Not sure if this is the correct place to post, but I just wanna kinda rant a bit.
I’m not the only one that hates this, right?
An app can just do a “This App Does Not Allow Screenshots”? Like… wtf?
Like, its my phone, and some app can just decide to disable a fuction of my phone. It’s my phone and if I wanna take a screenshot, I’m taking a screenshot. I don’t care about whatever “security” the app developer wants.
Imagine if every online shopping app whether fast food or amazon, just used this to block you from taking a screenshot so you can’t save the records in case of a dispute.
Which android developer thought it was a good idea to let an app disable a function on your phone. Even iPhone doesn’t have this stupid concept.
Sorry for the rant.
Anyone wanna share your stories?
(P.S. I have a cheap secondary phone to take photos of the screen. “This App Does Not Allow Screenshots” my ass lmao, I’m taking the screenshot whether the app wants it or not.
I just open my tab switcher, then take a screenshot from there =P
You mean the “recent apps”?
What Android version?
In any recent Android versions, anything within the app in the “recent apps” would show as all white or all black in any screenshots or screen recordings.
Yes, ‘recent apps’; I never knew the name. Currently using Android v14, this method still works fine for me.
Doesn’t work on android 15 for me
i have 6.1 and am fully updated, and this still works for me
Android 6.1? (Not OneUI 6.1 right?)
Its must be an old unpatched bug.
(Btw, how long have you been holding onto the device? Its amazing your phone survived that long.)
If its OneUI 6.1, then thats weird, since I’m also on OneUI 6.1 and it doesn’t work.
OneUI 6.1 is Android 14 btw, Android Version =/= OneUI Version
My doctor’s app does this and it annoys the fuck out of me. I get test results and I want to share them with my wife and it’s like nope.
Second phone or cheap camera off ebay…
There are also probably usb-c capture dongles that should work
Also: Split Screen + Take photo using front camera in front of a mirror.
iPhone absolutely has this concept
Interesting, I never seen an app in iOS that can block screenshots.
Ticketmaster.
You can’t screen shot in streaming apps like Netflix and Disney. When you do the resulting image is just a black screen
I find this shit hilarious.
Who the fuck is pirating a damn thing by screen shotting their phone? Can I smash the buttons 30 times a second in order to be able to reproduce the movie? No, absolutely not.
In reality, people will be taking a screen shot in order to share something, giving free publicity to Netflix. So what actually happens is that I torrent the thing I want to make a gif of, or share a frame from, thereby leaving an incentive for the people who provide the torrents to keep on keeping on.
You can hit “take screenshot” but it results in a black frame iirc. Same for screen record.
I know Netflix has/had this if you video recorded. I thought I found a great way to download shows/movies until it was just a black screen.
I remember one (snapchat maybe?) that couldn’t block it so it just alerted the other person you took the screenshot. Maybe it’s changed in a decade.
I understand that for security compliance reasons. But beyond that, yupp. It sucks.
The security argument is a lie, I think. I think websites like Netflix like these features so it’s difficult to approach copying a video.
If security were an issue I don’t think you’d be able to copy text to the clipboard in situations where you can’t screenshot.
Microsoft teams limits your clipboard to 500 characters when you try to copy on the app. Of course blocks screenshots too. If I’m on a meeting that isn’t being recorded, I now have no way of saving any pertinent information, and the ones that ARE recorded get automatically deleted after 30 days. 🤷🏽♀️
In litigation, if one side destroys evidence beforehand, or goes to great lengths to deliberately not collect it, courts instruct juries to presume against the side that destroyed the evidence. Companies that think they’re being clever by using apps that auto-delete records aren’t as clever as they think they are. This Teams feature is obviously meant to make it difficult to assist in corporate malfeasance. Using Teams is now a liability risk to companies.
30 days is set by your company. Ours is set to 90 days. Stupid, on my opinion. If I recorded it, I obviously want to keep it. For this reason, I user OBS on my computer and record meetings through that. Bypass teams’s recording framework altogether.
OBS?
