The newest update of BlueStacks brought with it a whole host of new features, among which we can find support for creating instances using the Android 11 OS. And while the main purpose of this update is to progressively grant access to a wider library of mobile games on PC moving forward, this OS version comes with its own unique set of perks and benefits that BlueStacks has now inherited after upgrading from Android 9 to Android 11, chief of which are the new privacy features that are included with this release. These advances have turned BlueStacks into not only the best Android gaming platform in terms of graphics and performance but also when it comes to the safety and privacy of our users’ data.

In this brief overview, we’ll be taking a look at all the new privacy features included in Android 11, and that BlueStacks users will also be able to enjoy whenever they’re playing games or running apps on instances using this OS version.

One-Time Permissions

When it comes to granting apps access to parts of your phone, you’d often get a pop-up the first time you run apps notifying you that, in order to function correctly, you must grant the said app permissions, which remain unlocked indefinitely, until you manually revoke them via the app settings menu. With this new update, however, users now have the possibility of granting permissions for a limited duration, and then revoke them once the time expires or the situation changes.

With this new update, instead of having the option to either grant permissions permanently or deny them altogether, users will now be able to grant them either permanently, or only when using the app. The latter option ensures your total privacy while the app isn’t running, since it won’t have any permissions to access your phone while the app is closed. Alternatively, you can also configure the app to ask for permissions every time you access it, or deny these permissions outright.

This feature is great for apps that you don’t use frequently, as it ensures your privacy in case of a security breach. They aren’t, however, very good for apps that you use frequently, like Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media apps, as you’ll almost always want to grant them permanent permissions to avoid having them constantly ask for access every time you run them.

Scoped Storage

This is a feature that you probably wouldn’t know about if you didn’t read about it, but it’s one designed to boost your privacy and security even further. In a nutshell, scoped storage makes it so that apps have access only to their own data silos, leaving them completely isolated from the data of other apps.

As users, we really don’t have to worry about anything here; the most important part is that you know that your apps are more secure than ever. This change affects mostly developers, as they now have to perform a few extra steps to make apps talk to each other, in the cases when one app needs data from other apps.

Background Location Access

This feature might be one of the most important, at least regarding your own personal safety and security. Specifically, background location access makes it so that apps that are designed to track your location are now unable to do so while they’re in the background. In this sense, users will have to look up the corresponding apps in their Play Store settings and manually activate the background location access if they want to enable the respective apps to continue tracking their location even while they’re not running or when they’re minimized to the background.

In theory, this addition makes it so that the action of granting location access to apps is more deliberate, so that the user is always able to manually monitor and edit this important permission, instead of mistakenly granting it while trying to click through menus out of habit.

Android 11 has been around for a few years already, and with this new BlueStacks update, the best Android emulator on the market just got even better, as with this new support our app player has effectively inherited all the awesome new security features that we mentioned above. 

What are your thoughts on the new privacy and security features now available on BlueStacks via Android 11? Leave us your comments in the section below!