How does Firefox react if various permissions are removed?
An app called Advanced Permissions Manager is available for Android which allows the user to reinstall other apps like Firefox) with various permissions removed. Since I have no need for webrtc I would like to be able to remove the sound recording permission for instance. Will Firefox still run ok? How about if I remove the location permission? Would Firefox reflect that no-permission condition back to the site that asked for location information?
Ọ̀nà àbáyọ tí a yàn
If you remove a specific permission then Firefox won't be able to use this feature.
For the location this would be to make a offer you results for your current location and for WebRTC features that require this service.
If you are not using these features that it shouldn't be a problem and you can always re-enable them if necessary.
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Removing the permissions of items may ideally work the same because some of those permissions are essentially asking about permissions of other apps to use certain features. For example, if a website asks for the location, if that app is stopping the location permission this would ideally stop it from working in Firefox.
However for sound recording permission in Firefox it looks like this was already answered in this thread https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../971771
Firefox will still ask for permission it seems.
The native Permission Manager reference is in this article below
Permissions Manager - Give certain websites the ability to store passwords, set cookies and more
I'm not sure I stated my question clearly. What happens if Firefox does something based on the assumption that it has a specific permission from the Android O.S. and that permission is no longer among the list of permissions that Firefox requested when it was installed?
When first installed, and when updated, Firefox, like many other Android Apps, presents the user with a list of scary, intrusive sounding permissions, all of which must be approved before the application is installed. The Advanced Permission Manager App seems to give the user the ability to accept some permissions and reject others and still install the application (Firefox in this case). If it does what it says it does, I expect it to be very popular.
I guess what I'm asking is does Firefox gracefully accept being told by the Android OS that it really doesn't have permission to do something it just tried to do?
Ọ̀nà àbáyọ Tí a Yàn
If you remove a specific permission then Firefox won't be able to use this feature.
For the location this would be to make a offer you results for your current location and for WebRTC features that require this service.
If you are not using these features that it shouldn't be a problem and you can always re-enable them if necessary.
Note we don't test such setups. There is a chance that Firefox will crash.
You can read about the permissions Firefox asks for at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-firefox-android-use-permissions-it-requests
Permissions such as Location, Camera, Audio and NFC all are only used to support web applications that want to use them. The user has control over granting or denying access to these device features. The doorhanger UI used for these requests are not modal and default to not allowing access to the device feature.