How to check that an Android app has no internet access
Short answer. An Android app can only open network connections if it asks for the internet permission. So the check is to read the app's permission list and look for that one line, android.permission.INTERNET. In ZeroBox 0.6.7 it is not there. The phone's settings screen is a weaker test than it sounds, so below is a check that does not depend on it.
Why the settings screen is not enough
Android treats the internet permission as a routine one: it is granted automatically when an app is installed, with no question to you. Because of that, you should not rely on the app's Permissions screen to list it, and a missing line there tells you little in either direction. The list that is reliable is the one inside the installed app package.
The check, step by step
You need a computer and a USB cable. This is a developer-style check, but it takes a few minutes and works the same way for any app, not only ours.
- Install the Android command-line tools (the platform tools and the build tools) on your computer, and turn on USB debugging on the phone.
- Find the app's file on the phone:
adb shell pm path com.nexatools.zeroboxprints its location. - Copy it to the computer with
adb pulland the path you were given. - Read its permissions:
aapt dump permissions app.apk(use the file you copied). - Look for the line
android.permission.INTERNET. If it is absent, the app cannot open network connections by itself.
If some apps are delivered as several files (split packages), copy them all and check the base one.
What you will see for ZeroBox 0.6.7
We read the permission list of the release build of ZeroBox 0.6.7 this way. It contains no internet permission. It does contain a few others, each with a plain reason:
- Access to your photos and videos, and to the camera, so you can add files to the vault.
- Fingerprint and biometric unlock, and vibration.
- Google Play purchases (
com.android.vending.BILLING): this comes from Google's own billing library, and the purchase itself is handled by the Play Store app, not by ZeroBox. - Network state (
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE) and keeping the phone awake while a video plays (WAKE_LOCK): both come from the video player library. Network state lets an app ask whether a connection exists; it does not let it send or receive anything.
What “no internet permission” does not mean
- If you choose to share a file out of the vault, the share goes through other apps on your phone, and those apps may have internet. That is your decision at that moment, not something the vault does by itself.
- The check tells you what this version asks for. A later version could ask for more, which is why each version should be checked again, and why this page names the version it was checked against.