Can I develop the app which should never delete even after reset the mobile Or It should block to RESET the mobile.
If any suggestion please help out.
Thanks in advance.
The proper way to do this is to require employees to install an app that provides whatever certificates/credentials necessary to access company resources. This app would use the Device Administration APIs to restrict certain policies on the device. As long as the app is enabled as a Device Administrator in the settings of the device, the user can't manually uninstall it. (They can still factory-reset their phone, but in that case they will no longer have the app and so lose whatever certificates/credentials allowing access to company resources.)
Related
I developed one parent and child communication Android application in which I wanted to restrict the child from uninstalling application. I have one solution that uses DevicePolicyManager. But still the application can be uninstalled without asking for password. If I remove the Device Administrator permission from the settings, then application is uninstalled from device?
Can anyone provide the valid solution for this cause?
You cannot prevent a user from uninstalling an app, from within the app code itself.
There is suggestions here How to prevent an application from being uninstalled?, but they are not foolproof.
The way around this is to use an android device with lollipop and upwards, so you can create a user account.
On the admin account, install an app that requires a password to uninstall apps. They are on the market (and free) I've used them. Or write one yourself.
Then on the child's account allow them whatever privileges you want them to have. They will be unable to touch the apps and uninstall them, unless on the admin account and with the password required for that app to uninstall other apps.
I have tried and tested this and it works.
Scenario
The user get only the first time free credits in the app. After that we want to do fraud prevention. We need to check if the user and/or the device have not installed the application before.
We can accept the risk of a factory reset or rooted devices
What I tried already
Listen to Intent.ACTION_PACKAGE_FIRST_LAUNCH. After reading I understand that this event is only send to the Play store and can't be used in any other app.
Check the application package info for the field "firstInstallTime", this is reset when the user removed the application and do a install.
Android Backup Service, but the user can stop the backup and reset data, so this is at no use.
App licensing looks like a promise solution to detect if the user have already installed the app. But with limitations the following is described: "You can implement licensing controls for a free app, but only if you're using the service to provide APK expansion files." Do we need to make a small APK expension file, just to verify the license?"
make a fingerprint of the mac address, imei, android id and some other stuff. But would this make the scans of Google play violating? I don't use it for advertising, but i'm afraid they think we violate the google play policy.
how you can help me
Can you help me to choose a good direction to solve this issue and maybe give some better methods to do this verification.
Factory reset, second-hand phones and users with multiple devices will be your main problems.
The only way to uniquely identify a user is an authentication through login/password or OpenId account.
Hey there if you are managing user information at the your server than what you can do is take the IMEI number of the device and send it to your server. It will record the information of the user. Now if he/she uninstall and install app again your app will again send IMEI number at server now you can check the IMEI already present or not, If present then user have already installed your application, more over you can manage same thing from the login ID, but that can be faked by the user. More over it will not violate any thing. User can see while installing in the permissions that your app will get the system information.
I'm using in my app Device Admin API but it requires actions from user to enable it - I was wondering that is it somehow install app and automatically enable admin on it without asking user?
Does anyone tried to do something like this
Enable Device Admin without asking user
Not a good idea. If that would allowed by android then anyone can play with users and user's data. Android not allowed , not allowing and will not allow this thing in future. You better stop wondering ;)
This is not possible because of OS security
This isn't possible, the device admin provides certain rights to the device for an app, that a standard app does not have. It would be a huge security risk if the user installed an app and it automatically set itself as a device admin without the users consent or knowledge.
There is no way to enable or disable Device Admin without asking the user for security purposes.
OK after long time I have to say that it's impossible to do it without OS moddification. Even I have tried to use Android hidden API by reflection but then looks that you need some system permission.
Use dpm set-active-admin, if you have root or system/signature privileges.
Is is possible to make an android app non deletable.. What i mean is, I want to install a app, but I cant remove/ uninstall it. If I want to uninstall it then it should prompt me for password which I would have set during installation of the app.
When I read the docs they tell it can be done using Device Admin, but it doesnt provide security, interms of it doesn't ask the user for the password and deletes if its correct..
Is it possible to make an app such that even if there is a factory reset the app will still be there on the phone ?
Is is possible to make an android app non deletable
No, unless you want to create your own ROM and preload it with your app, just like some manufactures preload their devices with their own software and other bloatware.
No it is possible to restrict any user to delete the app from android device.
As google already maintaining this scenario by using the concept known as Device Management System.
Google Eyeing on apps which are published by the developer / installed or deleted by the user.
Although you can make your own app which will notify your admin that user is trying to delete the app or deleted the app, using Service Intent concept.
I'm developing an application for parents to watch out for their children. So this application cannot be removed by the child. I need to know how to make it uninstallable or the user need password to remove that application.
Ankur,
I think the closest thing to what your looking for is the Device Administration feature introduced in 2.2.
Once the application is registered as a Device Administrator, it can't be uninstalled unless its unregistered. This will prevent the app from being uninstalled.
While the Device Admin API doesn't allow for password protection of this particular feature, you can password protect your application to prevent someone from tampering with the Device Admin features in the app.
I use an app called SeekDroid that has a similar functionality.
I've only seen one app that does this, its called Prey and is used to track lost phones and computers. The project is open source so you could go through their code and see how they do it or contact the developer and maybe they'll tell you how they do it.