How private is DroidFS?

[protozoandusk@lemm.ee]

Hi.

When considering the privacy credentials of an android app, I would usually search for reviews by well-known privacy advocates or recommendations from common privacy websites. However, with DroidFS I am unable to find much information and no recommendations from common sites. The little information I can find is that it is an efficient, easy-to-use implementation of gocryptfs and cryfs for android. This is what I am looking for but was wondering whether anyone had any further insight on the app from a privacy point of view please.

Thanks.

[idkwhatusernametoputherelolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I'm also curious, I'm not a programmer so I can't understand the code, so I hope some nerd on Lemmy can go and take a look at the code

(nerd is a complement btw)

[cipherd@lemmy.ml]

DroidFS does not have Internet permission so any data exfiltration is prevented at the OS level.

[protozoandusk@lemm.ee]

Thanks. I had noted the lack of internet permission as a positive. I guess that I was just puzzled at the lack of coverage within the community. Maybe the app simply hasn't been around long enough to attract the attention it seems to warrant. Or maybe I am being overcautious.

[ryannathans@aussie.zone]

Even competent programmers cannot look at an app in an afternoon and determine if it's safe, apart from the most glaringly obvious issues

[monkdervierte@lemmy.ml]

How private, meaning trackers and stuff? Here 's this](https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/de/reports/sushi.hardcore.droidfs/latest/). Btw, why does it need camera?

If you meant "how secure", that mainly depends on gocryptfs and cryfs.

[protozoandusk@lemm.ee]

Thanks for this. It is very helpful. To be honest, I had forgotten about Exodus.

I think it needs camera and microphone in case you want to take photos and video and save directly to an encryted volume. That is not in my use case so I will just deny those permissions.

[perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world]

DoidFS can use the camera to take photos and record video. It gets stored in the vault instead of your camera roll. This ensures that other apps never get access to the photo/video, even if they have "all-files access".

Several other apps does some version of this. If you have tried to export a photo from Signal to your camera roll, you have probably seen this before.

DroidFS does not ask for camera permission unless you try to use this feature. The app does not need the camera for anything else, so if you don't allow it to use the camera everything else still works.

[perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world]

As long as you don't mess around with the "Unsafe Features" in the settings it's very private.