How can I look up words in an eBook reader with Google Translate? Is there way  to look up words and phrases while reading an eBook in the Google Translate app? Moon reader can do that in a browser, but the translate app is much better.

Here is what I ended up doing:

Install Aldiko reader
Install Andmade Share
Hide all share apps except Google Translate using Andmade
Select a phrase in Aldiko
Tap on the share button

Now the translation of the phrase will appear directly in the Google Translate app.

There are some ebook reader apps with can enable you to share book passages. And you can use Google Translate to share them... So select the passage and share it using Google Translate ! For example, the Kobo app for Android and Aldiko (free or €2.49) are ebook readers which enable to share book passages. Google Play Books have a built in feature to translate passages too (it must use Google Translate).

Obviously, you can also copy the passages by hand, open the Google Translate app and use it to translate what you have just copied. It is not quite smart or ergonomic but it works.


How to get full root on a Samsung S-3 I have a Samsung S-3 which was updated OTA to Android 4.3. Trying to get root, I downloaded saferoot (source) from xda.

The exploit works, the process gets root permissions (remounting partitions, read/write system directory, and I was able to add setuid bit to a su executable).

From there, I disabled all KNOX related processes. However, the "system" function doesn't work (permission denied) and neither do any "setuid" executables in /system/xbin.

I suspect it's because SELinux.

Did anyone experience these problems, and what did they do to solve them?

VZW OTA, right? Well, as per the XDA page in question, I'm supposed to taunt you for not reading the red large writing, but the page says clearly, twice, that 'using this WILL NOT set the "Knox Warranty Void" flag.' It sets the "custom" flag; don't worry about that now. Later on,

  Resetting the "Custom" and open padlock indication during boot can be worked around using the Xposed Framwork and Wanam Xposed. Get those two from the Play Store. In Wanam, tick "Security Hacks", "Fake System Status".

So you're not unlocking that phone any further than it already is; and you're not installing a custom recovery. You can install Safestrap recovery (unless you have encryption enabled; SS will bootloop if encryption is enabled). SS is a modified TWRP for your rooted-but-unlocked S3; that's the only recovery we OTA Jellybean users have got right now.

Note: you can only use ROMs based on 4.3 modified for a rooted but locked SGS3 (there are a few). Any ROM you install with SS is going to sit on top of the stock ROM that we can't (yet) get access to, and all of that goes in internal memory, so keep ROM size in mind when shopping ROMs.

Last thing: before Safestrap, if you want wifi, you need to flash the kernel modules. All that info is in the SS thread which I highly suggest reading. (I can only post 2 links since I'm new here; I chose carefully, but please read the SS page.)


How To Fix: Data Recovery from Broken Screen without USB Debugging I have the OnePlus Two phone whose screen was broken a while ago and i want to back up some of my pictures and videos which were stacked in its internal memory. Please note the below points for better understanding:

Screen can show content but the touch is not responsive.
I don't have an OTG Type C connector.
USB Debugging was not active before phone was damaged.
Need some software which can help me project my phone screen on laptop/pc so that i can draw patterns or do stuff like transferring of data to Google Drive etc. in short i can access phone over PC.

Please advise me suitably over the above as I need to get out of this quick.

Thanks in advance :)

Even if you did not activate adb it may be active when the recovery is booted. (At least for recent versions of TWRP it is.)

Depending on what you want to do this may be enough. If it is not you could try enabling the OS's adb from recovery adb (see here for an example of the relevant configuration files). After this is done adbcontrol is can be used to remote control your phone using a computer and adb. If you use an unlock pattern that includes a polygon of swipes this will not help (a pin would be fine).

In this case you would have to reset the unlock code, but I messed up something on my phone which may have happened while doing this, so I am not comfortable giving you advice on how to do it. In any case make backups (e.g. via adb pull) even of you configuration files before doing any modifications.


Is there any Android 2.2 updrate available for Samsung Galaxy S? Possible Duplicate:
  When will my phone get the Android 2.2 update (FroYo)?

if yes, how to upgrade it with out going service center.

What model do you have?  There are a billion (hyperbole) Galaxy S models.  There is a 2.2 update for the US Captivate, for the international i9000, and for others.

You can get the update OTA (over the air) if you have stock (unaltered) 2.1, a notification will show on your phone (on most carriers).  You can also download it through Samsung Kies (see my answer here).  Finally, you can find an upload of it and flash it to your phone through a Windows tool called Odin.

You can also use ROM Manager to flash a custom ROM, which will get you 2.2 early if it hasn't been officially released yet.  Search XDA if you want one of those ROMs.


Do widgets run if not on current home screen? I have the EA daily deals widget installed on my second home screen. The widget is basically a rotating banner of deals in the Play store. Since it is constantly rotating the displayed banner I assume that it is draining more battery than a static widget (it also doesn't have any options for rotation or network updates).

My question is, are widgets suspended when they are not being displayed i.e. when I am on the first or third home screen? Or, does it depend on the implementation?

*Using the stock launcher on Android 4.2.

Short answer

Widgets don't actually "run" themselves, like normal apps do. The widget host (i.e. the home screen app, or the lock screen) is in charge of drawing all the widgets. The widget provider (part of the app) tells the host what layout to give each widget, and how often it wants the widget to update. There's nothing running to "suspend", regardless of whether the widget is visible or not.

Resource cost

While the widget doesn't "run", it still has to be shown on the screen. Every widget therefore makes the host process (i.e. the launcher) a little more expensive in CPU usage and memory. Every time the widget is redrawn (whenever it changes, or whenever the home screen animates), it makes that redraw use a few more CPU cycles. Also, once the provider has told the host what layout to use, the host has to use RAM to remember the widget's layout. Because it's the host storing that information and drawing the widget, it counts towards the host's battery use and memory footprint, not the app's. How much cost it is depends on the host (that is, which launcher you use), as well as on how complex the layout is.

For this reason, Android puts strict limits on the complexity of each widget's layout, as well as the total size of all images used in the widget. The limit depends on the pixel size of the screen, so on a nexus-10 it's huge. If you have lots of widgets, all using large images or complex layouts, the launcher process can take up quite a lot of memory, so it's more likely to be killed while you're running an app in the foreground. The effect of this would be to cause a short delay when going to the home screen.

Services

Of course, it's also possible for a background service to keep giving the host (home screen) a new layout for the widget. This is how (say) an email widget can be updated when you have new emails. Such a service would run whether the widget is currently displayed or not: there's no way for the service to tell.

For example, if you have an email widget, the normal email service should run at intervals to check mail, and update the widget during the course of its normal run if there's any new mail. In this case, the only cost of the widget is the small cost inside the host, because the service would be running anyway to sync your mail in the background.

Having a rotating list (such as in your example) shouldn't in itself make you think there's a service always running in the background, for this reason:

Lists and rotating banners

The interface that widget providers use to specify what the layout should be allows them to give a list of items. For example, this might be a list of email messages, or a list of calendar appointments, that you can scroll through. The provider can also have the home screen rotate through the list automatically. The YouTube widget uses this, for example, so that the widget can keep showing new videos without the provider having to keep changing the layout. If your widget uses this facility, then the home screen only runs any extra code when it's time to rotate the list.

Which cost is important?

The resource cost of a normal widget (that is, one that doesn't have an insanely complicated layout and doesn't use huge bitmaps) is tiny compared to the cost of a background service to update it with new information. To take your EA daily deals example, you don't need to worry about the widget rotating, but rather how the daily deals are updated. Does the service run all of the time, or every few minutes; or does it actually run once a day to fetch the new deals? Does it stop itself if there's no internet connection? Will it wake the device from sleep to do an update? These are all things the app author had to program, and that users can't control (and don't need to know about directly), but they have a much bigger effect on the widget's cost than anything the launcher does.

TL;DR

Drawing widgets, even rotating widgets, is cheap: too cheap to measure the cost. The real cost is whatever app runs in the background to update the widget with new data. How often that app runs depends on the app, and doesn't depend on whether the widget is displayed at any given time.


Which consumes less battery: Wi-Fi or 2G data? I just want to know what consumes less battery Wi-Fi or 2G Data.

My battery last long for 12- 16 hours only. I know there are lots of application which continually running and fetching data from internet.

I have both options available, in my office i have Wi-Fi and i also has 2G plan in my sim account, both give me desire speed.

I already posted this in another answer. As it where different details that time (more a general "what consumes most"), here some details from a reference Motorola Droid. Data taken from a German article named Energiesparplan (Heise is a very famous technology publisher in Germany; Google Translate Version here):

┌────────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────────┐
|  Standard  |  Upload  |  Download  | Standby  |
├────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
|  3G        |  1410 mW |   1349 mW  | 18,3 mW  |
├────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
|  2G        |  1179 mW |    853 mW  | 11,6 mW  |
├────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
|  Wifi      |   479 mW |   1158 mW  |  7,8 mW  |
└────────────┴──────────┴────────────┴──────────┘

Guess this definitly answers the question. Though the values may vary between devices, relations should roughly match.


Samsung Galaxy Nexus Charger - USB? Does the Samsung Galaxy Nexus charger use a USB charger? If so, what kind?

Your question is bit unclear to me. Still I am trying to answer.

Almost all the Android phones these days (including Galaxy Nexus - GNex) have a micro-USB charging and data-syncing port. So they can be connected to your computer using a micro-USB to standard USB cable. Like most other phones, GNex also comes with a micro-USB to standard USB cable and a wall charger. You can use wall power or your computer to charge your phone.

And if you want to see exactly what charger comes with the GNex, checkout any of the tonnes of unboxing videos avaliable on YouTube!


Analyse performance / profile Android System? Why is the system slow? My Android 4.2.1 tablet is slow, it wasn’t when purchased. As the reason is often the software, I was looking for a tool to analyse the performance of the whole system, but couldn’t find any.

