How To Guide Stop vivo spyware with app ops

[extremecarver]

I've tried everything possible to stop vivos spyware, namely cim.vivo.pushservice and com.vivo.abe (plus maybe some others but the main one clearly is push service - whatever you do interacting with your phone shortly after push service tries (because I blocked it's internet access with Adguard) to contact some Chinese servers.

Edit: For app ops to work reliably you need to debloat com.vivo.devicereg first. Also remove com.vivo.abe and other apps for best results first - see here for list: https://xdaforums.com/t/excessive-idle-drain-general-battery-drain.4544851/page-5#post-88459025

You cannot debloat it, you cannot freeze it, there is no normal way to remove it from starting as you cannot simply restrict it from running as it runs on user 1000.

However what you can do, though only with app ops is to simply remove it access to any system content by providing fake zero content (ignore). Actual denying is also not possible.

I'm attaching a screenshot on how to set it up and I don't know which actual setting works, but something does work because for the first time I'm using this device it's not trying to connect to the internet anymore. This should also substantially improve battery life.




You need to activate system and system framework apps to show it. By default they are hidden.



It's quite crazy how many times different vivo apps access location and contacts. Well enough other apps are pretty annoying in accessing fine location so app ops is a great tool to cut down on requests by apps (yes usually a power manager would restrict the apps a bit, but as we have to remove vivo.pem to receive notifications app ops is the answer)





If you setup an island with islands app, it's pretty crazy how fast the vivo system starts requesting access to loads of stuff. Maybe because I forbid internet access to the vivo spyware it kept on going crazy? Well clearly by default this system send everything, and yeah really everything straight to Chinese servers when it comes to location, contacts, messages, phone log, system settings and so on. You cannot even deny this but it's great that android now provides the ignore function which will return empty information instead.

This one is especially terrifying. I guess the service gathers all the data it gives to push service to send to China... Put it on ignore straight away.



App ops is available on Google play, installation needs shizuku too which is a bit complicated and needs restarting after reboot of system. However most settings should survive a reboot (I have to try and monitor this), best make a backup and yeah totally worth it to buy the full version. There is no single other app that I tried which worked and the auto restore feature is only available in full version. Also some more other stuff.

I'm thinking if I should remove all accounts and try the device owner mode. Clearly this will be the first thing I will do on any new phone or hard reset. Put shizuku as owner so it can autostart

App Ops - Permission manager - Apps on Google Play

Manage app permission with App Ops (require root or adb)

play.google.com

Edit/Update.
Vivo using system user 1000 is problematic because somehow you cannot set some/many permissions per app but only per user. It's hard to see when this applies and when not.

So both of this apps which are core parts of the spyware armada will share/influence the android system permission on location. Clearly debloat would be better but impossible without root.




You cannot directly set it here - and that's the problem. It's even not possible in the log to tell which user 1000 app requested location as somehow it will always show android system...

 

[extremecarver]

Some things I do not know yet - because I didn't use it long enough.
Does Vivo rotten oranges tries to overwrite the settings? MIUI seemingly does and there is a restore mode especially for it.

Some reviews mention that the backup/import option does not work for System apps. I don't know if this was fixed or not (seems to have been okay 2-3 years ago - maybe downgrade if that is so).

Do you need the app? No you could do this manually or even write a batch as its all app ops set commands. But that would be way way more complicated than using the app (and the free version does most things already).


I hope by seeing the body sensors log I managed to eliminate the offending apps like Phone that accessed them and cause the phone to lose battery while on the go like crazy.


Which apps should you set to ignore everything?
Well foremost those that we would all like to uninstall and remove but cannot.
com.vivo.abe, push notifications service, com.android.phone (and use a different dialler app instead - the default phone must be spyware infused to the top as it becomes active all of the time without being in use and replaced in my case with google phone already), the numbermark stuff, vivo locationservices,
Youtube Revanced - Fine Location - should you use it. I don't know why it keeps on requesting this all the time. Put it on ignore or Deny to save battery (seems to be a bit badly programmed)
Multi Device Connectivity (don't know what this thing does, but it requests loads of data/wakeups and so on - maybe part of the spyware suite? For Sure remove it from Fine Location)
AiEnginge,Aiservices.

Controversial: Should you remove location access to Android System? I think it can save battery but not sure if some apps break some functionality?
com.vivo.devicereg (this one is quite active too - I'm not sure if we should put everything on ignore here too).


