Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings
matan-h.com
I recently discovered a secret browser located inside the "Manage my account" popup that Android has in various apps (quite important apps, such as Settings, and all Google suite apps).

A dev recently discovered a browser built into the settings (for any google app that lets you edit settings). From there you can bypass parental controls or enterprise restrictions.

This is a pretty exciting “extra feature”, Google!

  • TWeaK@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    This isn’t a secret browser, it’s Android System Webview - the system browser apps use when they aren’t a browser.

    What they’ve found here is a route to google.com from a webview page accessed from within the settings.

    • wet_lettuce@beehaw.orgOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      100% but I believe these are typically locked down to one domain, and in this case its not.

      At least thats how I understand it. So I guess the article is a little misleading in that sense, but the net effect is the same. You have carte blanche access to the web, via android system webview, thats acting as a de-facto out-of-band browser. So its misconfigured or not locked down, which means you can use it effectively as a “hidden” browser.

  • MyMulligan@lemmy.one
    1·
    1 year ago

    Curious if someone in an abusive relationship could use this trick if their phone was being monitored. If the abuser was just monitoring them with the phone’s parental controls this would work but if there was an app probably not?

  • sibloure@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    This is kinda funny. During a family vacation as a kid, I went down to the hotel business center to use a computer kiosk but it required payment. I was bored so I was clicking around on the locked screen’s hotel logo and got to their company about page, and a bit more link clicking eventually got me out of the company’s website and to a google search page. I browsed for free for what seemed like an hour and did it again the next day before we went home.

    • variants_of_concern@lemmy.one
      1·
      1 year ago

      boredom has made me the man I am today, its tough now a days to get bored and not pull out your phone and browse lemmy instead of doing your hobbies

    • Troy@lemmy.ca
      0·
      1 year ago

      I have a memory of something similar at a travel tourism kiosk. Kiosk was locked to their webpage. Right clicked an image, chose “save as”, navigated to something with a folder, right clicked and chose “Open in New Window” (might be misrembering – older version of windows) to pop up Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer, at the time, embedded Internet Explorer 4 if you typed a URL in the address bar, so off the races I was.

      Life before smartphones, man.

      • sibloure@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        Haha, yes! Sounds about right. Someone could create a puzzle game where you trying to escape a vendor kiosk and it gets progressively more complex as you go on.