What I tried:

CPU usage monitoring: Only current or accumulated CPU usage
An app that alerts when any app uses more CPU than a specified threshold: This only alerted quite seldomly, so there doesn’t seem to be an app that uses so much CPU itself

To find out the reason of the slowness, I would like to get an overall view of the system’s performance, showing how much time was spent with which activity. This may include CPU usage, but may also include I/O performance or how long processed waited for I/O etc. For example, Firefox offers a profiler.

Or is this not really possible because of Android’s design?
Are there other utilities that might help?

Another point is that Android doesn’t support TRIM until 4.3. Could the usage of nearly two years with many installations and some system resets have caused the flash memory to get so slow that the poor I/O performance now slows down the whole device?

To the manufacturer’s support, I wrote the following problem description:

  Opening of apps takes longer, sometimes everything stands still for
  some seconds. After the last firmware/Android upgrade (a year ago) I
  even reinstalled the system. However, after some time, it got slow
  again.

Only after this vague and undetailed description, the reply said that the reason would most probably be a hardware defect and that I should send the device in to be repaired.

How should I continue my analysis? Is the support’s assessment reasonable?

Update

Recently, a new app was added to the PlayStore concerning exactly one of my desired analysis:

CPU Monitor (non-free, restricted demo)

If you truly want to dive into the slowness issues of your Android device you can use the Android SDK and developer tools to analyze what the device is doing exactly, but that's not for the average Android user.
Something I found out just recently is that the Battery Optimization functionality on my Nexus 5X was really slowing the system down to the point of becoming unusable.
I manually disabled this feature for each and every App and OS element and that made a huge  difference.
And I haven't experienced any obvious battery drainage since.
If you want to try this, the steps are described here


Does switching user accounts in Lollipop affect battery life or performance? I recently updated my Moto G2 to Android
Lollipop via OTA update. I've successfully
installed the update(around 500mb i
guess). I saw the new feature of adding
new Guest and New user acccounts just
like the one in PC's so that one user
doesn't get access to other user apps or
data.

So, say if I have some 10 apps running in
my owner account and it drains battery
while running in background. But then if I
wanted to switch to a guest account to
lend my phone to a friend or some
stranger, I cannot see any apps running in
the guest account in the recent apps
section that was open in the owner
account. So my question is,

Will those 10 apps that are opened and still
running in the background in my owner
account drain my battery while the phone is
in Guest mode?

or only the app that runs under my guest
account will have an effect on my phone's
battery usage.

From what I can tell, the multiuser feature DOES drain quite a lot of battery. Here is a screenshot of my battery stats - I have not logged in as the other user since my last full charge.

Click image for larger version


What does the /data/system folder store and its significance? I know that /data partition contains user-generated data (/data/app - user apps, /data/data - app data, etc).

But what is the /data/system folder used for, and does it have any significance in the boot procedure (e.g. - boot scripts, etc)?

A sub-folder-wise explanation would be preferred.

data/system folder contains system configuration files critical to maintaining device's state. Access to the directory is restricted by the system apps only, so if the device is not rooted the folder content can't be seen.

Below is the list of files residing in the directory with a brief description. Note that the list is not completely full and also may vary depending on the OS version.

appops.xml - a configuration file used by the AppOps service which controls application permissions;
called_pre_boots.dat - a file used by ActivityManager to hold pre-boot broadcast receivers;
batterystats.bin - a binary used by the BatteryStats service to keeps power statistics of application installed;
gesture.key - lockscreen pattern;
inputmethod/ - a directory used to store IME configuration. Contains subtypes.xml with IME locales, keyboard layout sets etc;
locksettings.db - a SQLite database containing the lock screen settings;
netpolicy.xml - a configuration file used by the NetworkPolicyManagerService;
netstats/ - a directory used to hold NetworkStatsService statistics;
packages.list - a file used by the PackageManager service containing the list of all packages (apks) installed in the system (same as executing pm list packages within shell);
packages.xml - a file used by the PackageManager service to hold metadata of all installed packages, like UIDs, requested permissions etc;
profiles.xml - a configuration file to keep metadata of device profiles including sound mode, airplane mode, vibration etc.;
password.key - password hash;
usagestats/ - a directory used to store files for the UsageStats service. Contains usage-history.xml that holds info on all apps and its components with the last time a user used them;
users/ - a directory used for multi-user support. Contains userlist.xml which keeps info on all users in the system (0 - is a device owner/primary user); e.g. a sub-directory users/0/ holds info on the user account (accounts.db), widgets (appwidgets.xml), wallpaper (wallpaper_info.xml) etc.


google voice number and google hangouts and being overseas when I lived in the US, I had a AT&T cell plus a google voice number.
Now I moved to Istanbul & stopped the AT&T line.

My android & my iPhone ( which I had activated while in the US ) still continue to work in Istanbul with that old google voice. Which means, I can place calls to US and receive calls from US ( just like I was in the States ) using that old google voice number.

Now my question is the following:

I'm going to be getting the new note 7 by purchasing it here in Istanbul. Will I be able to use the hangouts apps & my existing google voice number on the new phone?

OR WILL IT TELL ME SOMETHING LIKE, I need an active US number, and that they will send me a verification code to that US number? If so, I'm out of luck.

The bottom line is I'd like to get a new phone in Istanbul and continue to use the google voice & hangout apps as I'm doing now. Is it possible?

Merhaba! I live in Istanbul as well, and use my pre-existing Hangouts/Voice number just fine, on a phone I bought here in Turkey. I just logged into my Google account on my new phone, and everything worked. You should be just fine!

Your Voice account is tied only to your Google account, not any US number. I've completely deleted any US number from my account, and there was no issue whatsoever.

You won't be able to automatically forward Google Voice calls to your Turkish number, but you will receive & make calls & texts via the app (over your 3g/wifi connection).

saygılar
~peter


Super old email contacts suddenly appears in my phone contacts When I woke up this morning I suddenly had 6 new contacts added to my contact book on my phone. All of them were emails, some of them I recognize from WAY back but I sure haven't had contact with them in a LONG time. I guess they were added in some kind of sync activity, but I'm pretty sure none of these addresses that were added, is featured in any of the accounts I'm currently using (gmail, yahoo) etc. I had contact with these people way before this
Why did this happen?
Is there any way to find out where a specific contact were synced from?

SO, it turns out these contacts were infact imported from a google account I actually deleted about a week ago (20 days for it to get permanently deleted). I looked into my sync settings on my phone and saw how this old gmail adress were still there with sync activated. I had to re-create the google account, and logon to find these contacts in there.
So apparently my phone suddenly decided to add 6 contacts from a deleted google account. This google account had actually a HUGE contact list synced from WAY back on my old phones and accounts. Now all deleted though


How to run an app shortcut or a tasker task when battery temperature is above a custom threshold? At high temperature:

I can trigger an alaram  using Battery Bot.
Turn off data/wifi/bluetooth etc., using Battery Tasker.

But I want to do many things like:

Turn off data when temperature is above 40.
Turn on it when battery temperature drops to 30, only if it was turned off due to temperature (other wise do nothing ) and the data plan is not expired.

Question

I would like to achieve aforementioned tasks using Automate (Tasker like app supports tasker plugins).

Is there any app that monitors battery temperature and runs an app shortcut (and thus a Tasker/Automate task)? (What about launching an app, creating a file?)

In other words, I need an alternative for Tasker plugin(paid) Battery Temperature Detection.

Note:

My phone doesn't support CPU temperature, and neither Tasker nor Automate supports battery temperature.

OS: ICS , Non Rooted.

Use the "Broadcast receive" block with "Battery changed" action, the broadcast "extras" will include a "temperature" entry:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/BatteryManager.html#EXTRA_TEMPERATURE

Here's an example flow for getting the battery temperature:
http://llamalab.com/automate/community/flows/655


mdnsd drains a lot of battery power in Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. How do I find out which app calls it to run? I have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G, and for few days my battery drains as hell. I checked the running processes, and found that the cause is mdnsd.

Is there a way to find which app calls this process to run?

(Click image to enlarge)

Not permament solution, but so far the best solution.

On rooted phone :

use ES File Explorer (or any File Explorer with Root access)
go to device/system/bin
select the mdnsd file
open properties
open permissions
uncheck the execute permissions


Why does Android OS need custom ROMs for OS upgrades? I have a discontinued LG L5 E455 Android phone that came with Android 4.1.2 OS.

I am forced to upgrade the OS because most of the apps I need to install are not compatible with this version of OS, according to Google Play.

I tried to upgrade the OS through the update option in the Android interface, it did some magic but the Android version is still the same.

I could not find any LineageOS ROM that was created for this phone.

Is it only possible to upgrade the Android OS by a custom ROM? If so, why?
Is it possible to install the official Google versions?
Why does it not work like in Linux distributions that can be installed on almost any PC?

Your phone is from 2013 - quite old to be expecting software updates. Hence it's quite unlikely that you would get a major Android version update from LG (maybe security updates if you're lucky). Custom ROMs are maintained by their respective devs giving a bit of extra life for your device.

As for the third question, the answer here is very compehensive - Bootloader/BIOS, flashing ROM and correlated risks. Why Android devices are more brickable than PCs?


Battery draining fast because of Android System I'm on a HTC Droid DNA with 4.4.2, not rooted. My battery is going down really fast. When I look in power settings it shows that the main offender is Android System with 92% of power usage. I know that android system is a collection of apps, so how do I figure out which ones are doing this?

It's only been bad like this for the last few weeks. Before that I usually had no problem making it through the day.

I'm hoping there is a way to find the culprit without having to guess.
Since it may be more than one sub system at fault, and since there isn't an easy way to determine battery usage outside of controlled conditions, I don't want to have to shut off a system, wait a day to see if it seems like things have gotten better, and then move on to the next one, hoping to divine the correct sequence by chance, while taking normal usage into account.

I'd try Better Battery Stats, but I don't think it will work right since I'm not rooted.

mine had the same problem too. just turn off any connections. turn on airplane mode, disable location services, wifi, bluetooth, all kind of those. Reset your phone and let it be idle for a couple minutes and things should get back to normal.


