Superbug in Superuser 3.0

Superbug

If you've rooted your phone, you'll have Superuser installed on it.

Superuser is an app that grants Android apps root permissions. Rooted phones can't live without it, because you need a way to control which apps can have root privileges and which apps cannot. Without such a gatekeeper any app would have root access on a rooted phone, which would create more security problems than Microsoft and Adobe combined.

Today the Android Market sports a brand new edition of Superuser, version 3.0. If you update to the latest version you may run into supertrouble. Fat chance that the updated Superuser won't launch at all, or it will force close when you try to open it. Possible reasons: your old copy of Superuser was signed with the wrong key, or it can't write data to your system partition.

Bugspray

If you're lucky you can repair Superuser by going to the Android application settings menu (settings/applications/manage applications) and clear all Superuser data. You'll need to set root permissions for your apps again when you clear the Superuser data, but you'll probably have to do that anyway because the update is likely to ignore your old settings.

But sometimes even clearing the data doesn't help. If that happens you should give SU Update Fixer a shot. This is a sort of bugspray made by the developer of Superuser. It's meant to fix glitches when you update from a third party Superuser version (from custom ROMs and apps to root your phone) to the official Android Market version.

If that doesn't work you should revert to your old Superuser version. Of course you'll need a backup copy for that, so make sure to back up your old Superuser app with Titanium, MyBackup, your file manager, or whatever method you use to create backup copies of your apps. You'll probably need the apk installer file to reinstall your old version of Superuser, because without a working version running your backup and restore app is not gonna get the root permission that it needs to do its job.

Antivirus apps like AVG will probably flash a false positive at you. The solution is simple: just ignore the false alarm.

• Superuser at androidsu.com
• SU Update Fixer at androidsu.com
• Superuser (Android Market)
• SU Update Fixer (Android Market)

Market scam: avoid Camera Pro by Mobile Whiz LLD

Free market: pros and cons

Unlike the Apple app store, the Android Market is a free market. Anyone can publish anything without prior censorship.

This freedom is good, but it comes at a price. A free market is more vulnerable to abuse than a closed shop in a gated community. Remember all those apps that ask money for free maps from OpenStreetMap? Or the apps that slap ads on books with expired copyrights, and then receive a daily update as if the writer wrote a final chapter after being dead and buried? You've probably seen that endless stream of vibrator apps too. Same app under a dozen different names, and they get a daily fake update to spam their way to the top of the "just in" section of the market.

Market failure

Another app that abuses the liberties of the free Android Market is Camera Pro by Mobile Whiz LLD.

The offer looks too good to be true. Camera Pro promises thousands of filters and lenses for your phone camera, says it's incredibly fast, and more.

It also claims raving reviews in its market description: "Coolest camera app around! 5 stars! What more could you ask for?"

These reviews are totally fake. Camera Pro put these endorsements on their market page before anyone bothered to leave a real comment. Not that the comments section is of any help, because those comments faked by the developer too.

I saw this app on the market a couple of days ago. I tried it, found that it was not an app but just a frontend for a web site, and it didn't even work. So I left a one star rating and a matching comment. I was the first one to comment, and the first to hand out a star. I had to give it that one lone star because the Android Market won't let you award zero stars, and if you don't give stars you're not allowed to leave a comment.

The next day I saw this app again in the "just in" section of the market. To my surprise my rating and comment were gone, and so were all the other comments that told the truth about the app. Instead, there were three wildly enthousiastic comments and three five star ratings. A low and equal number of ratings and comments usually means that the developer downloaded his own app a few times to write fake comments and cheat the rating system.

When the app got downloaded by others the ratings went downhill and the comments started to reflect the true nature of the app: crapware, and possibly malicious too.

And then it reappeared as if it was brand new. When I looked it has one comment. It's positive beyond reality, so I suspect foul play by the app coder. It had two ratings: a 5* rating from its maker and a 1* rating from a real user.

You can't erase negative comments and low star ratings from an existing app. But you can pull your listing off the market, and then upload the same crap again as if it was a new app. Added three times, twice removed. The same old version of Camera Pro will probably be pulled out and reuploaded tomorrow. And then again and again. How long can Mobile Whiz LLD get away with this before Google kills their market account?

September 26, 2011 update: Indeed, Camera Pro reappeared. Mobile Whiz LLC pulled the "remove and reupload" trick yet again to censor out the real ratings and comments, which tell a truth that the fake ratings try to hide.

Circumventing the rating and comment system is not the only reason why you should stay away from this app. Another reason is that the app doesn't work as advertised. I doubt that it works at all. And there's more:

Malware alert

When you install Camera Pro it demands a long list of permissions. Dangerous permissions. Permissions that can be abused to grab every email address out of your address book and sell 'em to the spambots.