Open Broadcast Software
Open-Source screen recording and streaming software
Ah, ty.
Sorry. Open broadcaster software. While not really intended for this use case, it works great for it.
I can confirm, OBS Studio is perfect for recording Microsoft Teams sessions. Other parties are not aware of the recording unlike Teams built-on recording.
Probably works for every similar application as well.
Oh, it does lol. If it’s images on the screen and audio through the output, OBS can record it. It’s awesome!
That’s nothing. My workplace disabled copy/paste on everyone’s work iPhones completely. Not in their own apps but system wide. Apparently that’s something ios allows them to do. Doesn’t affect me much because I use the phone as a glorified dual auth token but some people have it as their primary phone.
work iPhones
some people have it as their primary phone.
Bruh, I have no idea how people can put up with their employer being able control their device. Like… the employer can freak out about some perceived “security breach” and decide to wipe everyone’s phone and you lose all your data like photos. Also, their employer can see if they are shit talking about the employer or mangement people, and it’s a terrible idea if they want to unionize.
As an IT guy that manages MDMs, no we cannot see communications on the device
As another guy that does, yeah we can push ediscovery apps to the phone and pull all kinds of data
Something I’ve been dying to ask an industry expert. If your users setup a second user profile on android , and exclusively uses the second profile for work-related apps (assume full control), can you see the contents of the first (unrelated) user profile?
My work phone battery lasts for like 5-6 days because I only have Slack, MFA app, and outlook on it. It’s crazy to use it for personal use
They are okay with it because it isn’t their phone. It’s a free phone that comes with the job.
“Free”
hmm I rather not… like its not just “privacy” you’d have to worry about, there can be potentially a rogue employee of the company just stealing all your bank info and possibly steal your identity. Might be a “free” phone, but there’s just much more risks than just getting a cheap android phone. People don’t think this though and only think about the “free”. Dealing with identity theft is not fun. If only people understand the risks… 🤦♂️
Don’t put personal stuff on your work phone. Use your own phone for that. If you have trouble carrying both, hit the gym.
Yea exactly. I would just carry 2 phones, but I’m just saying: I don’t understand how other people just use their work phone for personal use simply because it’s “free”
Yes it’s just a terrible idea. People do all sorts of dumb things though.
Obviously they are less concerned about things you are quite concerned about. I’m sure there are things that concern them and that you don’t give a shit about.
I have never heard of copying and pasting being disabled in iOS. I’m sorry, but this claim is dubious.
Yep it’s bullshit I hate it too.
I agree that it’s infuriating! I downloaded an LSPosed module called CaptureSposed that overrides it.
It shouldn’t take a specific module hack on a rooted phone with a custom OS with an unlocked bootloader to get this functionality back.
Drives me nuts too! Signal at least has a toggle for it, so the user can decide. I wish more apps would do the same, maybe with a pop up warning explaining the risks.
The only apps where this makes any sense are dating apps and similar social apps where a level of social vulnerability is more likely.
Otherwise agree that all others are BS.
Password manager. Bitwarden does this. Signal too but that falls into your social media category.
I hate the whole bloody smartphone ecosystem for shit like this. Microsoft Palladium was widely seen as a nightmare scenario a couple decades ago when it proposed ceding a bunch of user control to the OS and app developers a couple decades ago, even by the mainstream press. It seems Apple and Google used it as a roadmap, likely because people don’t know how to use computers, and that doesn’t seem to be improving.
The part of the modern mobile OS security model that does have merit is that apps aren’t trusted. The PC model, even in multiuser operating systems with fancy permissions was that apps are user agents which are always doing something the user asked for, and therefore trusted as much as the user. The glut of spyware for Windows in the early 2000s proved that false.
The fact that somebody else doesn’t know how to use a computer shouldn’t force me to cede control over mine to participate in the modern world. Root is a bit of an escape hatch, but it’s a blunt instrument on Android, and Google tries to help app developers stop me from using that as well. I’m starting to feel like Richard Stallman was right about everything and I should go be a digital hermit, only running software I compiled from source.