My launcher got deleted. I can't turn debugging on neither can I turn on the bluetooth. What to do? I am using Lenovo A7000. I was facing some problems related to the touch in my phone, so I did a factory reset without backing up the data. But because of this my only launcher also got deleted. I cant access the notification bar as nothing is happening if I pull it down. I can't even turn the USB debugging on. Is there a way to fix this ?

Hope your device is connected to your google account. if so you can install you can install third-party launcher from play store from any system you have access to. just login on web using same google account and it will display your device when you try to install an app from play store. you may additionally like to install something like quick setting.


Android Factory Reset: My phone shows weird options when I enter recovery mode, and no button selects anything I checked different tutorials to factory-reset my phone, and this one applies to my phone's model. I had once factory reset this phone successfully, but I have forgotten what had worked for me..

I powered my phone off.
I pressed Volume-Up + Volume-Down + Power buttons together, and the screen showed me two options: Recovery Mode and Factory Mode.

First I tried to enter the Factory Mode by pressing the Volume-Down button, that showed me these options:

At this point the Volume-Up and Volume-Down were navigating between the options and the power button was doing nothing. Their combinations also did not work.

So I pulled the phone's battery out, and did the entire thing again, but this time, I entered the Recovery Mode. But to my surprise I was given the following:

Select Boot Mode:
[VOLUME_UP to select. VOLUME_DOWN is OK.]

[Recovery    Mode]
[Fastboot    Mode]    <<==
[Normal      Mode]

BUT at this point none among the volume buttons or the power button are doing anything.
What should I do?

If you want to factory reset your phone, just go to Settings->Backup and Reset->Factory Reset. You will be asked to confirm. Now, your phone will reboot and wipe data (do a factory reset).

I will assume that your volume buttons work correctly otherwise. If this is a repeated issue, it might be a faulty bootloader in this regard. If you have to reboot to recovery, you can use adb reboot recovery from the terminal with your phone connected in USB debugging mode to your computer. It should succeed, unless you have a corrupted recovery. In that case, you should take your device to a service center.


Can I add external devices to an Android device? Can we add external devices to an Android device? For example, can I add a CD player or a power antenna (to detect wireless from long distances) to my Android device? Des Android let us to create our own drivers for our devices?

Most Android devices aren't set up for peripherals; it would take quite a bit of hacking away to get them to recognize them.  That being said, since Android is Linux based it's entirely possible that Linux drivers might work for your device out of the box.  I'd rate the chances of such as being very low, however.

Writing your own drivers is certainly possible, but again you'd also need the internal framework in place for the kernel, etc to accommodate peripherals.  And reverse engineering drivers is NOT easy!

As for your Windows CE device, it's very rare for an other OS to be ported for a device (an exception to the rule: the HP touchpad).  There's all kinds of major issues with reverse engineering from hardware specs, etc that generally keep that from happening.  XDA Developers would be your best bet for something like that if it exists at all.


SuperSU Errors when rooting Galaxy S3 I recently managed to root my Samsung Galaxy S3 by following this previous answer.

However when running the SuperSU app that was automatically loaded after rooting, I get the message:

  The su binary needs to be updated. continue?

Then when I click OK, it gives the error:

  Installation failed!

I wondered if the version of the SuperSU app installed by the rooting software on my PC was old, so I did this:

Opened SuperSU app
Went to Settings > Reinstall [cleanup for reinstallation from Google Play]
Went to Google Play, then  installed this version of the SuperSU app.
But running the new version then gave the same error message.

I'm not sure step 2 worked because it says: "If cleanup succeeds, this app will close automatically in a few seconds. Afterwards, please reinstall SuperSU from Google Play. Are you sure you want to continue?" But then it never closes.

I know the phone had root because I downloaded a root testing app and it confirmed it.

What am I doing wrong?

I tried a number of links (like this one) and couldn't find anything else that made sense to me. Please could someone suggest what I should be doing?

Thanks

It turns out I simply had to download a more up-to-date file (which included the Odin executable which runs on the PC, and the .tar that it uploads to the phone) from here, using the table to look up the appropriate file for my device.

For my Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-i9300) The file was CF-Auto-Root-m0-m0xx-gti9300.zip available from here.


Restricting data usage monitoring to certain days My data plan includes unlimited data during the weekend (so any data usage during the weekend is not taken off the 50Go afforded by the plan), and I would like to monitor my data usage taking this into account.

I could not find any setting/application that allows to restrict the monitoring to certain days, did I miss one?

Glass Wire Data Monitor let's you customize your monitoring period. But it has to be done manually every week

(Click to enlarge)


How to fix a consistently freezing app download? On my new Motorola X, I am downloading an app (Amazon's Kindle app) from the Google Play store and it is consistently getting to 91% downloading and then freezing there.

I can cancel the download and try it again, but it always stops at 91%.

Is there a way to reset the download so it truly starts from scratch? Or is there something else I should try?

Ok this happens to me all the time I just go to app settings and then go to google play and them force stop and there it works


Slideshow wallpaper using files in hidden folder I've got some nice photos in one folder and their specially cropped versions in another hidden folder (the name starts with a dot).

How can I use the cropped photos from the hidden folder for a wallpaper slideshow? No matter what app I try to use, it doesn't allow me to use the hidden photos. I don't want to make them visible; I don't want duplicated photos in my gallery app.

Is there any way / app that would allow me to use the hidden photos for a wallpaper slideshow without having to make them visible in my gallery app?

Android treats filenames that start with a dot as hidden. So, there's no way for any app to show them. However, you can still see them on a file explorer that can see hidden files (may need root access).


Google Reader Not Available in International Market I was excited when they announced the official Google Reader app but I can't get it on the market.

I am using my Android Device from Kenya, Africa and would want to know whether being in this region affect availability of apps on the market and if so, how to work around it.

I tried searching on the market as pub:"Google Inc." and this did not help

you can download it from here then copy the apk file on your handset and install it from there.

but I would still recommend Newsrob as a better reader even than the official google reader application


Is there any method through which I can make the YouTube app use https connections instead of http? Well the question describes the problem.

I know that the YouTube app is not using secure connections, and I want to force the YouTube app to use secure connections. Can this be done?

on your phone. You can install firefox if you not already have it. Then open firefox and install this extension named https everywhere. it forces every site to load in https if it has https capability. It includes youtube in its list, so it may solve your problem for using youtube in https mode on your android.


Huawei Ascend Y530 will not boot I have a huge problem with my Huawei Y530 cell phone.

Today I received a phone call, but instead of actually ringing, it just vibrated once, and an error message popped up saying something along the lines of "the com. android. phone process has stopped".

No matter how many times I tapped on the OK, it wouldn't go away.

I naturally held the Power on/off button to reset it, but to no avail.

Since that moment, it's been stuck on the logo.
I tried to do a factory reset, but I am afraid it didn't do much.
It was stuck on a generic "android" logo for over 10 minutes.
Tried again removing the battery, doing the Power on/off and Volume up to get the system menu and reboot, but nothing.

It charges normally when I plug it in, if it means anything.

I tried the factory reset through the Power on/off and Volume up many times, and now it is stuck on the generic Android logo (just the word android, no robot anywhere).

I know it's an old phone, but I don't have money for a new one, so I am hoping that there maybe is something to be done so it can work.

Many thanks in advance to all who read and comment!!!

You may need to do a full factory reset.
This guide is a combination of the Recovery boot guide here, hardset.info/.../recovery-mode/

After booting recovery,

Navigate to Wipe Data/Factory Reset
Select it ....
Reboot device
Wait 20 minutes maximum

If the device still hasn't booted
You have a bricked device, you need to look up how to unbrick a huawei y530...

The usual process is...
Install Stock Firmware
Install Custom Firmware 'I prefer Cyanogen Mod'

...

Unlock bootloader
Flash Custom Recovery
Boot Custom Recovery
Flash ROM - Stock or Custom  ( with Recovery )
Wipe Data/Cache/Dalvik Cache & Reboot

All if not most methods will wipe everything on your Data partition, therefore the emulated internal SD Card ... So make sure everything is backed up... However you've already tried a factory reset " I imagine you used the option in settings, not this method "

The recovery program is far more successful at doing a factory reset, I never use the option settings as it always fails.


Android as HTML5 kiosk/appliance What's involved in transforming a rooted Android device (in my case, a Nook Touch) into a real HTML5 kiosk?

Meaning: The user never sees any part of the Android OS GUI elements; the screen is always just a full-screen browser window located at an HTML5 app.  When the device has to go to sleep, it doesn't change what's displayed on the screen, and when it's woken up the user is right back in the HTML5 app.

You can do that with the Nook, first thing is to get access to the Nook SDK, (not just android here):

https://nookdeveloper.barnesandnoble.com/

Next, you'll want to disable the home button, Stack Overflow has a good thread on this:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2162182/android-is-it-possible-to-disable-the-click-of-home-button

Lastly when setting up your Nook-esk Kiosk be sure to set it up in a way to keep it plugged in.  Kiosks should always be powered, and a full battery drain will reboot the whole OS.


Streaming video to Android Does Android natively support any type of streaming video similar to m3u8 on iPhone? Looking for a solution that handles HTTP Streaming or Progressive download with an option to deliver multiple quality of streams and change between the different quality levels while playback. Thanks.

Android supports the RTSP protocol (I believe using VideoView), I'm not sure if this has everything you're looking for.


Recovering lost or stolen phone using IMEI I have lost my android phone please help me find its location. I have tried to recover it but all in vain.

What can I do to recover it back using
IMEI ?

Call your provider.  They have support teams whose entire purpose is to find lost phones.


google play services crashing on login attempt I have a Moto E gen1 and android 5.1 installed on it.
After factory reset , google play services crashes every time, whenever i try to login to my account. Apart from this login problem everything is working smoothly.

Maybe just try to go in developers mode
Google service, google+, app store etc stopped working

I tried all the recommendation to clear cache, etc etc and after the factory reset still getting the error. What finally worked for me is going to Developers mode (easy to do, search how to for you phone in google).