Camera Pro is a photo editing app. But it also wants the flawed "phone state and identity" permission (which means it can read your phone number and IMEI), all your contact data, and access to your SMSs and MMSs. Needless to say, it asks for full internet access too, so it can grab all your private info and send it to who-knows-where.

Wait, that's not all. It wants permission to start all by itself at boot too. Even if you don't launch the app it can do so by itself for no obvious reason. Why would a photo editor need to start automatically when you switch on your phone? Can't it wait until you have a picture to edit?

For all practical purposes Camera Pro should be labeled "malware" until the developer learns about business ethics. My advice: stay away from this app!

September 29, 2011 update: Camera Pro by Mobile Whiz LLC is gone from the Android Market.

Why your app says "no" when you try to move it to your SD card

Hey hey, you you, get off of my card!

Browse the market and you'll find bazillions of comments along the lines of: "Crapware! Dis app sux donkey ass. F*kking piece of shyt wont instal on SD."

Needless to say, the commenter usually blames the app developer for doing the right thing.

Because not all apps can run from your SD card, and even for those that can there are often good reasons why they shouldn't.

In a perfect Android world no app would run from your memory card, because you'd have so much internal memory on your phone that there'd be no need to send apps away. SD cards are more likely to be bitten by data corruption. If they're not mounted, your phone won't see them so the apps on them won't run. Memory cards are much slower than your internal memory. There are plenty of reasons why you should only install apps on your SD card if you're really out space on your internal phone memory. Moving apps to SD is a measure of last resort, and you'll need to think carefully about which apps you can dump on your card and which apps you shouldn't.

To card or not to card

Apps on your memory card are stored in a folder called .android_secure. If you open this folder in a file manager on your phone it appears empty, but if you browse your memory card from a computer you'll see what's inside. Dictionary app Euro Dictionary stores stuff in that folder, and so does language tutor busuu. Apps that require large external libraries tend to store 'em on your memory card by default because they have good reasons for that.

And then there are apps which have no business on your SD card, because that would simply break them.

Any app with widgets needs to live on your internal phone memory. Put 'em on your SD card and your widgets won't work properly, because whenever your SD card is unmounted your phone won't see what's on it.

Anything that needs to autostart before other apps doesn't belong on your SD card either. You'd want a security app like LBE Privacy Guard to start before anything else does, wouldn't you. And DroidWall would be even more leaky on boot if it would sit on SD. Anything you move out of internal memory starts after everything else does.

Launchers? Try to move 'em to SD and see what happens. VoIP apps? Put 'em on SD and nobody can reach you when you're copying music from your PC. Alarm clocks and calendars? If your SD card is talking to your computer instead of your phone you'll oversleep and miss your flight. Keyboard apps have no business on your external card either.

And yet people punish developers by spitting negative comments and one star ratings at apps that they can't push to their cards because that would break 'em. Maybe developers should use their market descriptions to explain why their apps won't sit on SD to educate the ignorant?

Countdown timer Timers4Me improves stopwatch, adds alarm clock

Sign of the times

Need a good free countdown timer/stopwatch combination for your Android phone? Go get Timers4Me. It stores multiple timers and you can run 'em together. Minor issue number 1: you have to set the timers with annoying scrollwheels. Issue number two: alarms only sound for one minute or the length of your chosen alarm tone (tip: use a very long mp3). Even so, it's lightyears ahead of the other free timer apps floating around on the Android Market.

Stopwatch

Ultimate Stopwatch used to be the best free stopwatch, but then Timers4Me added a stopwatch of its own. The first attempt wasn't a very good one, so I kept Ultimate Stopwatch next to Timers4Me.

But Timers4Me doesn't waste time. The latest updates improved the stopwatch (now it measures to 1/100th of a second instead of a just a tenth). I uninstalled Ultimate Stopwatch because it's not so ultimate anymore.

Alarm clock

New in Timers4Me: an alarm clock! Not a very good clock, because it only screams for one minute or a single alarm tone duration (a flaw it shares with the countdown timer). A clock that wants to wake me up on an early monday morning after a long weekend of sex & drugs & rock & roll needs to work a lot harder. That's why Alarms Solo is still my alarm clock of choice.

On the bright side, the new alarm clock in Timers4Me doesn't bother you with a scrollwheel like its countdown timer does. It simply lets you punch in the time with your numeric keypad. Transplant that mode of entry to the countdown timer tab and we have a winner. For those who really want to keep the scrollwheel, a simple toggle in the settings menu to choose your favourite input method would do the job.

Times ahead

If Timers4Me upgrades its snooze options and adds alarm tone looping it may boot another competitor off my phone.

Who knows what's next? Maybe Timers4Me will integrate the functions of ClockSync and TM World Clock to build the ultimate app for all times?

• Timers4Me (Android Market)