 You're gonna try to record this video again without getting too long-winded. Anyway, short version of the story. Trying to do a lot of things with my phone, a little different than I've been doing. And I want to automatically sync my text messages with my desktop, which has gone well for the most part, but because of Android's weird and stupid, in my opinion, permissions, it has made it very difficult. And that's what I refer to as fake security, where they try to put these things in that complicate things and actually in the long run make them less secure. And I've talked about this in the past. So there are two types, main things on a computer, two types of files. You have system files, which are, you know, system install programs and configurations, which you should have to be a root user to access. And then you have your own personal files, which you should be able to have full access to without any restrictions because they're your files. But you see, Android doesn't work like that. You see, people look at me and they see I have an Android phone. They go, oh, Chris is an Android guy, because they think the only options you have are Android and iOS, you know, and iPhone, which there are other options out there. But yeah, yeah, I use an Android phone because, you know, it's got a Linux kernel. And if you have a root shell, you know, I can do pretty much anything I can with my desktop. Just sometimes because of Android, I got to work around it. I got to do trickery stuff, which really makes things less secure, but because of this fake security. So no, I think Android sucks greatly. The interface is good. That's about the only thing that's good about it. And the fact that it uses a Linux kernel, which eventually supposedly it's not going to use the Linux kernel anymore. And then I don't know what I'm going to do. But that's a whole nother story. Truth is Android sucks is just, it sucks a hundred times less than iOS, which is just completely useless. But again, the stupid permissions on it are the biggest thing, that and the screwed up file system and how they just throw files in weird places. But the permissions, which get worse with every version of Android. So again, I have personal files that are my files that I should be able to access without restrictions once I'm logged in as a certain user. So I want to synchronize my database of text messages, which is your text messages are in a database, if you're using most standard texting applications. It's called MMSSMS.DB and it's a SQL Lite 3 database, which once you pull, you can easily dump into a CVS file or however you want. And you know, it's a SQL Lite database. It's under port slash data, port slash data dot Android dot SMS or something weird like that or messages. Anyway, all I want to be able to do is synchronize that with my desktop automatically without having to install some weird program I'm unfamiliar with. So you think I'd just be able to script that out? Well, no, no. Even though that is my database of text messages, I need special permissions to access it. So it comes down to this, I try to use sync thing and I showed you guys sync thing recently. It is a great application. This problem is when you're doing it on an Android phone, there's so many weird restrictions, it makes it difficult. For example, I put my music on my SD card. Well, sync thing is allowed to read from the SD card, but it can't write to the SD card unless it's in the sync thing folder on the SD card. So I can either put my music in a weird place in the sync thing folder or if I want to sync both ways from my desktop to my phone, I have to run sync thing as root, which you can do, but that's just stupid. Because of these weird permissions on Android, you have to do things like run things as root that you shouldn't have to run as root. These are my phone. I should be able to access every file on my SD card. It's 4-Minute has a Fat32 file system. There should be no permissions on it. Once it's mounted, I should be able to access it completely, everything on it as my user. Going back to the whole database thing, I can't just read that database file, even though they're my text messages, the program needs special permissions. So I can't just point sync thing at it and go, hey, sync my database to my desktop. Originally what I was doing, I have to run as script as root. So I roll a little script in termux that runs as root every so often and copies that into a folder that sync thing can then synchronize with my desktop, which is just ridiculous. So I did that, but now it's like I have the script running as root that doesn't require a password for something that I shouldn't need root permissions for. So you see what I'm saying? These fake permissions, these permissions that don't make any sense because this is my file, I should be able to access it, but now I got to run something as root that doesn't require a password. That is ridiculous. I should be able to access that file without any restrictions. It's my file. Now if it's a multi-user, then there should be a database for one user and a database for another user. I shouldn't be able to access theirs without the proper credentials. So I can either run a script as root or I can run sync thing as root, but there's really no easy way for me to just automatically backup my SMS database. There are programs like I've been using just for a couple of days now. It's called QK SMS. It is a great texting application, free and open source, pretty sure it's a GPL3 license. It is great and it has a button backup conversations and it will dump them for you to a file. Now I need something automatic for a project I'm working on, something automatic that I don't have to click a button, open up the program and click a button, but because of these funky permissions on Android, it made it really, really difficult and it's fake security. Again, I've talked about this before and someone said, oh, they misunderstood what I'm saying. They're like, oh, why should, for example, I'm talking about this, why should I have to type in a password every time I want to access my messages. That's my point is I shouldn't have to. I should only have to put in my password to log in as my user and once I'm logged in, I should have full access to all my files, but because of these permissions on Android, I'm just making these workarounds that make things less secure because now I'm running all these different things as root that shouldn't have root. Now they have access to things that the regular users shouldn't. So, and you know, you're going back to, you know, is the program safe? Sure, all the programs on mine are safe as far as I've trusted them, but that doesn't mean there's not a security issue in them. There could be a bug in them, especially something like sync thing. Sync thing is running on a network and synchronize the file. If there's a security issue on that, that could be access to somebody and now they get in and they don't just have regular user access. If I'm running it as root, they now have root access, which allows them to do a lot more than just a regular user because a regular user, you can't, you know, on a desktop computer, you can't do key logging as a regular user. You'd have to be root to do that. Once your root is very easy to key log stuff, but as a regular user, it's a little bit more difficult because you can't just access those devices. But once your root, now you can do that. You can install other applications. There's so much you can do as a root user that you can't do as a regular user. But as far as accessing my own files, I should be able to access my own files without restrictions. And when you put restrictions on them, it causes people to do work arounds that aren't safe. And that is one of my biggest issues. My two biggest issues with, well, three biggest issues with Android. One is the whole permissions thing is just ridiculous. Two, their file structure is ridiculous. And then I like the Android interface for small devices, but I kind of wish that it, you know, was xorg compatible. And yeah, you can run xorg, but you're not going to get the hardware acceleration and stuff like that. That's minimal to me. It just, it would be nice if, you know, they based something on, you know, Linux kernel that they used xorg. But anyway, yeah, so don't get me wrong. I hate Android in many ways. But it is the best option out there for most devices. So I'm not saying it is the best option. I'm just saying for most devices without buying all new hardware. Anyway, that is my thought for today. So basically, basically to make Android useful, just run everything as root in which case you're basically like a Windows user, right? So anyway, thanks for watching. And I hope that you have a great day.