The Security Features of Android 10 Are Not New, But Still Valuable

Most of the security features introduced with Android 10 are revamps of existing things, but they still offer a significant improvement over previous versions. One of the most notable changes is an overhaul to permissions. When you grant a location permission, for instance, Android will now ask if you want the permission to be available to that application all the time or only while the app is in use. This helps prevent applications from tracking your location when you don't use them. Similarly, there is a similar prompt for things like recording audio and other sensitive permissions. Additionally, apps are no longer granted permission to access all of your internal storage; instead, they are given permission to access only the specific file that they need.

This change makes it much harder for malicious applications to access sensitive data without our knowledge or consent. Furthermore, there is a new section in the settings menu called "Apps" where we can view which apps have which permissions and manually manage them if needed. For those who want even more granular permission controls, there are third-party applications available that offer more advanced features.

One of the other significant changes introduced with Android 10 is scoped storage. It's an optional feature for file browser apps to use this API in Android 10, but it will be mandatory in the next version. Thankfully, Solid Explorer has already added its support, allowing us to demonstrate how it works. With scoped storage, you give the application permission to view your files and then decide which files it can look at. This is particularly useful because it prevents applications from accessing files that they didn't create.

For example, if you don't give Solid Explorer access to the Downloads folder, for instance, it cannot view the contents of that folder despite having the permission to view other files on your device. Some other restrictions include background activities being a little more police by the operating system, restricted access on sensitive information like IMEI and MAC address, and restrictions to camera and connection access without user permission.

Other Changes in Android 10

Android 10 has also made some significant changes to its navigation gestures. The new gesture controls are actually better and more consistent than those found in Android Pie (also known as Android Oreo). It's a surprisingly welcome change that gives the appearance of a much larger overhaul than there really was. However, at the end of the day, I still prefer the comfort and ease of soft keys with the rest of it.

It feels a little bit like Android Pie 2.0, where everything feels like an extension or completion of what Google tried to do last year. If you combine last year's efforts and this year's efforts together, you see a consistent and pronounced difference between the nougat and Oreo generation and the PI and Android 10 generation in day-to-day use.

The OS works perfectly fine, and the permission overhaul is greatly appreciated and works as expected in all the spots I tested for it. It's nice to see Google giving some control of these things back to the users after years and basically just accepting them and having no power otherwise.

Changes in Performance

A lot of these changes, such as bubbles and new APIs, may take a little while before we actually get to try them out as app developers have not yet integrated many of this stuff. Expect to see some changes to the experience if you already use Android 10 later on down the line.

On my Pixel 3a, at least, the phone flips and flies around as it should especially after I got used to the gesture controls. Thus, I can conclude that all of these changes do not impact performance in any notable way.

The Rebranding of Android

Google still uses desert names for its operating systems, but it will be a code word internally rather than a public-facing name. David Burke said that this year would have been Queen Cake if they had continued the practice. The logo got a minor change along with the color scheme and a few other tidbits.

David Amell actually went to Google and talked to them about it, and you can watch that video by clicking the top corner right now. If you have a compatible device and want to try the new Android 10 for yourself, you will find download links in the video description below or may need to hit the Update button in the settings if you own a Pixel or some of the other supported devices.

Finally, here's a look at the Easter Egg for Android 10. It's there, and that about does it for this one folks. If you like this video, you know what to do, and if not, you still know what to do. We have some links in the video description with all the extra info should you want to dig into it further.

