Android Phones
Do HTC Sense phones store secret screenshots? Sort of.
June 17, 2010 | by Andrew Kameka
HTC
UPDATE: I’ve tested this on four EVO’s and haven’t seen this problem occur, but some users are reporting that they are also seeing it happen on their device. If it does happen on your phone, browse through the folders mentioned and see if any sensitive information is exposed.
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If you read anything today about HTC Sense phones having a “bug” that takes screenshots of your browser history, resist the urge to panic and run screaming through the city streets. What’s actually happening is that HTC Sense phones take snapshots of your bookmarks in order to create thumbnails. That’s it. There’s no random snapshot exposing your banking password and no malicious activity afoot. It’s the very same image that you see when accessing bookmarks through the browser or home screen widget. Update: Some users are reporting they see non-bookmark screenshots as well.
BGR first reported that the Incredible had a “privacy issue” that even a factory reset couldn’t erase, and suggested that all Sense phones may have this problem. However, a factory reset does nothing to erase these images because HTC phones other than the Incredible store these screenshots on the SD card; factory resets erase the ROM, not the SD card. Likewise, a factory reset doesn’t erase the Incredible’s internal storage, which is why the files remain.
Furthermore, these screenshots do not reveal anything that could compromise your data. Since passwords are not displayed onscreen, the phone won’t reveal that information. Navigate to the “.bookmark_thumb1” folder to see for yourself if any of your privacy has been violated. The same thumbnails you use to access bookmarks are the same images stored on the phone. (Incredible owners should use internal storage “emmc” folder).
Want to get rid of these images? It’s simple. Delete/format your SD card like you already would if you were selling the phone. If you have an Incredible, delete the internal storage just as you would if you were getting rid of the phone.
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This isn't the browser taking screen shots of your bookmarks, it's taking screenshots of seemingly every website I've been to. I don't use bookmarks on my phone, in fact, I have zero. Despite this, my bookmark thumbs directory was full of a history of where I had been.
Is it a privacy issue? Probably not. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. I think people do need to be made aware of it because you can clear your cache & history and there's still a record. That's not how a browser should behave.
what phone are you using?
Should note I'm seeing the same, Drew. I'm on an EVO 4G, checked .bookmarks_thum1 and sure enough, I'm seeing screenshots of nearly every site I've visited recently (for the record, I didn't add anything to the stock set of bookmarks).
Many users in the comments section of the BGR article are reporting that the phone is including screenshots of sites they did NOT bookmark, so…
Whether or not it gets your banking site or passwords, the fact remains that they exist. The privacy problem comes when you sell the phone, send it in for repair, or exchange it for a new one, or even just leave it where friends or family can get at it.
I know people will respond with "Well then lock it/get a file manager and delete them". But if you want Android to be popular, it must be easy. Having to hunt down these files and delete them manually might be easy for _us_ but not the common user (like the ones who buy iPhones because they "just work").
I'm using an HTC Evo.
Not that I would use my phone for sensitive tasks anyway, and if I did, I would always clear cache and history right before exiting (dolphin does this for me automatically)
I have seen a user post elsewhere that he believes it occurs not only when you bookmark, but when you type a URL into the URL bar of the browser, as opposed to being random.
Perhaps try testing it this way? Type in a domain name for a site to visit it, but do not bookmark it. Then see if it's there.
As for SD vs Internal memory, we need to note that the HTC Incredible comes with 8GB of "internal" memory (that is NOT the ROM) which is NOT removable, as well as a microSD slot. It is apparently to this "internal" 8GB that it is being saved. Thus the confusion.
@Quentyn: Apparently clearing the cache does not delete these.
I have an Evo and if I go through my Astro File Manager I can see screenshots of sites I've been to that are not my bookmarks.
Can be fixed by deleting the folder .bookmark_thumb1 and create an empty txt file .bookmark_thumb1 , no more thumbs…
Same problem as @sph33r. I am running Desire.
i have spotted this just a couple of days ago on my Desire. i initially thought that i had bookmarked the page in error but spotted the report of this happening this morning. i first deleted buy using the phone, then when connecting to the pc it was still there so deleted again. Hopefully this has cleared it and they will sort it out
All these “screenshots” are is just the thumbnails from the default htc sense bookmark widget. Reason why there are more then just the amount of bookmarks you have is because every time you refresh or it autorefreshes the bookmarks, and the images just pile up in a directory. When the bookmarks refresh, just the new images display in the widget, hence new images were made. It just doesn’t delete them. So if you have say 6 bookmarks (for ease of simple math) and refresh them, you will have now 12 images in this folder, the new ones, and the old ones. Do it again, you’ll now have 18 in there. See the pattern?
No malicious code, or intent, just a simple widget not deleting old graphic files. If you paranoid just navigate to your SD card (easier through usb on your computer) find the bookmarks folder, and delete the jpgs as needed.
Got it? Cool.
I use an HTC sense and this does happen quite randomly. I, however, am interested in taking advantage of this feature to document text conversations with my ex for submission into court record in a custody battle. When I notice my phone doing this, As it is not a consistent occurrence, I switch to my saved mms and begin taking screenshot of the key points in our conversation. I have a file of 20 or so saved screenshots on my computer now and I am interested in this glitch becoming a feature in the future. I usually get about four to eight screenshots per occurrence before it just stops. It does seem to always start from the browser though.
I’ve had my Evo 3D for nearly a year and I have been trying to figure out why the free space was low. When I found the “/mnt/sdcard/bookmark_thumb1″ folder, I discovered that 328 screenshots of my browsing had been saved to my sd card. The phone took two screenshots every time I flipped it from “portrait” to “landscape”, one before and one after. That’s why there’s always an even amount of shots per day. I want to get rid of them, but at the same time it’s evidence.