I bet some developer tested something and push his code to PROD without testing real user mode. Once I did, the error magically disappeared.


How to lock some parts of Settings? My android device is rooted.

Like other android devices, there are many sections in Settings Menu like

Wireless & Networks
Device
Personal
Accounts
Systems

And in all above sections, there are sub-sections also like following..

In Wireless & Networks; there are SIM Management, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Data Usage and More settings …

I would like to lock some sections and some sub-sections of Setting Menu.

Is it possible to lock Setting Menu in section-wise or subsection-wise?

Please let me know, how to do it?

Regards

GNS

I don't think you can lock sections of settings, but you can lock whole settings with app like "App locker" and others like that


How to connect both a monitor and a keyboard to a LG G3? Using USB-on-the-go I can connect a keyboard to an LG G3 and using a slimport adapter I should be able to connect a monitor. Is there a way to connect both at the same time? Or even better, connect both and be capable of charging them somehow.

Use your slimport to charge and HDMI and get a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, that is the optimal configuration. The only dumb thing LG didn't predicted is to turn off the phone display when you are using an external.


Why does my Nexus 5 keep forgetting all wifi passwords after a reboot? A month ago I got a Nexus 5. It's running Android 4.4.2 (kernel:3.4.0-gadb2201). I noticed after using it for a while that it constantly keeps forgetting all saved wifi passwords after a restart. In the beginning I thought it might have something to do with my router, but the device also forgot the password of my university's wifi network, so that can't be the problem. Before obtaining this device, I had a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.3 which never had this issue. That's why I have a feeling the issue is specific to Android 4.4.2.

Google was my first stop to try to find a solution, but it seems that I'm one of a few people facing this problem generally, and none has it with their Nexus 5. It's not a major issue because I can mitigate it by not restarting my device, but rather an annoying tiny inconvenience I'd like to have fixed.

Does anyone have an idea why this is happening? Is there a solution for it?

I have a Note 3 with Android 4.4.2 and I had the same issue. After disabling Google backup, everything is fine now. I couldn't retrieve my old backed up wifi networks, though.


Hidden fastboot mode or no fastboot at all? So here is my problem: I cant get in to fastboot mode on my lg k8 us375 android m 6.0.

Here is what I'm doing:

adb and fastboot are installed on pc (windows)
I have developer options and OEM bootloader unlock enabled
In terminal adb devices shows my phone
I enter adb reboot-bootloader but it does not say "fastboot mode" on screen like I have read it is supposed to. It just restarts my phone.
( note I have tried variations like reboot_bootloader; same result )

So my question is am I doing it wrong or is fastboot not on this phone. Or is it hidden somehow?

To go in Fastboot mode:
- Switch off the phone
- Hold Volume down button
- While holding down the button, connect the USB cable to the phone (assuming the cable is already connected to the computer)
The phone should go in the Fastboot mode.
In the command prompt, tape fastboot devices , you should see xxxxxxxxxxx device as feedback.
Drivers must be installed as well.
Hope this will help.


Incoming call screen is not displaying on Moto G 2nd gen I have Moto G 2nd gen. I can't see incoming call display screen on phone. Before 1 day, the phone used to work properly. How to fix it?

Go to Settings -> Apps -> All -> menu and choose "Reset app preferences".


Can we connect a normal earphone / headphone to a Android device? Can we connect a normal earphone / headphone (those that we connect to the Desktop PC) to the Android phone or devices?

This is because I notice that the one on the left (the original one that come with the phone) have 4 connector but the one we use on Desktop PC have 3 connector.

Was wondering if it will short-circuit and damage the phone or the port itself.

The typical audio only jack has 3 rings, usually call Tip, Ring, Sleeve (TRS). These typically map to Left, Right, and Ground. Phone manufactures wanted to make this jack work with existing headphone so they used a connector with 4 rings, called Tip, Ring, Ring, Sleeve (TRRS). These map to Left, Right, and Ground just like the 3 ring, but the final connector maps to a microphone. This makes it so that if you plug an audio only cable into it, the microphone input gets connected to ground so nothing is hurt. It also means that if a headset with microphone is connected to an audio only device, the microphone is connected to ground, also hurting nothing.

Sources:

What protocol does a headphone jack use?
Leads Direct: Jack Plugs & Sockets


Clean flash without SDCard So, I want to flash a new rom with gapps.
I've done this before, but I always did a factory reset and flashed the new rom which was in the downloads folder in my phone.
I was wondering, if I wipe my data and system via twrp, will my internal partition be wiped? Because if it does, I have nothing to flash cause that's where my rom is stored.
I have the Samsung Galaxy Nexus which doesn't have a sdcard, so that's not an option.

Thanks in advance.

You don't have to worry if your internal storage gets wiped.

There is another way called "ADB Sideload" which allows you to push and install a zip from your computer using CMD (Windows) or Terminal (Linux)

Steps to use ADB Sideload

  Have a recovery installed on your device that supports ADB sideload like TWRP 2.3 or higher. The stock recovery on JellyBean and later maybe have it.
  Have newer ADB binaries installed on your computer
  Set the device into ADB sideload mode. In TWRP you do this by going to Advanced then ADB Sideload.
  From the command prompt (CMD), type adb sideload /path/to/rom.zip

Reference


View disk utilization / activity Is there a way in android to view the disk usages of apps as they are running?  I currently suspect that one of my applications is writing to the disk a lot which is slowing my phone down.  I am looking for something similar to the windows performance monitor that can show disk reads and writes by programs.

Perfmon, is a paid app that fits that well and is AFAIK the only app that gives these kind of details (closest to Windows performance monitor), for app running in foreground. It creates a floating window to give details about

  CPU
  Disk I/O
  Network I/O

I especially like the CPU capacity usage, which takes into account all the cores present and calculates, "effective usage". This coupled with RAM usage effectively helped me weed out some battery and memory hogging apps

Edit: I was searching for a similar approach using command line but nothing turned up


What's the easiest way to create a QR code for a link? The title is pretty self explanatory on this one.

Using the goo.gl URL shortener: http://goo.gl/a4Wv and adding a .qr to the end of it: http://goo.gl/a4Wv.qr


How to remove device access allows from installing Exchange Account I allowed access to manage my Android device (Galaxy S7) when adding my Exchange account.

I've removed that mail account but I would like to make sure that the Exchange account or organization has zero ability to manage my personal device any longer.  Is there anyway to ensure this is true?

if you have removed or deleted the account, it's already ensured that no one else can access your device or manage account.


Share Android cell phone network connection over USB OTG to Wifi Android tablet How do I share my cell phone's network connection with a Wifi tablet? Specifically I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S6 and a Nexus 7.

I bought a USB OTG cable. Which end do I plug the USB into, and which end do I plug the micro USB into?

How do I share my cell phone connection with the Nexus 7? I didn't see a USB setting in either direction for sharing the connection.

Is rooting required?

I would leave a comment but I dont have enough reputation.
I found this question and the first answer maybe shows a possible solution posted on xda.
For this you need root.

Download & install a Terminal Emulator on your Android Tablet. Run the Emulator & enter the following commands:
dhcpcd usb1
setprop net.dns1 8.8.8.8
The Android Phone from which net connection is to be sourced must be connected via USB Cable & on that phone enable USB Tether.
Now you can access internet on your Android Tablet using your Android Phone as a USB Modem!

I always use Bluetooth to share internet between phone and tablet. A friend of mine has a Nexus 7 too and no problems with Bluetooth. Maybe you can look for a solution to this issues


Can I schedule my Android phone to mute notifications of a specific app at specific times? E.g. I don't want receive work emails on weekends.

No, the only way is to enable "Don't Disturb" mode and adjust priorities so you can just receive notifications for the selected priority type on weekends for example


ZTE Blade/San Francisco memory cards that work I'm looking out to extend the card memory for my ZTE Blade phone.

Can anybody who has experience with this tell me which SD cards (preferably 16GB and above) certainly work well for the San Francisco/ZTE Blade phone? If you're using this phone with an SD card model that works, please tell me which one.

Note: many people seem to report that some SD cards do not work well with this phone.

Thanks!

I found this discussion at MoDaCo about the issue.  It includes cards that people have tried and found to work.

The generally consensus seems to be that Sandisk 16 GB Class 2 cards work.  Kingston 16 GB Class 4 worked for a couple people, but not for another until they tried deleting everything on it via Windows XP.  I personally wouldn't go lower than a Class 4 card, and I'm partial to Kingston.


Nokia ringtones file location I have a Nokia 6.1 that has some ringtones that aren't in the system/media/audio directory.  Any idea where they'd be?


Update Samsung s5300 to android Honeycomb 3.2 Is it possible to update Samsung s5300 to Honeycomb? I've only found that it can't be updated to Android 4.0.

Honeycomb was actually meant for devices with large screens like tablets etc.., There is no Official update for S5300. So you'll have to root your phone and install a custom ROM(such as CyanogenMod) on your phone. Keep in mind that rooting your phone will void your phone of any warranty. Also beware that any error made while flashing ROM could brick your phone and make it unusable.


Why my phone battery has four terminal? what is the use of the fourth? I have a LG Optimus One (P500). For sometime I am wondering why my phone's battery has four terminals. I am aware that two terminals are for the positive and negative points and the the third connects to the battery's internal thermistor to monitor its temperature. Still that leaves me puzzled with what the fourth terminal could be for?

Interestingly my phone has only three terminal where as the battery has four. I have searched for answers in Google but no useful results other than description about temperature monitoring comes up.

Also since another doubt also lies in the same image, what is the port that is marked as "A" in the following image? It appears to me as some sort connector and my guess is that it is a connector to a cable with which manufacturers can access something deep in hardware. The Nokia phones which I had also had this feature and I guess this should be common for all phone then.

Update: I am more keen on knowing what the fourth terminal on the battery does rather than why there are three in phone and four in battery. As @Axeman said, this battery could be used in other phones (of LG) as well.