Easter Egg: Android 10

As I mentioned earlier, here's a look at the Easter Egg for Android 10. Yep, there it is.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hindi from android ah 30.com and today we're finally taking a look at android 10 first let's take a look at the UI changes the biggest and most noticeable UI change is the new gesture control it replaces the home button and back button from android pi with a single white line that is only visible while actually in app app from there it's simply a matter of learning the new navigation controls so let's do a little bit of a primer on how these gesture controls work to head back to the home screen at any time simply swipe up from the bottom the back button is replaced by swiping in from either the left or right edge and we suspect Google does this for left and right-handed folks you can adjust the sensitivity of the back gesture in the settings recent apps is about as easy as can be expected in a gesture control system like this you simply swipe up and hold on any screen to enable it it takes a sight to get used to because you have to wait for the card to kind of come in from the left but it works on both the home screen and any apps screen in the same way simply pull up and hold until you see the recent apps load in and then you let go easy peasy there are a couple more neat tricks that you can do you can switch between your applications by swiping horizontally across the bottom and it's a lot faster and more efficient than double tapping the recent apps button in older versions of Android another neat trick is drawer peeking where you can hold your finger against the left edge of the screen to make the overflow menu appear without hitting any buttons Google also added some Google assistant love handles to the corners you simply swipe out from the corner of any screen to activate Google assistant if you want to this replaces the long press home functionality from earlier versions of Android and as far as I can tell you can't turn these off unless you disable or uninstall Google Assistant it admittedly takes a little while to get used to but it's not half bad once you do the only time I ran into real difficulty was in the browser when dealing with you know those websites that require spamming the FAQ button to leave and that action is a lot more tedious with gesture controls than they are with soft keys otherwise it's mostly just adopting new muscle memory and then everything is fine now despite all this I personally still prefer the comforting quickness of soft keys and you can change them back in the settings if you want to simply navigate to settings then system then and then finally to system navigation to change between the new navigation gestures the old Android pie gestures or the old-school three key navbar other than that most of the rest the stuff remains the same Google feet is off to the left as usual and the quick settings and regular settings menus are more or less the same as they were before nothing really new in those areas there were over a dozen very minor UI changes for things like folder color icons and other miscellaneous it would take all day to point them out but we do have an article that details all of those changes in the video description below if you're curious Google did add a dark theme though and you can access that dark theme by heading to the display settings or by adding the toggle to your quick settings menu it's an AMOLED black theme rather than a dark grey something I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy you can also add accent colors in the settings I made mine purple because I have a purple pixel and it stays even when the dark theme is in place this is a nice addition and adds a bit more customization as long as you don't mind slogging into the developer options to find it lastly before I forget the emergency info button is now more easily accessible in the power menu along with a slight overhaul of the information once you access it Android 10 also came with a bunch of new features we'll start with some accessibility features first the accessibility menu now comes with shortcuts for live transcribe and sound amplifier both of them are applications you can find in the Google Play Store and help deaf people either see what people are saying or make the speakers louder so the hard-of-hearing can hear better an extension of this and probably the most impressive accessibility feature is live caption live caption listens to the audio on the device like music podcasts or video content and adds captions so you can read what's being said unfortunately this only works on higher-end devices at launch and I've got a pixel 3/8 here so I wasn't able to try it myself still it looks like a pretty awesome feature a bunch of existing features also got revamps digital well being for instance now has a focus mode that Gray's out applications that you consider to be distracting to help you focus better additionally there are now family linked parental controls for all of you with kids out there you can access the parental controls in the digital well-being section in the settings and of course download the application on Google Play meanwhile Google removed the ability to snooze notifications with most of that functionality already being relegated to the digital well-being app how they didn't leave users high and dry by long-pressing notifications you can now choose silent mode or alerting mode the names basically tell you what they do you still get every notification but you can now choose which ones actually makes sound or just chill in the notification shade area until you're ready to use them there is also support for a new feature called bubbles this is basically Facebook messengers chat heads but with native support in the Android operating system unfortunately unless you do some command line stuff you can't really see what it looks like until more apps support the feature however if you've used Facebook chat heads or any other floating icon instance you pretty much know what to expect some other smaller features include smart reply for all messaging apps by default and smart reply now suggests actions an example is a Google Maps suggestion when you receive an address there's an overhauled sharing menu that is supposed to do better than the old one and applications can now call up the settings menu for things like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in certain situations Android 10 also as the native ability for the phone app to determine if a call is spam and to silently block that call without user inputs finally another minor but helpful feature is a seek bar on the media notifications for quick skipping and moving around of course Android 10 has a variety of under the hood changes new api's for developers and other such things that you'll eventually see but