And yeah - I'm 99.99% positive the China Spyware is tracking your location 100% of the time. So it's not only some metadata, contacts, call data, messages, clipboard content and app filtering - but also your location. Now is this collected by Vivo for its own good, or for the Chinese government? I don't care I don't want either and I pretty much thing the way it works is several services gathering all that data - and most like vivo push notifications (haha fitting name) pushing this info to Chinese servers.
And yeah - seeing how many access rights are given to various system apps is not normal! I compared this to my Huawei P30 Pro and Galaxy S7 and both have much much less permissions given (a bit problematic as earlier Android versions aren't so detailled). Plus without app ops you don't even know about this! The stock permission management just hides all the system framework apps so you never know!

 

[extremecarver]

BTW - If you identify any app that requests a lot of stuff like location or contacts and you do not know why it should - try to debloat it because that's always the better solution. com.vivo.multinlp - Vivo Location Services can be debloated.
Same for Multi Device Connectivity: com.vivo.connbase

The rest of the apps above (except phone which breaks functionality if debloated) - cannot be debloated. So that's when you use App Ops instead. It's always safer using app ops vs fully uninstalling/disabling an app from a standpoint about breaking something. However for battery use most likely uninstalling via adb is the better solution. I decided to remove those two apps, but a more conservative approach is to simply remove their access to sensitive data.


Someone knows why google play services needs access to body sensors?
I'm attaching my current profile - not sure if you can import it without having the same debloat level as on my phone (which is pretty extensive - I have 77 apps uninstalled and 11 disabled. Yeah and most of that are services/system apps (very few a pre installed user apps).

Need to remove the txt ending on the backup to import.

Oh I think the reviews are right, the backup doesn't include settings for system apps. That a bummer. Kinda makes the backup/import function useless.
Now it clearly would make more sense if one could create a huge bash/batch file to do all of these app ops commands. I clearly don't know how to do that simply? Yeah finding out what changed is possible with dumpsys....

 

[extremecarver]

Battery life improved loads on first try, but then somehow I managed to destroy the Bluetooth connection by removing permissions somewhere too much. Also I had the phone in vibration mode overnight which kills all notifications and is like airplane mode light.

It's really horrible software design by vivo that vibration mode kills all notifications with screen off.
The only thing to achieve actual vibration mode is turning volume down to 0. I really cannot get who can program such a lousy thing.

 

[extremecarver]

I don't know why but location is constantly requested by something and I highly doubt it's actually android system!

 

[extremecarver]

Sadly Vivo system like MIUI seems to reset the restrictions all the time. So you need shizuku running all the time to restore the settings..

Especially com.vivo.abe restores it's permissions several times daily and as soon as that happens battery life goes **** again in idle and spyware starts working again...

It's super frustrating but essentially this phone had rubbish software that isn't fixable. It can be improved as many settings aren't reset but the spyware tries everything it can to restore itself overwriting system settings all the time.

Oh and push notifications also sends out data to fixed IP addresses in China that cannot be prevented.

Location is accessed like crazy by all the spyware.
Thats the main killer because it's permanently checking location if you don't disable location system wide.

At least down from 15.000 requests to 9000 thanks to app ops.

 

[lemonade747]

Hi @extremecarver, any updates on this? I appreciated what you have done so far to investigate this issue.

The problem I'm facing right now is, the idle drain is too much for me. With plane mode on during 6 hour night, it lost 3%. With normal 3g-4g signal (no data), it drains about 1% per hour, sometimes 2%. That means if I go to work and let my phone sit there for a whole day without touching anything, then it will lose 8%-16%. That's crazy numbers.

I also found that, googlemap (with gps+4g) can kill battery very quickly. Usually, I drive to work in 30 mins and it drops 6%, i.e, 1% per 5 mins. With the same use, the s22 ultra drops just under 3%.

And if I use the phone normally such as web browsing, facebook, instagram, tiktok, even taking photos then it drains very very normally as other phones do.

I have the s22 ultra and I can say that the battery on s22 ultra is much better than vivo. It's understandable because it has been optimized for a year now. With the s22 ultra and with the same using pattern, I can easily get 8 hours SoT, while the vivo can barely get it to 5-6 hours.

