Receiver Manager (Feature Request)

[cyrildtm]

Mornings in Sweden are always very cold and I'm not an early bird. Both statements are probably true.

Legacy version 1 had a "Receiver Manager" in App Control. For each app, I can see and turn off its "receivers" (for intent? Not sure about my technicality)
There are stupid apps to this day which scans for media files when a Bluetooth device is connected. I would like to help it by telling it not to.

I'm not sure if it is possible any more, since it's not fully working right now in version 1. The media app does not show a Bluetooth intent receiver.

I would like it if SD Maid could make me coffee in the morning. And, if that's beyond possible, i would be equally happy if it has the same feature in the new version.

I have considered making the coffee myself but both me and myself decided against it. Because the other me from yesterday already made a whole pot! In such spirit, it would otherwise be great if you could make a separate app, which i would be happy to pay for. Android in its 15+ years history has never been as smart as you are.

Everyone enjoys getting a hot beverage on a cold morning. Of course! But be mindful, I'm not everyone. I almost exclusively drink ice coffee. Nevertheless, it's an essential "cleanup" task to prevent apps from creating garbage and wasting your battery power in the first place. If users are well informed about the purpose, this feature will benefit all.

[cccc030]

Receiver Manager, Receiver Manager,... go, go , go

[d4rken]

My concern with this is that it does more harm than good.

99% of users don't understand what the receivers do. Receivers, including "ON_BOOT" receivers are not bad.
Almost everytime I talked to users who used this feature, they wanted to "disable all the autostart to save battery and improve performance", but that's not how it works. ON_BOOT is not "Windows autostart". Execution time is limited, and ON_BOOT is required for a lot of benign things, e.g. just to restore stuff after reboots.

See:
https://github.com/d4rken-org/sdmaid/wiki/AppControl#receiver-manager-autostart

[cyrildtm]

My concern with this is that it does more harm than good.

99% of users don't understand what the receivers do. Receivers, including "ON_BOOT" receivers are not bad. Almost everytime I talked to users who used this feature, they wanted to "disable all the autostart to save battery and improve performance", but that's not how it works. ON_BOOT is not "Windows autostart". Execution time is limited, and ON_BOOT is required for a lot of benign things, e.g. just to restore stuff after reboots.

See: https://github.com/d4rken-org/sdmaid/wiki/AppControl#receiver-manager-autostart

It's unfortunate how "startup tasks" get a bad name for slowing things down and draining battery. I don't know if it will be enough by including abundant warning messages to educate the user.
But not everything is as benign as an ON_BOOT receiver which just wants to resume previously disrupted task. They can time how long I have shut my phone off and figure something out of it. Or, Just see my example (it's so stupid).

To be honest, I don't care what those apps on my phone want to do. I only need the "real phone" aka mobile network radio to be ready at all times. I don't give a damn to a news app that wants to "ensure I receive the latest updates". Or a music app that "automatically rescans my entire device every time anything has happened".

Tell me all about the risks and potential damages to apps for which I decide to shut the receivers off. I want to read it. Educate me. I want to learn how Android works. If my actions break those stupid apps - which I still need occasionally - and which are designed to constantly dry up my precious battery juice and pull useless real-time notifications which only annoy me, so be it.

Anyway, this feature was available in the old version. Why stop offering?

[d4rken]

Anyway, this feature was available in the old version. Why stop offering?

Less "stop offering", more "not implemented because lower priority", because I saw how people use it in the old version, i.e. "going through everything and disabling everything without understanding". I also got loads of requests for a way to just select every receiver and disable it, which further confirms my suspicion that too many people just disable everything under the assumption that it is "good".

SDM1 also no longer highlights "autostart" in the app control list. It was a mistake on my part to do that as it suggested that it's something to be concerned about.

I have yet to see convincing cases where being able to do this, easily and often through an app like SD Maid was good for the user. Rare cases exist, and in those cases it's so rare that doing this through termux or another app may be the better choice.

There is also the misconception that disabling an app component activity/service/receiver is permanent, but unless the whole package is disabled, nothing prevents the app itself from enabling any of it's own components again.

[cyrildtm]

Perhaps I'm the 1% and I really need to set myself at peace knowing that a nasty app isn't doing unnecessary stuff behind my back. Like why do I need a bank app to run in the background? (I've turned off app notifications already so there's no need for them to spy on me.) But I still need it from time to time by launching the app so it's actually inconvenient for me to get rid of it.

I was worried about the same. If you make it too easy then everyone will just blindly turn everything off. But even a tiny amount of friction in the good intention will be perceived as an improvable area that can be fixed after enough user request.

I'm aware of the risk I'm taking because I've seen apps stopped working right after I screwed around and that was a long time ago, when I believe SD1 just came around (and I haven't known of it yet). It's so sad to see useful tools are going away over the years. I used to break my daily driver and bite the bullet knowing it was my own fault, for whatever I wanted to achieve. But now it's even worse, I can't do it anymore at all!

Running pm and combing through the text and typing lengthy commands is just too time consuming for me. Either lay in bed and use the touchscreen, or sit in front of a desktop pc for a long time to figure things out. It's the opposite extreme to most users who just want obliteration. And as you mentioned, after a while it will come back on and I need to do it all over again. Aside all respect to you, I have my own life. If I can't maintain my phone in 5 minutes in bed or in the bathroom, then I'm never gonna get a chance to do it.

After all, this is a request. You have your reason to choose not to do it, and I will take it. This for now is just a mild inconvenience to me. People waste good money on candy crush but I don't see the reason why I'm not spending more on essential tools like this if you allow it.

[jay-ramani]

My concern with this is that it does more harm than good.

99% of users don't understand what the receivers do. Receivers, including "ON_BOOT" receivers are not bad. Almost everytime I talked to users who used this feature, they wanted to "disable all the autostart to save battery and improve performance", but that's not how it works. ON_BOOT is not "Windows autostart". Execution time is limited, and ON_BOOT is required for a lot of benign things, e.g. just to restore stuff after reboots.

See: https://github.com/d4rken-org/sdmaid/wiki/AppControl#receiver-manager-autostart

If users know how to use it, why not implement? At the very least, provide it with enabling an option. Until I was on Android 12, I used to have tight control over apps with SDMaid 1; it even worked on Android 13, albeit with a warning. This is a much wanted feature missing for users like me, who know what they are doing with the phone.

I just paid for the SE edition (was a paid customer with version 1 as well) to support you, and really hope it makes it way in.

Thanks and cheers.

[jay-ramani]

@d4rken, would you please consider this covered under an option (say buried under the About window or where ever)? At the very least, provide it for your paying customers.