maybe not right away because these things take time one of the hallmark new features includes project mainline this new initiative allows certain aspects of the OS to get updates directly through the Google Play Store like any application one notable example of this includes security updates and with this new system in place you could download a monthly security update like any old app update instead of an over-the-air updates some other things that are included are media codecs timezone data DNS resolvers and more Android 10 also lets app and game developers take action if your phone gets too hot this new thermal API lets apps and games see your CPU temperatures and adjust their performance accordingly if your phone gets too hot for instance a game may turn its graphic settings down if it notices your phone is too hot apps can reduce web traffic or your speaker volume to save your battery life and CPU temps as well the OS also has a new API that standardizes depth data for photographs this lets third-party applications have better blur effects and bouquet boki Oh larkey whatever anyway it's not just useful for cameras but for photo editors as well we won't know exactly how this affects the app community until we see it in action oh and there is native support for monochrome camera sensors as well Google is also adding a long time Xiaomi and Huawei feature users can share Wi-Fi passwords via QR code for easier and faster logins it also displays your Wi-Fi password if you need to see it some other fun features include a new audio playback API for things like call recording and video game audio capture official support for a Sikh bar in the media notifications which we talked about already support for foldable phones improvements to multi camera setups updates to Kotlin and some additional stuff for enterprise Google has been enthusiastic about security over the last few years and Android 10 is no exception most of the sheer security features are revamps of existing things but along with stuff like Project mainline there's a fair amount of good stuff here the first thing we'll talk about is an overhaul to permissions when you grant a location permission for instance Android will ask if you want the permission to be available to that application all the time or only while the app is in use this helps prevent applications from tracking your location when you don't use them there is a similar prompt for things like recording audio and other sensitive permissions additionally apps to download stuff only get permission to access the downloaded file instead of all of your internal storage meanwhile the apps section of the settings menu is also easier to use with more information about which apps have which permissions for manual management for those who want even more granular permission controls we recommend an application called bouncer which still does it a little bit better than Android 10 one of the other permissions that received a big change is scoped storage it's optional for file browser apps to use this API in Android 10 but it will be mandatory in the next version thankfully solid Explorer added its support already so we can show you what it looks like basically you give the application permission to view your files and then you decide which files it can look at since it was designed to look at things it did not create if you don't give solid Explorer access to the Downloads folder for instance it can't view the Downloads folder despite having the permission to view the other files on your device some other restrictions include background activities being a little more police by the operating system restricted access on sensitive information like IMEI and MAC address and restrictions to camera and connection access without user permission of course there are a bunch of other things that we didn't mention here and we have a link to the Google developers website in the video description below for those who want to see the smaller details ok so let's talk about this update a little bit Android 10 has some big changes particularly to the navigation gestures and the permissions overhaul both of them are highly welcome even if the gesture navigation takes a minute or two to get used to the gesture controls are actually better and more consistent than Android Pi and it's a surprisingly welcome change at least in my humble opinion it gives the appearance of a much larger overhaul than there really was however at the end of the day I still prefer the comfort and ease of soft keys with the rest of it it feels a little bit like Android PI 2.0 everything feels like extensions or completions of what Google tried to do last year and if you combine last year's efforts and this year's efforts together you see a consistent and pronounced difference between the nougat and Oreo generation and the PI and Android 10 generation in day-to-day use the OS works perfectly fine the permission overhaul is greatly appreciated and works as expected in all the spots I tested for it's nice to see Google giving some control of these things back to the users after years and basically just accepting them and having no power otherwise in no universe does anybody want Facebook to know their location all the time and with Android 10 Facebook won't know and that makes me a happy person of course a lot of these changes such as bubbles and the new api's may take a little while before we actually get to try them out as app developers haven't yet integrated a lot of this stuff thus expect to see a few changes to the experience if you already use Android 10 later on down the line otherwise on my pixel 3a at least the phone flips and flies around as it should especially after I got used to the gesture controls thus I can conclude that all of these changes don't impact performance in any notable way finally let's talk a little bit about the Android 10 rebranding Google still uses desert names but it'll be a code word internally rather than a public-facing name in fact David Burke said that this year would have been Queen cake if they'd continued the practice the logo got a minor change along with the color scheme and a few other tidbits David Amell actually went to Google and talked to them about it you can watch that video by clicking the top corner right now if you have a compatible device and want to try the new Android 10 for yourself will have download links in the video description below or you may just need to hit the Update button in the settings if you own a pixel or some of the other supported devices oh and before I forget here's a look at the Easter Egg for Android 10 yep there it is and that about does it for this one folks if you like this video you know what to do and if not you still know what to do we have some links in the video description with all the extra info should you want to do it and as always thanks