Regardless of how good it is, I don't feel comfortable installing it because of the permissions it requires. You don't lose much by visiting fb.com in a browser.
Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
Allows the app to read data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific individuals. This permission allows apps to save your contact data, and malicious apps may share contact data without your knowledge.
Allows the app to modify the data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific contacts. This permission allows apps to delete contact data.
Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. This permission allows the app to determine the phone number and device IDs, whether a call is active, and the remote number connected by a call.
But is it possible to allow app to take pictures (when you want), import contacts (if you want), sync contacts (again, optional) etc without those permissions?
I'm not an android developer, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but usually those permissions sound like you're giving up all your data but in reality it's just used to do something simple as to prevent vibration/ringing/notifications while you're talking on the phone.
It is not possible. This is a serious flaw in Android's permissions model IMO. Everything must be asked for up-front in the app's manifest. You cannot ask for more permissions at run time.
Android is in serious need of better user control over app permissions.
Apps should have their permissions in two groups:
* Must-have: the app will not work without these (e.g. camera access for a picture-taking app)
* Optional: some features of the app will not work (e.g. camera access for Facebook)
Despite how bad the Facebook app is, I find it to be much better than opening the website on a mobile browser, but I wish I, as the user, could specify what permissions to grant the app.
absolutely! I just visit fb with the browser! no problems there and works pretty good! And if you realllly need a icon, you can always add one to your homescreen, nothing like a web shortcult (already availbale with the built in browser and i think firefox will add it soon)! Done!
Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
Allows the app to read data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific individuals. This permission allows apps to save your contact data, and malicious apps may share contact data without your knowledge.
Allows the app to modify the data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific contacts. This permission allows apps to delete contact data.
Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. This permission allows the app to determine the phone number and device IDs, whether a call is active, and the remote number connected by a call.