user profiling. The policy loophole and its exploitation raise significant privacy concerns, highlighting the need for stricter enforcement.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://peabee.substack.com/p/everyone-knows-what-apps-you-use>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@sushmit\_singh** · 1 upvotes

> now in android we have to use namespace in Gradle

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---

Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#android](https://daily.dev/tags/android), [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-knows-all-the-apps-on-your-phone-lx4hyn0o1)