again for watching everybody and have a wonderful dayhello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hindi from android ah 30.com and today we're finally taking a look at android 10 first let's take a look at the UI changes the biggest and most noticeable UI change is the new gesture control it replaces the home button and back button from android pi with a single white line that is only visible while actually in app app from there it's simply a matter of learning the new navigation controls so let's do a little bit of a primer on how these gesture controls work to head back to the home screen at any time simply swipe up from the bottom the back button is replaced by swiping in from either the left or right edge and we suspect Google does this for left and right-handed folks you can adjust the sensitivity of the back gesture in the settings recent apps is about as easy as can be expected in a gesture control system like this you simply swipe up and hold on any screen to enable it it takes a sight to get used to because you have to wait for the card to kind of come in from the left but it works on both the home screen and any apps screen in the same way simply pull up and hold until you see the recent apps load in and then you let go easy peasy there are a couple more neat tricks that you can do you can switch between your applications by swiping horizontally across the bottom and it's a lot faster and more efficient than double tapping the recent apps button in older versions of Android another neat trick is drawer peeking where you can hold your finger against the left edge of the screen to make the overflow menu appear without hitting any buttons Google also added some Google assistant love handles to the corners you simply swipe out from the corner of any screen to activate Google assistant if you want to this replaces the long press home functionality from earlier versions of Android and as far as I can tell you can't turn these off unless you disable or uninstall Google Assistant it admittedly takes a little while to get used to but it's not half bad once you do the only time I ran into real difficulty was in the browser when dealing with you know those websites that require spamming the FAQ button to leave and that action is a lot more tedious with gesture controls than they are with soft keys otherwise it's mostly just adopting new muscle memory and then everything is fine now despite all this I personally still prefer the comforting quickness of soft keys and you can change them back in the settings if you want to simply navigate to settings then system then and then finally to system navigation to change between the new navigation gestures the old Android pie gestures or the old-school three key navbar other than that most of the rest the stuff remains the same Google feet is off to the left as usual and the quick settings and regular settings menus are more or less the same as they were before nothing really new in those areas there were over a dozen very minor UI changes for things like folder color icons and other miscellaneous it would take all day to point them out but we do have an article that details all of those changes in the video description below if you're curious Google did add a dark theme though and you can access that dark theme by heading to the display settings or by adding the toggle to your quick settings menu it's an AMOLED black theme rather than a dark grey something I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy you can also add accent colors in the settings I made mine purple because I have a purple pixel and it stays even when the dark theme is in place this is a nice addition and adds a bit more customization as long as you don't mind slogging into the developer options to find it lastly before I forget the emergency info button is now more easily accessible in the power menu along with a slight overhaul of the information once you access it Android 10 also came with a bunch of new features we'll start with some accessibility features first the accessibility menu now comes with shortcuts for live transcribe and sound amplifier both of them are applications you can find in the Google Play Store and help deaf people either see what people are saying or make the speakers louder so the hard-of-hearing can hear better an extension of this and probably the most impressive accessibility feature is live caption live caption listens to the audio on the device like music podcasts or video content and adds captions so you can read what's being said unfortunately this only works on higher-end devices at launch and I've got a pixel 3/8 here so I wasn't able to try it myself still it looks like a pretty awesome feature a bunch of existing features also got revamps digital well being for instance now has a focus mode that Gray's out applications that you consider to be distracting to help you focus better additionally there are now family linked parental controls for all of you with kids out there you can access the parental controls in the digital well-being section in the settings and of course download the application on Google Play meanwhile Google removed the ability to snooze notifications with most of that functionality already being relegated to the digital well-being app how they didn't leave users high and dry by long-pressing notifications you can now choose silent mode or alerting mode the names basically tell you what they do you still get every notification but you can now choose which ones actually makes sound or just chill in the notification shade area until you're ready to use them there is also support for a new feature called bubbles this is basically Facebook messengers chat heads but with native support in the Android operating system unfortunately unless you do some command line stuff you can't really see what it looks like until more apps support the feature however if you've used Facebook chat heads or any other floating icon instance you pretty much know what to expect some other smaller features include smart reply for all messaging apps by default and smart reply now suggests actions an example is a Google Maps suggestion when you receive an address there's an overhauled sharing menu that is supposed to do better than the old one and applications can now call up the settings menu for things like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in certain situations Android 10 also as the native ability for the phone app to determine if a call is spam and to silently block that call without user inputs finally another minor but helpful feature is a seek bar on the media notifications for quick skipping and moving around of course Android 10 has a variety of under the hood changes new api's for developers and other such things that you'll eventually see but maybe not right away because these things take time one of