I'm curious to how many PortDroid users use a rooted phone. I am considering adding additional features, such as being able to view MAC addresses.

Use the poll to let me know and comment with any root-only features you'd like to see in PortDroid 🙂

Do you mean, view the MAC of our device? Does it really need a rooted phone to vorw that? If so, shame on Android/samsung, whoever! Im not familiar with android cpsing but i am a linux sysadmin so i would vote for this featire to be implemented.

@mathieu-aubin Good question. Yes, in modern version of Android the MAC address of your device (for each network adapter) and all the devices on your local network are hidden from the apps to prevent advertisers or other potentially malicious entities from tracking you. This is a great win for our privacy, but is unfortunate for PortDroid.

Previously the Local Network Scanner would show these MAC addresses and use them to determine what device is, as shown below:

But now it looks more like this:

mathieu-aubin on android.. settings - about - status shows the MAC

The settings application is a system app, so it has special permissions to view the MAC address, whereas any other regular Android apps can no longer get this.

    a month later

    It makes sense that MAC would be hidden for privacy... i wasn't aware it was the case.

    4 months later