GrapheneOS recently gained the ability to selectively disable hardened_malloc for apps, and this is a big usability win. However, I think that usability could be further improved by adding some kind of automatic detection of crashes caused by the hardened memory allocator; the OS would then prompt the user to try using the default Andorid allocator.

As I suspect that detecting memory corruption without special runtime instrumentation (valgrind, asan...) is not trivial, an alternative approach would consist in adding information about the allocator in Android's standard crash popup.

This could be especially helpful for non technical users that might not think nor know about hardened_malloc when experiencing crashes in e.g. games.

Does this make sense to you? Are there any alternatives that you think could be better than this? Any feedback is welcome :D

MetropleX changed the title to [Suggestion] Automatic Exploit Protection Compatibility prompt .

Yes, it does make sense - IF the cause of the crash can also be indicated. A crash can occur for "benign" reasons (e.g. within a game) or for "evil" reasons (e.g. malware), and without an understanding of the reason for the crash, the user may become tempted to automatically use the default allocator after a malware crash, thereby bypassing an important security function.

Not sure if this would be too much but as developers update apps I'm noticing I can remove the Exploit Compatibility Mode and the app still works. Would it be too much to also have this in setting = Privacy = Permission Manager to easily locate the apps where it has been activated so we don't have to go through the app drawer checking individual apps?

    a year later

    Fhggyy5767 Would it be too much to also have this in setting = Privacy = Permission Manager to easily locate the apps where it has been activated so we don't have to go through the app drawer checking individual apps?

    Latest build android14 : this feature is not there yet I notice