Wow that blog post is from 2013? I wouldn’t have guessed if not for the references to 3G.
I just read it myself, as a “mature age” student at University in 2024 I have often sarcastically asked some of the 18-21 cohort in the class if they need the old person to show them how to use a computer when they don’t even know that a “program” for a PC/Mac is just another word for “app” even the teachers look shocked when you hear most of the class nod in agreement about not knowing what software actually is and that it can be installed without an “App Store”.
I think the thing is most people just see computers and tech as just another appliance the same as a microwave and to know anything more than “turning it on and off again” is just seen as far too nerdy or a waste of time when they can get on the internet and read their influencers on social media or just watch YouTubers instead….
But they are the first to complain when “the internet doesn’t work!!”
That blog could have been written today!!
you can bypass this with a rootkit
i think they do it for security reasons. if you can take screenshots of sensitive data, so can malware. however, you should be able to disable it for netflix for example.
i think they do it for security reasons.
Yet, on iOS, the same app can’t. So it is more like, “ooh a button to twiddle, I’ll twiddle it!”
Netflix and other streaming apps do it to prevent screen recording their ‘premium’ content. These use DRM too and the region of protected content shows in black in scrcpy. These apps are much hostile to users much beyond screenshot and shouldn’t be used anyway. Most movies and shows can be pirated from torrent, illegal streaming sites or simply telegram in good quality and watched in say vlc for much better experience than these crappy apps provide.
I respect your opinion, but I see it differently.
Paying for entertainment and content like well-made animations makes sense to me. After all, paying for content is some kind of democratic participation, choosing what is produced. I didn’t mind pirating a lot when I was younger and didn’t have the money to pay for something anyways, but now i prefer to do things “the right way”.
I’ve no problem with paying the artists of the great contents I enjoy. I think they deserve the support and praise. What I (and we should IMO) hate is user subjugating behaviour the streaming apps and hollywood studios impose. I’d pay for the content and the bandwidth of the streaming/downloading service. Better yet, pay per download like netflix dvd days.
Digital restriction management has been proven ineffective for piracy. And piracy is the only way I get good quality content in accessible way. For example due to DRM netflix will not run on any of my devices above 720p no matter what I pay. There’s simply no way I can pay the artists directly AFAIK.
I don’t have much to add other than my agreement. They’ve been tightening the noose around our necks little by little for years now. But don’t worry, screenshots and copying and pasting text will return…as a microsubscription! /s
Android Premium! Get it nowow for only
$10$50/month.**Pricing subject to arbitary increases. 🤗
You can bypass this crap, but you’ll need to root your phone to achieve that.
Afterwards you’ll need to install magisk (superuser app) and a bunch of plugins: play integrity fix and playcurl_next (to simulate that your phone is unrooted), and then FlagSecurePatcher (which is the actual module that’s overriding the screenshot block.
Thank you, I needed this info for a friend
If you root your phone, you give root access to any malware you run across as well. So don’t use your phone for anything that you don’t want to end up on some darkweb forum.
Rooting doesn’t automatically give root permissions to just any app that wants it - you still have to allow it.
Rubbish, the superuser app will prompt you if an app asks for permissions, and you need to grant it manually. The warning message is distinctively different from regular popups, and there is a 5 second cooldown timer before you can click it, to make sure it’s not happening accidentally.
Yes, it’s simple, if you don’t want me to screenshot your software then don’t display it on my screen.
they don’t want malware to screenshot your banking info, but go off I guess
A better way to handle that would be for “taking screenshots when other apps have focus” to be a special permission that needs to be explicitly granted. Could even make it app specific (ie, “I allow app x to take screenshots or record the display/audio of apps y and z”).
Just like arbitrary apps shouldn’t have access to look at the clipboard or full file system whenever they want.
I can log into the account on a browser with no such restriction, so it’s not protecting much.
Good idea for a finance app (which could helpfully ask me for a confirmation) - but sloppy as a general justification for dictating what a user can or can’t do. (But go off I guess)