Connector A seems a U.FL-R-SMT-10 and probably is for an external/additional antenna.

  U.FL, is a miniature coaxial RF connector for high-frequency signals
  up to 6 GHz manufactured by Hirose Electric Group in Japan.1 U.FL
  connectors are commonly used inside laptops and embedded systems to
  connect the Wi-Fi antenna to a Mini PCI card. Female U.FL connectors
  are not designed with reconnection in mind, and they are only rated
  for a few reconnects before replacement is needed. The female U.FL
  connectors are generally not sold separately, but rather as part of a
  pigtail with a high-quality 1.32 mm doubly shielded cable, which
  allows for a low-loss connection.

(from Wikipedia)


Is it possible to migrate an SD card formatted as adopted storage to a new phone without reformatting? My phone (Moto X Pure 2015, a.k.a. Clark) hates me.  It's a refurb that I doubt was properly fixed, which was a replacement for my last one that had a bad USB port, but the issues didn't start until post-warranty (both original and 90 day for refurb).  My wife decided to get an iPhone, so now I have hers, which is also a refurb, but it still works correctly for the most part.  I would like to migrate everything from my phone to hers...including the 64GB Micro SD card formatted as adopted storage...without formatting the card.

Is this possible? Are there any options that don't include extra memory cards, usb sticks, or computers?  I know I can move everything to an intermediary storage device, or to a new card in the new phone, but if there's a way to do it without that extra step, that would be nice to know. I'm rooted and running nearly the latest Lineage OS nightly (4/3), if that makes a difference, and I'm open to things like key extraction if I can get a good guide on what I actually need to do.

Though you did not (yet) confirm both devices are rooted, this solution might be of interest for those where they are:

Following up to our adoptable-storage tag-wiki, you will find a link to How to decrypt adopted storage? Based on that, the following approach seems feasible:

From the original device, extract the encryption key file located in /data/misc/vold
Copy this file to the new device

There's a missing step, though: As the file has no fixed name, I assume this must be stored in some settings database. So that database entry must be found and added to the new device. On the other hand, the name might as well be derived from the label of the SD card it belongs to.

So basically, this answer might be incomplete – but the approach worth a try. If someone can provide the missing step, please do so in the comments and I'll integrate it here (with credits given, of course).


My phone keeps clicking on things that I'm not even clicking on? Sometimes my Sony xperia z5 just start freezing, clicking on apps, turning drawer's pages and doing things like that without me doing anything . In my opinion it looks like a problem with the touchscreen and the display because it's like if someone touches it but nobody is actually doing it, I am also pretty sure that there isn't any virus . Do you have any idea about the causes of this?

Ps: My phone got the latest firmware and not a modified rom

My phone had same issue, this touchscreen issue got me my phone replaced which was under valid warranty.

You should take it to the respective mobile service centre.


How can I get a longer Samsung USB data cable for Galaxy S4? I have tried several alternate and extension USB cables and none of them provide a data connection. They were all new cables that worked just fine with standard external USB drives. Only the originally provided Samsung OEM white cable provides a data connection.

I have no interest in charging.

It would appear that there is something Samsung-specific in the physical design of this cable that allows the device to sense this and refuse to start a data connection.

Is there any way to obtain a longer cable with this same characteristic. Either an entirely separate cable or an extension cable. Obviously this is for the purpose of connecting my phone via a longer USB cable and being able to transfer files.

Please do not respond with any speculation. I am only interested in answers that propose solutions that specifically handle this Samsung-specific "feature".

I don't consider Amazon(or similar) shop listings that just happen to list the model name in the description as being even slightly trustworthy (based on experience buying a few!). Lots of sellers just spam the listing with every common model name.

My phone's specs are

model = GT-I9505
OS = 5.0.1

Also please note that I am not using a separate charger. The phone is always plugged into the same USB port of a Win10 desktop PC. It seems to charge fine but i honestly don't pay it much attention to exactly how fast it charges.

Thanks!

update

Based on clues provided by @beeshyams.
the S4 cables are modified to provide higher charge to maximize efficient charging. Lack of support for this feature in a cable may cause the S4 to refuse a data connection. note that the S4 still charges with the "inferior" cable it just charges more slowly.

Based on my understanding of the multiple posts on Internet dealing with charging of S4 :

The Charging adapter has it's D+ and D- pins shorted with resistors across them. This is done  to ensure that higher current does not flow , reducing chances of damages to the device (see Fizz's answer on electrical.SE and this XDA post
This is NOT non standard but less frequently implemented (Apple legacy continued with few Android OEM's )
This affects (or should ) charging only
USB cables should not have anything to do with data transfer when connected to a PC . The only reasons I can think why this is happening are :

Non OEM cables purchased may be poor in shielding - XDA post linked above mentions this , though on context of charging ( I am not entirely sure how much it could affect )
They happen to be all Power only no data aka USB condom cables

Both possibilities are debatable

To eliminate the possibility of shielding affecting , suggest you to consider the cables mentioned in my answer here . They are very sturdy and 2M long and give excellent charging performance too ( I am not canvassing for them - totally satisfied customer )

USB cables of Samsung are also modified in some way , and this prevents other USB cables from transferring data - this is more likely but haven't come across any solid evidence to support and will update if I do find something


how to reset the phone pc after too mant pattern attempts How can I reset my android phone HTC desire HD after too many attempts. I want to reset my phone via connecting it to PC . I don't know how reset it from PC and even I can't reset it from buttons because volume buttons are broken.

Now please somebody tell me how can I reset it from PC.

There are multiple ways to do this, most of them requiring adb being available on your computer:

How can i do factory reset using adb in android? gives this solution:

adb shell
recovery --wipe_data

How to Hard Reset or Factory Reset and Format Android Phones and Tablets gives detailed instructions on doing this with fastboot (including setting up your computer for that). The command finally doing the job is:

fastboot erase userdata

Doing that, I'd recommend to also include a fastboot fastboot erase cache (recovery --wipe_cache if you use the first approach).

If you had setup other means of accessing your device's command line interface from your computer (e.g. SSH), you can use the first command (recovery --wipe_data) from that shell as well – without the need of ADB/Fastboot.


How to detect the name of my current launcher? My phone is Galaxy A5 2017

The Android updated automatically to version 8.0.0

My launcher app has some problems - I can't find the Skype icon and I really need it. I have to enter Google Play, to search "Skype" and then to push "Open" to start it - but that's really crap

I want to try another launcher (at this moment I'm running the default launcher app).

But in case the new launcher is even worse, I need to come back to the default launcher.

The problem is that I have no idea what's the name of my current launcher.

The Android OS should facilitate the users such essential information!

Open Settings->Applications->default applications.
Tap home screen and select your required launcher.
(if you have only stock launcher(for Samsung devices, it will be Samsung Experience Home), then there will be only one present, if you've installed other launchers like Nova etc. , then there will have a list of launchers available. Selecting any one launcher will set it as default launcher of device)

As AndrewT said: When you install 3rd-party launchers(from play store or using apk), you just add more selections for the launcher, but not necessarily replacing it wholly. Or in other words, you can have 10 launchers installed on the same phone at the same time, but only 1 active launcher.


Backup the system's "Personal Dictionary" on Android 7 and import on different phone? I'm using the Google Keyboard (Gboard) on my Nexus 6p.  I have a bunch of words in my system's Personal Dictionary (viewed by going to Settings -> Languages & input -> Personal Dictionary), and when I setup a new phone (a replacement Nexus 6p), the dictionary did not transfer.

In the Gboard keyboard settings (Settings -> Languages & input -> Virtual keyboard -> Gboard -> Dictionary), there is an option to "Sync learned words", and after syncing on both the old and new phone, the Personal Dictionary on the new phone is still blank.

I've also tried removing all GBoard updates and data, removing Google accounts, re-installing and re-syncing everything with not improvement.

With the phone currently not rooted, is there a way to backup this data and import it on my new phone?

Update (12/30):

I spent a few hours on the phone with Google Support yesterday, trying some of the stuff above plus some other things, and the end conclusion was that there is indeed a bug with the syncing, so they are going to escalate the issue for developers to look at.
Some online (on the Nexus forums) reported the dictionary copying over when doing a restore from a different device when initially setting up the phone. I actually did this, but did get some generic failure message during my restore, so maybe that's why my dictionary is missing. I'm going to try a factory reset and restore again to see if it helps.
As I mentioned below, the 3rd party utility didn't work for me, at least on two separate tries. The exported .DAT file was essentially 0 bytes.
I also checked my Google Dashboard, and under Android for my original device, there is an entry for "Android Dictionary" under "Applications with backups". This gives me hope that the data is in the cloud, though I'm going to refrain from formatting my old phone as long as I can (Google eventually wants it back since it is an RMA).

It is quite odd that it isn't syncing across devices. I know that recommending an application may not always be the best solution but I did just try Personal Dictionary Backup on my Xperia XZ running 7.0 and it was able to backup and restore my personal dictionary.

Do keep in mind that it backs up to a .dat file on your internal storage. The folders name that it backs up to is "UserDictionaries". This means that you would have to digitally transfer the .dat file in that folder to your new device in a folder with the same name as well as installing the app on your new device.


Disable ActiveSync Remote Wipe in Froyo In short:

Is there a way to disable remote wipe for Android Phones (specifically in Froyo)?

Background:

I recently upgraded my G1 to a G2, and was about to set up my company e-mail account. But the problem is, it notified me I'd have to allow the company to set my security settings. Looking into it, Froyo (Android 2.2) added support for things like remote wipe and user access controls from the admin. I understand this is a great move, but we've had problems in the past with our IT team accidentally sending these messages to the wrong phones, and the last thing I want is an accidental bricking while I'm at a conference.

Is there a way to connect to ActiveSync so I can still get push notifications of work email, but not allow remote wipe messages to wipe my phone?

I'm fine with them setting security policy like requiring a PIN or something, but I don't want a remote wipe unless it's sent by me from a security app that I installed at will.

