How often do you click the 'back' or the ‘Home’
button on your mobile device to exit an application immediately?
Often this has severe
usability implications when a majority of users are already dealing with their
low-performance mobile devices and believe that clicking back button multiple
times would kill the app and save memory, but it doesn't
Google has now addressed
this issue and silently included a feature within Android 7.1 Nougat that
allows users to exit from apps by pressing the 'back' key successively within
0.3 seconds for over four times.
Dubbed "Panic
Detection Mode," the feature runs in the background of Android
operating system and detects panic in situations when a user repeatedly presses
the back button on their smartphone to exit an app and allows the operating
system to override the application and send the user safely back to the home
screen
While
Google did not publicly make any announcement about the panic detection mode
feature, XDA Developers yesterday unearthed the feature within the source code of Android 7.1
Nougat.
Since then a number of media outlets described Android 7.1 Nougat Panic
Detection Mode as a security feature that protects Android devices from malicious applications.
It has been reported as a new security feature that looks for the number of
times a user presses the back button within a certain amount of time and allows
users to exit from the apps that go rogue and try to take control of user's device.
But the feature seems to be developed by Google engineers keeping usability as
a priority, instead of security in mind.
Because activating panic detection mode neither automatically detects a
malicious app and report back to Google, nor it behaves differently for a
legitimate app.
However, it can help Android users in some cases to kill rogue app instantly;
but again it’s up to users if they are able to identify malicious apps themselves and want to remove them manually.
So, this feature is also useful if a malicious application takes control over
the display and prevents you from backing out of it.
The 'panic detection mode' feature is currently limited to the devices running
Android 7.1 Nougat, and not available for all the Android users, XDA Developers
pointed out. The feature also needs to be manually enabled by the user.
Google fights enough to keep its Android operating system safe and secure, but
malware and viruses still make their ways into its platform, especially through
malicious apps even on Google's own Play Store.
It appears that Google also has plans for wider implementation of the 'panic
detection mode' feature in the upcoming version of its Android OS and would
most likely make it enabled by default in the future releases.
No comments