Pretty sad because this x90 pro+ camera is better than the s22 ultra in many aspects, easier to hold in hand (s22 ultra is too hard to reach the edge of the phone and too heavy) although I don't like both curve screens. I don't have many problems with the notifications because I mainly use messenger and gmail and that's all.

So hopefully, someone can find out the way to fix those excessive battery drain or Vivo can release some updates to solve this problem in the future.

 

[Svask89]

Dear All,

i'm not sure if mine could be a good solution or not but i'm using nextdns service and it basically blocks all or almost all vivo and others brand spyware without installing any apps.
it's very quick and easy to activate, just enable dns privato in network settings and write your dns resolver url.

i hope it could be helpful.

 

[extremecarver]

Hi @extremecarver, any updates on this? I appreciated what you have done so far to investigate this issue.

Yes by removing virtually any rights on any app/service that I don't think needs it - I could solve the battery drain.
However now I cannot use the telephone to make calls (passive receving calls still works), and I seem not to be able to update to the new trial software because it isn't found.

Now the problem with App Ops is - I cannot quickly return all rights to update the software - as the backup/import function does not work with system apps.

This phone is just one thing, Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Not a single day I don't want to use a hammer and trash it. It's simpy virtually impossible to fix the crapware/spyware of this phone.

Dear All,

i'm not sure if mine could be a good solution or not but i'm using nextdns service and it basically blocks all or almost all vivo and others brand spyware without installing any apps.

No it doesn't - it can only block apps, not even some system services - and only if they connect to a website, not if they connect to an IP address!
I have written about stopping spyware with DNS services already - this stops some sending of data - but doesn't help at all when it comes to battery drain. There will still be 20.000 events or so per day (which is a crazy amount) of the china spyware logging your location (and yeah mostly high accuracy, not low accuracy), trying to connect to chinese servers and other problems that you can only discover via Shizuku.

And NextDNS is not the right solution at all. I think even Adguard is a bit more efficient for this. The best one is Rething DNS+ - it's the only app that can block all system services (but then you cannot use another app for ad filtering like Adaware/Adguard).

 

[extremecarver]

This menu is not accessible via settings... But it exists


Needs to be accesses via activity launcher.

Actually private DNS exists too but is hidden by Vivo like so many other privacy related settings.. this OS is so rotten they try to hide everything that improves privacy...



Likely everything you write with Vivo secure keyboard has preferential upload to China servers
(This last one is sarcasm without proof, but don't believe anything this OS tells you about privacy because logs tell you it's lying)


Some more stuff of which a lot is hidden and not accessible

Go f**k standard vivo settings menu. The only problem is the real android settings menu is missing the search function. But it's feature complete (except the stuff Vivo really removed from Android which isn't too much.. mostly they just removed it from the settings menu)

 

[extremecarver]

This phone is a absolute garbage. Seems vivo blocks shizuku after some days of using it.

Found a Chinese tutorial on bilibili on what to do to solve it but that doesn't work anymore either.

Now vivo Push notifications spyware tries to send again notifications at a rate of 10-20 every second...
Basically the phone is a brick now, draining battery faster and faster with pushware and Abe having restored their permissions...



Also I cannot use ADB Appcontrol anymore - as it doesn't get permission (removing/restoring permission for ACBBridge didnt help).

I also activated Force Activity Resizeable in the developer options but that didn't change a thing... ( I think this only applies to apps that cannot get the pairing code via notifications and need the code entered in splitscreen - as if you switch screen the code is renewed)

 

[vendetta17]

'This phone is just one thing, Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Not a single day I don't want to use a hammer and trash it. It's simpy virtually impossible to fix the crapware/spyware of this phone.'

Patiently waiting

 

[Deleted member 11140537]

This phone is a absolute garbage. Seems vivo blocks shizuku after some days of using it.

Found a Chinese tutorial on bilibili on what to do to solve it but that doesn't work anymore either.

Now vivo Push notifications spyware tries to send again notifications at a rate of 10-20 every second...
Basically the phone is a brick now, draining battery faster and faster with pushware and Abe having restored their permissions...

View attachment 5873093

Also I cannot use ADB Appcontrol anymore - as it doesn't get permission (removing/restoring permission for ACBBridge didnt help).

I also activated Force Activity Resizeable in the developer options but that didn't change a thing... ( I think this only applies to apps that cannot get the pairing code via notifications and need the code entered in splitscreen - as if you switch screen the code is renewed)

Thank you Vivo, keep doing it to his phone

 

[lemonade747]

Any updates on this @extremecarver?