I had the same issue with a company I'm working with now.  I'm a consultant, and my current client has given me a corporate email address, which I synched to my phone so I'm able to view and respond to messages when I'm not at the client site.  They have a script that runs when your contract expires to send the remote wipe command.  However, I've been extended several times, and their system treats extensions as a brand new contract, thus wiping my phone every time.

Touchdown worked like a charm... it keeps your data completely seperate from the rest of your phone.  That's really the only negative, as you can't view all of your appointments (personal and corporate) on one central calendar.  This applies BOTH to the pin code AND to the remote wipe command... Since I've been extended several times, they've sent the wipe command each time and touchdown is simply wiped, not the rest of the phone.  Best 20 bucks I've ever spent.

On a social note though I do agree since this is my personal phone, they shouldn't be able to wipe ALL of my data unless the command is coming from me.  I think this is a huge miss within the native email client.


Is there a way to read a network log file directly from the Android device using a Linux tail command like? Is there a way to do what's asked in the topic subject for unrooted and/or rooted phones?

I'd like to read from a system log file instead of constantly listening the network activity for battery saving purposes.

You can use any SSH client to establish a connection to your host and tail the desired file.

This will not help you saving the battery, since the tail command or any other that collects "off-site" information, needs an active connection that uses network, that in turn consumes more battery.

Personally I use ConnectBot by Kenny Root and Jeffrey Sharkey available from Google Play Store for free.

  ConnectBot is a powerful open-source Secure Shell (SSH) client. It can manage simultaneous SSH sessions, create secure tunnels, and copy/paste between other applications.

  This client allows you to connect to Secure Shell servers that typically run on UNIX-based servers.


Need entire Google suite on cyanogen to install play store apps? I've installed cyanogenmod on a Moto E.
But I need to use an app that is only available from the play store.

I can successfully install open Gapps and then the play store.
But this also bundles all the Google apps (music, games, docs, desktop search etc) that I was trying to avoid by using cyanogenmod.

Is there any way of installing apps directly from the play store website or am I completely misunderstanding the point of cyanogenmod?

The bare minimum required to install applications from the Play Store is the Google Package Installer and Google Play Services. Google and Android are two separate entities, and although CM is based on Android it does not tie in the Google services, but it is compatible with them. You do not need Google to use CM, and there are alternatives, but to use the Play Store you MUST install the minimal services listed previously.

OpenGapps has the smallest package available to be able to access the Play Store and it contains only the absolute minimum required to access and install apps from the Play Store called a "pico" package.

Of course, free apps could be found in a reputable APK mirror site, like APKMirror, but this is not a valid location to find paid apps. Be aware that some features of apps distributed via the Play Store require Google Play services in order to function, so in some cases without it installed some feature may not work, and it is possible that entire apps would not function, although I do not know of any examples at the moment.

Other potential sources for apps would include the Amazon App Store, GetJar, MoboGenie, SlideMe, and F-Droid, which are all safe, viable alternatives to the Google Play Store.

MakeUseOf did a respectable article earlier this year entitled "Here’s How You Can Use Android But Ditch Google", a read through this article may help your understanding of getting along without Google.


GT-I9100G screen replacement I have a GT-I9100G and the screen went bad, I'd like to replace it but all the screen replacements on amazon are for the GT-I9100 version. They look the same but I am still not sure if this will work with my GT-19100G? Any ideas?

You should be able to use the same screen type as the I9100, the main difference is the processor.
Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100 vs. GT-I9100G Comparison Guide

Basically both the I9100 and I9100G have the identical features as claimed by Samsung but the only thing that differentiate both is the processor and GPU that the unit run. I9100 run on 1.2GHz ARM CortexA9 Exynos 4210and ARM Mali-400 GPU while I9100G uses Texas Instruments OMAP4430 CPU and PowerVR SGX540 GPU.


SMS Thread / General Limit? Is there a limit within Android, or possibly set by OEMs (heard this from a friend who is a technician), of the total amount of SMS messages you can have? As in, messages within a thread  and/or all threads combined? Not just the limit within conversations which you can manually set. I mean a limit android has coded into it, or one that OEMs set, that actually would "limit" (whether by slowing down or stopping) the number of SMS you can have?

And I'm not talking about a couple thousand, but even in the hundreds of thousands in a thread?

I cannot provide a definitive answer, but some folks have had over 20,000 messages, based on this Reddit discussion. So if there are any limits, it may have been set by the OEM (or their custom app). Using 3rd-party SMS apps might provide a workaround to the limit.

I would bet that if are hundreds of thousands of messages, there could be a significant performance issue, although that may depend on how the app processes the records. Go SMS Pro, for example, does not load the messages all at once. But if it reaches the point where it has loaded already a lot of messages, the app slows down.

UPDATE #1: To paraphrase Izzy, the storage limit will also trigger the "insufficient memory" error, usually when there's less than ~25 MB free space on internal storage. This would also prevent the SMS from being stored (plus the possibility to send some on your own).


mobile rooting problem I am using Samsung GT-S6312. I just rooted my mobile with frama root. I haven't installed any custom firmware, nor a custom recovery. I've got some problem. If I install some apps like Whatsapp, way2sms, it's notifying me that I don't have any space, however I still have 400Mb in my internal memory.  I can install some other apps, including Facebook, Hike etc.
I have tried to unroot my phone without success. So if I reset my mobile, does it unroot my mobile successfully?

Well, in order to unroot your device you need to flash the stock ROM again over to your device. For getting the stock ROM for your device try heading over to the sammobile/firmware section and get the appropriate stock ROM available for your Samsung GT-S6312, once you get the stock ROM use the ODIN which can be easily searched over the Google, download and use it to flash the stock ROM over your device. Once the flashing process completes your device will get unrooted.


Play Store is not loaded, showing a blank screen instead I am on an LG G4 running on Android 7.0 Nougat.

Whenever I try opening Google Play Store, I only see a blank screen, even after waiting for more than 10 minutes with the screen on:

I have tried the following:

Rebooting
Clearing cache
Deleting data
Uninstalling updates
Doing all the above with reboots between.

Yet nothing works, I still get the blank screen.

Is there a way to fix this without going through a factory reset?

Note: this is not a good solution.

I messed around in the account settings of my phone. For some reason, I could not remove my Google account (to re-add it after), but trying to do so seems to have triggered something in the software that got everything working. I believe it had to do with the syncing not working properly as my Gmail and calendar apps weren't working properly either.

So that could be a possible direction in which to search.


Backup/restore question for Moto G XT1033 converted to XT1032 GPE I have installed TWRP as my recovery and rooted my device. But I only had the space to backup the "system" and not the "data". Now I was going to install CyanogenMod.

My real question is, if things go south during installation, will I be able to return to system with Phone (sim) and Play Store apps working through the "system" backup?

Moto G XT1033 as it seems from this question supports OTG, which means you can connect a pendrive using an OTG cable and store complete Nandroid backup in it through the recovery.

  Will I be able to return to system with Phone (sim) and Play Store apps working through the "system" backup?

I cannot comment anything about Baseband/IMEI issue, but you will definitely lose Play Store apps since they are downloaded and their data stored under /data, which you're not backing up here.

On a side note, the device has good amount of Internal Storage available; can you not make space enough to store the backup in it?

May be you can try making a backup of /system only and then pushing it through ADB into the PC. Do the same for /data and /boot now. ADB will work in Recovery.


'last seen 'for whatsapp contact not showing anymore?Am I being blocked? Is there any reason that I am not able to see a whatsapp contact's last seen time anymore?Such as some kind of bug but not being blocked?

It all depends on which version of WhatsApp you currently operate

In the previous versions of WhatsApp you had to block a specified
user in order to avoid your last seen, display picture be seen from
an annoying person.
If you have been blocked by a person then after few days you will
not be able to view their dp as well as last seen.
In the latest version(s) WhatsApp provides more privacy
settings. These are available via Settings > Account > Privacy (in both Android and iOS).
Hide display picture-If you select this option then urs as well as
other display picture will be hidden (i.e your dp will be hidden from others as
well as you cannot view other's dp as well).
Hide last seen-If you select this option then your last seen will
not be visible to anyone as well as you cannot see other's last seen.
How ever if you are not sure then better wait for few days(1-2)
after which you can yourself identify whether you have been blocked
by some person or its your settings.


Is there a simple way to undo an app update? I'd like to revert to the previous version and stick with that permanently. Is that possible?

I have Beautiful Widgets installed, and had it set to auto-update. It just did, and the 'update' is totally unacceptable.

I've got several devices, all rooted and running different versions of Android. Some have auto-updated the APK to the new version, some have not (I just disabled auto-update on those that have not).

Android does not natively back up applications so you can't "undo" an app update. Best thing I'd say you can do is something like this howto. It backs up your apks and their settings. It uses Titanium Backup and requires root, but rooting is not your problem.


list disable package feature/component we can use pm list packages -d to list disabled packages.

but how can I list disabled feature/component inside a package?

for example I disable all fitness related stuff from gms

pm disable com.google.android.gms/.fitness.sync.FitnessSyncAdapterService
and so on

and I want to have an overview again which feature I have disabled

Not as straight-forward as listing packages. Here's an except (Bash code) on how my tool Adebar does it (for all apps on a device, spooling results to a file as pm disable comands in the way your question quotes it), to be found in lib/scriptgen.lib:

  local comps
  local myline
  scriptname="${OUTDIR}/deadReceivers.sh"
  echo "#!${BASH_LOCATION}" > "${scriptname}"
  echo -e "\n#\n# Disabled components for ${DEVICE_NAME} as of $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M')\n#" >> "${scriptname}"
  for pkg in $(adb ${ADBOPTS} shell "pm list packages 2>/dev/null"); do
    pkg=${pkg//[$'\t\r\n']}
    pkg=${pkg##*:}
    [[ "${pkg}" = "android" ]] && continue
    comps=$(adb ${ADBOPTS} shell "dumpsys package ${pkg}" | grep -E -A99999 "disabledComponents:" |grep -E -B99999 "enabledComponents:")
    if [[ -n "${comps}" ]]; then
      echo >> "${scriptname}"
      echo "# ${pkg}" >> "${scriptname}"
      for myline in $comps; do
        myline=${myline//[$'\t\r\n']}
        [[ "${myline}" = "disabledComponents:" || "${myline}" = "enabledComponents:" ]] && continue
        echo "adb ${ADBOPTS} shell \"pm disable ${pkg}/${myline}\"" >> "${scriptname}"
      done
    fi
  done

In short: You'd have to parse the "disabledComponents" section from the output of dumpsys package <package_name> ("comps" in above code fragment). As you can see, that segment is followed by a list of enabled components, in case you want to know where to find those.


