Sensing the long-felt need for the dual app feature, finally Android ultimately paid attention to that and now the Android Oreo is loaded with the in-built dual app feature, supplanting any need for a 3rd party app to keep two installations of an app in one phone. You can have now clone versions of a number of apps in your phone without worrying about a third party app and the clone version has nothing to do with the main version of the app. But the thing is that the dual app feature of Oreo doesn’t support all the apps and, to be frank, only selected and popular apps like Facebook, Whatsapp and many other apps for instant messaging can be cloned in Oreo without the third party support.
Besides it’s not just cloning we are talking about. When privacy is the top most concern, we are not concerned with only dual apps or app-lock features. On the whole, users which put privacy above all need such a safe space which is not accessible other than the user. That space needs to be perfectly safe and hidden and consummately inaccessible.
Up until now you have been securing your phone against the Peeping Toms who willingly or unwillingly try to pry your personal information out of your phone or disturb your privacy in any other way. But the new generation threat to our privacy is from the apps which keep an eye over your data and steal it. So the users need a safe space where they could keep your data inaccessible even by the apps.
Samsung and Xiaomi, both, have worked on it earnestly and evidently the effort these companies have put into securing the phone against the unwanted access is reflected into the trust which people have in both the companies now and that’s why their users care little about the security of their data.
We’ll talk about Xiaomi later. Here we take a look on “Knox Powered Secure Folder”, a new technology developed by Samsung.
Secure Folder is actually an encrypted parallel or second space, which is entirely unrelated to the general space of your phone. You can understand the extent of independence of the parallel space from the primary space of the phone that the second space doesn’t use even the same google account as that used by the first space. You can install applications in Secure Folder, make clones of applications which are already in the general space, take private photos and do much more.
So let’s see How secure your mobile phone is with Secure Folder:
How to encrypt and hide your personal photos, files using Secure Folder
Once you have setup Secure Folder (install and password protect/fingerprint/iris), you can move any file from the general space to Secure Folder. You can also add files directly from Secure Folder using add file button.
How to Hide apps and app notifications in Samsung S7, S8 Plus, S9 Plus, Samsung J7 Pro etc.
If you want to completely shut every unwanted eye out of your phone and don’t want anybody to read your Whatsapp, Facebook messages or any other kind of messages for that matter, Secure Folder is for you. Apps installed in Secure Folder do not have or leave any data in general space such as media files, audio etc.
- Install Whatsapp clone or any other app clone in Secure Folder
- Go to Secure Folder settings (see the setting button at the top-right corner)
- Go to Settings > Notifications and data. Here Disable option “Show Content”
- This way, notifications from the apps which are installed in Secure Folder will come privately and to access the notifications password will be required (or fingerprint/iris in S8, S9)
- If you want to completely hide an app and its notifications also, go to Secure Folder Settings > apps > Choose the desired app whose notifications you want to disable > Disable the notifications.
Consequently the app and its data will without any trace be hidden and only you can access it. But the problem is that you can’t respond to messages at once because you will not be notified.
How to capture private photos and videos in Samsung S8 Plus, S9 Plus, Note 9 Galaxy S7 etc.
Secure Folder comes with a dedicated camera app and if you wish to capture private photos and video, you can use this camera app. All images and videos captured with this camera are saved in Secure Folder and fully encrypted.
Other features of Secure Folder
- If you are using a Secure-Folder-enabled Samsung phone, you can run three installations of a single app – one general installation, second with Android’s native ‘dual app feature’ and 3rd with Secure Folder
- Secure Folder is a parallel system running parallely with the general system of the phone but having no interaction with the latter at the same time.
- Secure Folder Clipboard is inaccessible by apps outside Secure Folder
- It’s a secure way to fully hide any application with app notifications, presence and its data
- It provides you with a secure workspace for corporate use and at the same time shields your confidential company data
- All the data in Secure Folder is encrypted and even Samsung can’t access your data, if you take the data to the cloud storage
- If somebody tries to install custom ROM or unlock bootloader, all the data in Secure Folder is locked down automatically. In other words, there’s no way to access your data without your permission. You yourself need to take full back of Secure Folder data to the cloud storage, if you are looking for selling your phone, resetting your phone.
- You can hide Secure Folder presence completely by hiding its icon in App menu
- You can Rename Secure Folder and change its icon
Do you use Samsung Secure Folder? Do you have any other question regarding this app? Feel free to share your opinion or question in comments.