I'm using this and what I see so far is the battery drain cut down to around 5% overnight (6 hours). With plane mode ON, it lost about 3% in 6 hours, not too bad for me. However, when put it there on my desk when I'm working (with 4g signal covered, no data), for 8 hours it sucked around 10%, and with wifi on that number is around 20%. My old Huawei Mate 20 and S22U can do even better than this (just around 5% without wifi, and 10-15% with wifi).

In addition, I also found that the battery drain when using GPS on this phone is too much for me. Just 1 hour and it sucked about 12% with 4G data ON.

 

[extremecarver]

Yes - in order to really cut the battery drain you need to remove much more permissions. The problem is that Vivo restores them - you could try to restrict that but modifying "modify restricted settings/ files" or something similar - but maybe that is how I locked myself out.

You can go into the "keep awake" and "run in background" and put ignore on everything you think that is not absolutely needed. Android 12 and above should not use this keep awake but Vivo apparently does.

Then you culd restrict body sensor data to more apps/services.


But yes as long as there is no way to really remove vivo.abe and vivo push notifications the battery drain is not fixable. Then of course the modem sucks - and uses way too much power. That one is either hardware rubbish or software mess up. I rather guess a rubbish modem.
The worst is battery drain while outdoors doing sports without being in airplane mode even if you disable any access to body sensors for all apps normally (use "device Info" app for this to actually get to all services, then app ops for removing even more.

 

[lemonade747]

Yes - in order to really cut the battery drain you need to remove much more permissions. The problem is that Vivo restores them - you could try to restrict that but modifying "modify restricted settings/ files" or something similar - but maybe that is how I locked myself out.

You can go into the wake something section and remove everything you think that is not needed. Android 12 and above should not use this - but Vivo apparently does.

Then you culd restrict body sensor data to more apps/services.


But yes as long as there is no way to really remove vivo.abe and vivo push notifications the battery drain is not fixable. Then of course the modem sucks - and uses way too much power. That one is either hardware rubbish or software mess up. I rather guess a rubbish modem.
The worst is battery drain while outdoors doing sports without being in airplane mode even if you disable any access to body sensors for all apps normally (use "device Info" app for this to actually get to all services, then app ops for removing even more.

The phone is good overall, camera, design, performance, but the battery drain is destroying those good points. Not sure if vivo will fix this in the future or not, but my S22U did take more than 6 months to get some first stable updates, and it's super stable right now at 1 year.

 

[extremecarver]

Well I cannot call any phone good if it's basic functions like notifications and spyware are rubbish like hell - causing battery drain without end. And yeah - without root you can make it a bit better but cannot fix it. With root if would be quite doable (as long as Vivo doesn't introduce any killswitch like disabling stuff once vivo.abe or push notification service is uninstalled). Root for running adb commands would be enough. But vivo actively disabled this by making many apps removable only for user 1000.

 

[wolfgang212]

ok so it seems no way to fix the rubbish battery life.
this thread convinced me to sell the phone for a s23 ultra, the battery life differences are huge given only the 300mah battery.
Very good phone ruined by battery life, I don't even care at this point about camera and other specs, I expected good battery life from a sd gen 2 with 4700 mah but i was clearly wrong.
My 1st and last vivo phone, too bad i'll lose tons of money now because is vivo is a no name here.

 

[extremecarver]

You lose tons of money everywhere as soon as you cannot return a Vivo phone anymore...

Btw, can someone show what permissions are on Android system by default?

I wonder if I'm missing some (screenshot from device info):




I never directly removed a permission from Android system, but I removed permissions from apps running as well on system.uid user, and sometimes they interact, sometimes they don't. Vivo really messed up the permissions because it's not possible to cleanly change permissions.

If you see the permissions given to push notifications it's anyhow clear than restricting any permissions to vivo apps to stop them to spy on you is like fighting windmills, because push notifications just about has any permission imaginable even after removing some with app ops. Here are the permissions left over from push notifications after removing any possible with app ops app.

 

[extremecarver]

Found the error why I couldn't access adb anymore. Shell system app somehow had all rights removed. Fixed it by exporting the apk and reinstalling it. Not locked out anymore and can use app ops again...

Strange thing though - on reboot shell went missing again. Not sure what the crap deletes shell on reboot. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of vivo killswitch if you remove rights via app ops commands from it's spyware.