How can I compile native applications on my rooted phone? I'm running Cyanogenmod 7 on my Nexus One, and I wanted to compile and run LAME on my phone. I've already downloaded the source package and have tried to ./configure it, but I'm told that neither cc nor gcc exist on the phone. Is there a way to get gcc for Android? I'm simply looking to be able to compile a few native applications like LAME for use on my ARM device. How can I go about doing this?

I can't understand why I have to pay $3 for C4droid as it's just GCC with an editor.

Use the new free CppDroid - C/C++ IDE on Android. It has a lot of included C/C++ examples and tutorials. Blog link, Google Play link (needs 190 MB).


How can i remove the new google updates? Especially keyboard? How can i get rid of lollipop 5.1 update? Is there a way to use the previous version on my tablet? Please ?

Go to Settings → Keyboard → Google keyboard → Appearance.


Need help unlocking my bootloader on HTC Desire 310 EDIT: It has failed with a too many links error

This christmas I was treated to a HTC Desire 310 and I am trying to root it which I understand needs the bootloader unlocked.  That is where my issue is, below is an image of my command prompt which has been the same for about 30 minutes
I have been following the HTCdev guide by the way

It happens because in fastboot mode, you can only turn on using ADB on the PC, so when your phone is turned on and connected and ADB can see it, go to 5 string (FASTBOOT) and choose 0 (reboot to bootloader), phone will reboot. Now you're in a fastboot mode.


How do I disable the Mobile Hotspot feature? As far as I can remember, some carriers disable this feature. Now, we have a few dozen phones that we want to deploy to some schools and we would like to disable this feature.

How do I achieve this? A few guesses that I have would be to add/edit something in build.prop or some hidden Android API (can't find any here).

Update: I figured it out a long time ago. The solutions here do work gracefully and the phones behave properly. Normal WiFi is not affected (because hostapd only manages the AP). Upon testing, the worst that happens is

2018-12-04 23:12:23.680 3207-3753/? E/SoftapController: Unable to open connection to supplicant on "/data/misc/wifi/hostapd/wlan0": No such file or directory

in the logcat.  At the same time, the mobile hotspot setting switch flips back off automagically.

What I did was just rename hostapd to something else. Moving/deleting/changing permissions would also work.

I managed to solve this without deleting hostapd file (with this method you can easily reactivate hotspot functionality renaming hostapd back to its original name).

Root your phone
Open up adb connection
Enter these commands:

su
cd system
cd bin
mount -o rw,remount /system
mv hostapd inactive_hostapd
mount -o ro,remount /system

Reboot your phone and you're ready to go.

If you want hotspot functionality back to your phone, just rename it back to 'hostapd' (mv inactive_hostapd hostapd).

Tested on Motorola Moto C Plus.


Will the uninstalling of apps leave file cruft in the root (Android's subsystem)? Will the uninstalling of apps leave files in the root (Android's subsystem)?

When we uninstall some program on Windows, it leaves some files along the system, does it happen on Android too? If this happens, would it be be wise to access the root to erase this files and free some space?

Not in the internal filesystem, but it may leave files on the SD card.

Apps on Android are only able to write on two places within the filesystem

/data/data/<packagename>
/mnt/sdcard/ or /sdcard

The /data/data/<packagename> directory gets deleted when you delete the app, so the only place where file cruft can be found is the SD card.


Is it possible to use an Android phone in "disk mode"? If I connect an iPhone to a PC it is not possible to copy files between the PC and the iPhone. I would like to be able to do this because it would be useful.

What happens if I connect an Android phone to a PC? Do I see it as a disk or is it similar to the iPhone?

Absolutely, and it's very easy.  This is the procedure for my Samsung Galaxy S; other phones may be different:

Plug in the USB cable and a USB icon
appears in the notification area at
the top of the screen.
Pull down the
notification and tap "USB
connected".
Tap "Mount" on the
dialog box that's displayed.
Two
removable drives show up on my PC;
one for the built-in flash memory,
and one for the expansion SD card.


Why am I getting a red tint in the lock screen in Oreo 8.1/Nexus 5X? I just updated to Oreo 8.1 from 8.0 and I notice that the lock screen has the same image as before, but with a red tint over it, like a layer of pure red with opacity 20% had been overlaid on top of it.

I never got that in 8.0 or earlier.

I thought it was due to a certificate from AdGuard and the resulting "Your network may be monitored", so I uninstalled the certificate, but the warning disappeared while the tint stayed (I have to say I haven't rebooted the phone without certificate).

I didn't change any setting about system colours, and in fact the rest of the apps and system show the usual colours, only the lock screen changed.

What are the possible causes of the red tint in the lockscreen in Oreo 8.1?

Google support says that the tint is based on the colour of wall paper and there is no way turn it off. That's for Pixel phones and perhaps same applies for yours

Like you said the color tints are based on your wallpaper. I've found it typically does a nice job with this sorry you don't like it. There is not a way to turn this off.

Edit The colour tint applies to lockscreen too going by Android Police blog

Lock screen
It looks like the lock screen does this as well. However, the effect is even more subtle there.


Why my Nokia 7.1 makes a sound every 30 seconds until I view the notification? Since updating to Android 9 (Pie) a few days ago, my Nokia 7.1 makes alert noises every 30 seconds - 1 minute until I view the notification.

I think it has something to do with the Ambient screen notification setting. I used to have it set at "periodically" which is supposed to be every 2 minutes and would previously just illuminate the screen - not make noise. But now, I get a notification noise about every 30 seconds (37 seconds to be exact) until I acknowledge the notification.

I set the Ambient screen notification setting to be "once" and that seems to have resolved the issue of getting the notification sounds, which is why I believe that setting is no longer working properly.

I can live with that workaround for now, but it really would be ideal to have my screen light up every 2 minutes without noise in the many cases that I don't see it the first time.

I have seen a similar issue reported with a solution of "Tap your Settings, scroll down and tap accessibility, scroll down and tap notification reminder." but I do not have that setting.

This is no longer an issue since the last Android P update - the setting in question that wasn't working no longer exists.


Why some of the android apps doesn't work on Wifi Why some of my android apps doesn't work on Wifi when all other apps work fine.

And these apps work on Mobile Data but not on my Home wifi.

  These apps work when I switch 'Airplane Mode - On' and turn On my Wifi

Tried:

Have tried searching this on XDA forum
Tried Static IP instead of DHCP
Setting my time and date manually
Checked my App Data Usage (for specific app) - 1.66Mb over Wifi & 11.02Mb over Mobile data
Tried my Wifi password twice, tried rebooting my phone twice.
Tried App Restrictions & Storage Permissions
Turned Power Saving Mode - Off

FYI:

My app is in Testing phase - Loading Bitmaps

My Phone is Coolpad3600I ver: 6.0.1

Couldn't understand this weird problem. Need help.

After a lot of research yesterday, I found my project was lacking few crucial steps for loading bitmaps

Caching of bitmaps was not properly implemented because of which I was getting Out of Memory errors
I was also getting Android Support Disable plugin error after every few minutes
Android Profile Analyzer was showing lot of irrelevant threads which was consuming memory

Since, I didn't have much time to look in every file of my code. I modified my sluggish code and imported Android Bitmap Sample code from the library.

Most of the common errors of Wifi, caching of bitmaps & Disable Plugin errors were taken care.


"Ready to connect when quality improves" My Galaxy S10e shows near my home WiFi's name:

Ready to connect when quality improves

Even though the WiFi works very well (using it right now from laptop).

The phone has no cover, and no obstacle to the router which sits two meters away.

What could be the problem?

In my case, I had a manual proxy configured for this WiFi, and the proxy was not working correctly.

Removing the manual proxy configuration solved the problem.

To check if you have one, tap the WiFi, then tap "Advanced", then make sure "Proxy" is set to "None".


Samsung Galaxy P1000 stuck on black screen I Have a Galaxy Tab GT-P1000N. Its Android version was updated via Odin 3, from Android 2.2 to Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread [XWJQ8]. Everything is going fine but after the rebooting my Device (it's auto reboot) is stuck on a black screen.

I have tried some other Firmware, but the problem persists. I have tried to enter Download mode by pressing the volume down and power key, but I can't see anything on my screen -- just my PC gives me a beep like it detects a USB Device, and Odin ID:COM turns in yellow color and message say ‘Added!’.

Please tell me one more thing: during flasing, can I put in the SIM card or not?
Please tell me what is the right way to install Android 2.2 or later.

All info of the tab:

MODELO: GT-P1000NGSMH
SSN: -P1000nGSMH
ALIMENTACION : V5=; 2A
HECHO EN ROEEA POR SAMSUNG
S/N R2HB841317Y

Try charging the Tab for an hour or so.
Connect the Tab to the computer via usb, so that you hear it bleep and appear connected.
Hold the power button on the Tab down for 10 secs.
Remove usb from Tab.
Wait 5 escs.
Try power on.
I had a similar problem and this worked for me. I think the Tab has a battery discharge issue and turns off the display which does not come back up


Why does Hangouts give my contacts a different # when starting from Voice? Sometimes a texting conversation on android hangouts says my friend's number is something I've never seen before - a 678 number.

I think this occurs when I began the conversation using my desktop chrome google voice.