the hallmark new features includes project mainline this new initiative allows certain aspects of the OS to get updates directly through the Google Play Store like any application one notable example of this includes security updates and with this new system in place you could download a monthly security update like any old app update instead of an over-the-air updates some other things that are included are media codecs timezone data DNS resolvers and more Android 10 also lets app and game developers take action if your phone gets too hot this new thermal API lets apps and games see your CPU temperatures and adjust their performance accordingly if your phone gets too hot for instance a game may turn its graphic settings down if it notices your phone is too hot apps can reduce web traffic or your speaker volume to save your battery life and CPU temps as well the OS also has a new API that standardizes depth data for photographs this lets third-party applications have better blur effects and bouquet boki Oh larkey whatever anyway it's not just useful for cameras but for photo editors as well we won't know exactly how this affects the app community until we see it in action oh and there is native support for monochrome camera sensors as well Google is also adding a long time Xiaomi and Huawei feature users can share Wi-Fi passwords via QR code for easier and faster logins it also displays your Wi-Fi password if you need to see it some other fun features include a new audio playback API for things like call recording and video game audio capture official support for a Sikh bar in the media notifications which we talked about already support for foldable phones improvements to multi camera setups updates to Kotlin and some additional stuff for enterprise Google has been enthusiastic about security over the last few years and Android 10 is no exception most of the sheer security features are revamps of existing things but along with stuff like Project mainline there's a fair amount of good stuff here the first thing we'll talk about is an overhaul to permissions when you grant a location permission for instance Android will ask if you want the permission to be available to that application all the time or only while the app is in use this helps prevent applications from tracking your location when you don't use them there is a similar prompt for things like recording audio and other sensitive permissions additionally apps to download stuff only get permission to access the downloaded file instead of all of your internal storage meanwhile the apps section of the settings menu is also easier to use with more information about which apps have which permissions for manual management for those who want even more granular permission controls we recommend an application called bouncer which still does it a little bit better than Android 10 one of the other permissions that received a big change is scoped storage it's optional for file browser apps to use this API in Android 10 but it will be mandatory in the next version thankfully solid Explorer added its support already so we can show you what it looks like basically you give the application permission to view your files and then you decide which files it can look at since it was designed to look at things it did not create if you don't give solid Explorer access to the Downloads folder for instance it can't view the Downloads folder despite having the permission to view the other files on your device some other restrictions include background activities being a little more police by the operating system restricted access on sensitive information like IMEI and MAC address and restrictions to camera and connection access without user permission of course there are a bunch of other things that we didn't mention here and we have a link to the Google developers website in the video description below for those who want to see the smaller details ok so let's talk about this update a little bit Android 10 has some big changes particularly to the navigation gestures and the permissions overhaul both of them are highly welcome even if the gesture navigation takes a minute or two to get used to the gesture controls are actually better and more consistent than Android Pi and it's a surprisingly welcome change at least in my humble opinion it gives the appearance of a much larger overhaul than there really was however at the end of the day I still prefer the comfort and ease of soft keys with the rest of it it feels a little bit like Android PI 2.0 everything feels like extensions or completions of what Google tried to do last year and if you combine last year's efforts and this year's efforts together you see a consistent and pronounced difference between the nougat and Oreo generation and the PI and Android 10 generation in day-to-day use the OS works perfectly fine the permission overhaul is greatly appreciated and works as expected in all the spots I tested for it's nice to see Google giving some control of these things back to the users after years and basically just accepting them and having no power otherwise in no universe does anybody want Facebook to know their location all the time and with Android 10 Facebook won't know and that makes me a happy person of course a lot of these changes such as bubbles and the new api's may take a little while before we actually get to try them out as app developers haven't yet integrated a lot of this stuff thus expect to see a few changes to the experience if you already use Android 10 later on down the line otherwise on my pixel 3a at least the phone flips and flies around as it should especially after I got used to the gesture controls thus I can conclude that all of these changes don't impact performance in any notable way finally let's talk a little bit about the Android 10 rebranding Google still uses desert names but it'll be a code word internally rather than a public-facing name in fact David Burke said that this year would have been Queen cake if they'd continued the practice the logo got a minor change along with the color scheme and a few other tidbits David Amell actually went to Google and talked to them about it you can watch that video by clicking the top corner right now if you have a compatible device and want to try the new Android 10 for yourself will have download links in the video description below or you may just need to hit the Update button in the settings if you own a pixel or some of the other supported devices oh and before I forget here's a look at the Easter Egg for Android 10 yep there it is and that about does it for this one folks if you like this video you know what to do and if not you still know what to do we have some links in the video description with all the extra info should you want to do it and as always thanks again for watching everybody and have a wonderful day\n"