QR DROID PRIVATE

Read this post to help you decide whether you need QR Droid or QR Droid Private on your Android device.

QR Droid can scan QR Codes from your camera, from saved images, and from any image, whether live on the Internet or displayed offline. QR Droid can create QR Codes too, with many available options, the first eight of which are shown below:

If you want to create a QR Code from a contact saved in your device, or from the URL of a web page saved in your browser's bookmarks or history, QR Droid allows you to do it very simply. Just select one of the first of two options (circled in green in the screenshot) and choose what item to encode. It's that simple! You don't need to enter anything manually.

To be able to generate codes in this automated fashion, with no need for data entry, QR Droid requires access to your contact and bookmark information. These two specific permissions are shown by Google Play as 'Your personal information' - see below.

QR Droid Zapper adheres to stringent privacy policies and we guarantee that these permissions to access your contact and bookmark data are used exclusively to allow you to explore and search your own data to create useful QR codes. No information ever leaves your device and nobody but you ever has access to it.

However, if you prefer not to grant these permissions, or simply won't ever need to generate QR codes from your contacts and bookmarks (i.e. using QR Droid only for scanning and decoding QR codes), we offer another version of this app: QR Droid Private.

QR Droid Private is exactly the same as QR Droid, with one key difference: QR Droid Private removes features that require access to what Google Play calls "Your personal information." You will still have first two options—to create QR codes for contacts and web addresses—but you'll have to enter everything manually. In return, you won't need to grant access to "personal information" as shown here in this screenshot from QR Droid Private:

If you’re curious as to why the other three permissions are required (Storage, Network Communication and Hardware Controls), read on…

Storage: QR Droid and QR Droid Private allow you to save the QR codes you generate. To be able to store them on your SD card, QR Droid needs permissions to write to it. The same permission is required to send QR codes by e-mail. (Only saved images can be attached to e-mails).
Hardware controls: QR Droid requires permission to launch your camera and take pictures of QR Codes in order to decode them.
Network communications: Connection to the Internet is used: 1) to download images in order to decode them using only their URL address (“From image URL” option in main menu); 2) to shorten a URL before creating a QR code from a web address; and 3) to extract coordinates from URLs shared from the Google Maps app (click here to learn more).

To summarize: We recommend the standard, full-featured QR Droid for users who wish to create QR codes from contacts and bookmarks saved on the device—without the need for data entry. Otherwise, we recommend QR Droid Private, which does not access the above mentioned permissions, but instead requires manual data entry for creating QR codes of contacts and bookmarks.

To install QR Droid from Google Play, click here: http://market.android.com/details?id=la.droid.qr

To install QR Droid Private from Google Play, click here: http://market.android.com/details?id=la.droid.qr.priva

Or, simply go to our Get QR Droid Zapper page