Is this a know issue?

This is how Google Voice works by design.  Here is the relevant exert from the Help article:

  Each time you place a call, instead of dialing the number you want to
  reach, Google Voice dials a US-based direct access number. The Google
  Voice server then forwards your call to the actual destination number.
  This allows for faster call setup and the ability to place calls
  without a data connection. These direct access numbers may show in
  your phone's call log, or on your phone bill.

  A unique direct access phone number is assigned to each person that
  you call. The direct access numbers are stored in the Google Voice
  application, not in your Contacts. They can be purged from your phone
  at any time by signing out of the Google Voice app.

  Direct access numbers are assigned randomly, and may include numbers
  that are out of your local calling area, or even out of state. If you
  don't have a nationwide calling plan, you may be charged long distance
  rates by your carrier.

Basically unique, auto-generated numbers are assigned to your contacts as you dial them. These numbers don't change, but will be different from your contacts' actual telephone numbers.


How old is the datalog when just starting "logcat"? When I run adb -d logcat it dumps data from a time before. How old is that data?

Logcat displays Android's logs.

This is by definition information about things that happened in the past.

Android's logs are stored in a ring buffer and if full, the then oldest entries are overwritten. It depends on how much is being logged, when that happens. Besides this, the buffer is reset when you restart the phone, so logs cannot be older than the current uptime.


Are deleted WhatsApp messages still recoverable even after deleting a contact I deleted a particular WhatsApp conversation. Then I deleted the same contact. Now I uploaded the contact again but I am unable to see my deleted messages. I don't see the option of restoring messages after reinstalling WhatsApp. Why is this so? And is there a way out?

If you have automatic backups sent to Google Drive, that will be your easiest solution. If not, search for a local backup on your phone itself and recover with this method:

Your phone will store up to the last 7 days worth of local backup files (Google Drive will only have the most recent). If you wish to restore a local backup which is not the most recent, you will need to do the following:

Download a file manager.
In the File Manager, navigate to sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases. If your data is not stored on the SD card, you may see internal storage or main storage instead of sdcard.
Rename the backup file you wish to restore from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 to msgstore.db.crypt12. It is possible that your earlier backup may have been on an earlier protocol, such as crypt9 or crypt10. Do not change the number of the crypt extension.
Uninstall WhatsApp.
Install WhatsApp.
Tap Restore when asked.

https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/android/20887921


Difference between Gapps What is the difference, if any, between different Gapps providers such as opengapps, tk gapps, pa gapps etc?

Open gapps is open source developed, all their code is available on github. PAGapps is developed by the Paranoid Android team. So there you have it. An app doesnt have to be created by google to work as a google app. Other developers also give you a choice as  to whether you want all or just one google app (gapp) The pico is just the play store, if I remember rightly. I no longer use any Gapps at all. I use a separate apk downloader called Raccoon with a throwaway google account.


Batch install apks from computer to Android without actually touching my Android I want to batch install apks from my desktop directly. Such as I downloaded many apks on the desktop and want to install apks without actually touching my android.
How to do this?

That's done easiest using adb (see the ADB tag-wiki for details on what ADB is and how to get/install it on your machine). As you don't state the OS you're using on your desktop, I write how it could be done on Linux (which I work with); should be easily adaptable to other platforms:

put all your downloaded .apk files into a single folder
connect your Android device, and make sure it's recognized (adb devices should list a connected device)
open a terminal/command prompt, and change to the directory where your .apk files reside
run for file in *.apk; do adb install $file; done
watch all the apps getting installed, without requiring any further interaction :)

NOTE: If you have .apk files which have "spaces" in their names such as 'Xposed Framework', 'Adobe Flash Player' etc. then you will have to rename them, as ADB cannot handle that. Either remove the spaces altogether, or replace them e.g. by underscores. Linux provides a Perl script for that (/usr/bin/rename) which you can use:

rename 's/ /_/g' *.apk

It replaces all space character with _,  which makes names like this Xposed_Framework, Adobe_Flash_Player which are recognizable by adb.


chrome uninstall left behind com.android.chrome[noinfo] apk with active connections I have an unrooted Samsung Note phone (active service with AT&T). It is almost two years old and became slower and slower. I do not have any unnecessary apps and I mostly use my phone for email and simple browsing. To understand the slowness, I downloaded "Network Connection" (Ref https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.antispycell.connmonitor) app and found that the chrome app had 21 active connections maintained all the time (even after reboot). Some of these connections are to

*.1e100.net (6 connections) (see screen shot)
edge-star-shv-03-sea1.facebook.com
la.linkedin.com or 1a.linkedin.com
*.amazonaws.com
*.akamaitechnology.com
*.stumbleupon.net
*.softlayer.com
*.twttr.com
*.cachefly.net

I got furious over this weird behavior of chrome and uninstalled chrome. After removal, I rebooted my phone, but there is still a leftover active app now identified as

com.android.chrome[noinfo]

which continue to maintain the above connections. I am still clueless on what's going on and what type of information is being collected from my phone by these open connections --who is watching and why? Any idea on how to remove the seemingly viral apk com.android.chrome[noinfo] without rooting the device. Please note that this app is not listed by application manager.

The behaviour of the browser is perfectly normal. Because opening a new internet connection takes a lot of power, after an app is finished with an HTTP connection to a given server, Android keeps the connection open a little while longer in case the app wants to download more from the same server. Keeping the connection open while idle doesn't take any extra power. This fits well with the usual behaviour of web browsers: typically you download a web page, then all the images &c. for that page, an AJAX request to the same site, and then a few minutes later maybe a new page from the same site.

The servers you mention are very typical. Amazon AWS and Akamai are content distribution networks. They're used to host many websites. People who run websites pay these companies to host static content and serve it to end users, which is good for you because it keeps internet latency down. When you visit (say) android.stackexchange.com, only the dynamic content comes from Stack Exchange's servers, and the static content - images, fonts, etc. - might come from a server much closer to you, run by Akamai or another CDN.

Other sites on your list are sources of "share" and "like" buttons, such as Facebook, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn. Every time you visit a page with the official Facebook "Like" button, the browser has to go to Facebook's server to download it. That's how Facebook tracks you across different sites, but it's not the browser tracking you: it's the websites you visit. Uninstalling your browser and switching to a different one won't make any difference.

There's one last thing that seems to have added to your confusion: the "Application details" screen in that app shows a log of which sites the app has connected to, not the sites that have open connections right now. That's why old connections are still shown in the list after you restart the device, and after uninstalling the app.


File transfer over USB cable option no longer appears after upgrade to MIUI 10 I have a Xiaomi Redmi 4A and I used to often transfer files between it and my Windows 10 laptop PC over USB cable.

When I plugged in the cable the phone it used to prompt me to choose between USB charging and USB file transfer.

I didn't use this feature for months and a couple of weeks ago the phone told me MIUI 10 was available so I upgraded it it seemed very nice.

Today I want to transfer some files from the phone to the PC and now when I plug in the cable, the screen comes on and both devices beep but I am not offered to choose between charging and transfer. The phone does not show up in Windows explorer to browse files.

The phone does show on the computer as a connected USB device. But I can't find any settings or options on the phone or the computer to browse or transfer files on the phone.

Has this feature been removed in MIUI 10 or is it hidden behind non-obvious settings? Or am I missing something very simple?

I have tried two different USB cables. At least one of the cables caused my feature phone to show up as a USB storage device or MTP advice.
I have tried rebooting the phone and the behaviour afterwards is identical.

Though I was pretty sure I'd transferred files with at least one of the USB cables I tried around the time I posted this question, I tried a third cable at work tonight and the file transfer option now appeared!

So unless it was a coincidence, it seems it was due to a USB cable that was designed only for charging and lacked the wiring for file transfers!


What is accessibility feature in Android? I've seen a setting named Accessibility in my Android 5.0 and 4.2.1. I don't understand what it is and how can it be helpful to me? I would like to know what does it do?

I noticed that there are options like Greenify and Tasker present inside it. Why are they listed in such setting?

There is more about it that bugs me. I rarely use Tasker on my devices but it works well on 4.2.1. However, I noticed that on CM12 you cannot run a profile using Application context, unless you enable some kind of Tasker's accessibility service. I also found this question related but it is unanswered.

Why is it that Tasker needs this accessibility service in 5.0 but not in 4.2.1? More so, how do I run Tasker with app context in 5.0 without enabling the said service, just like on 4.2.1. I seem to see some lags, though not very drastic compared to this question.

Accessibility is a category of features which are usually used to assist people who are in some way disabled. For example people who cannot see well can turn on Magnification Gesture to triple tap the screen and it will zoom in on whatever screen you are on. Also it can reverse the dark and light colors to help them see and read text better. Also, there are voice options which will read the text on the screen, or flash the Camera flash when the phone rings for people who are hard of hearing. Another common option is one that will read wherever your finger is touching, so you touch a button, it reads it aloud and then if you actually want to click it you would double click right there, which is another option for the seeing impaired.

Tasker has the ability to create certain tasks just like this, which trigger an action when certain circumstance occurs like receiving a phone call, or touching a certain area of the screen. This is why Tasker can be turned on and off from within the Accessibility Settings.

After looking at the actual code for Accessibility Settings in a couple ROMs, including my Team (VanirAOSP) and also CM, I do not see any code to add the package's class into Accessibility Settings, but every ROM usually uses res/xml/accessibility_settings.xml for the Accessibility Settings preference, so I imagine that the Tasker developers are adding the Shortcut Setting into the app themselves now... it is not a CM thing. They must have just started doing it recently, or the Android API just started allowing apps to add to the Accessibility Settings in Android 5.0. I'm not sure which.

So, if it is not something you like then you would probably have to take it up with the developers. I hope that helps you understand Accessibility Settings better and why there is a Tasker setting within it.

Here is the actual change, from AOSP, which occurred on April 11, 2014 which constructs a list of accessibility services to add into Accessibility Settings: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Settings/+/b4b3082