By only viewing files from internal app memory, Gif Viewer already offers a very good level of privacy. Your files are guaranteed invisible for any other app, so don’t show up in Gallery of Files or show up when searching an image or GIF to add to a WhatsApp post. But you can do more to keep your files in Gif Viewer even more private.
This post explain how you can keep your GIF collection invisible for other users of your Android device, including hackers in case your device is stolen.
Two effective methods which combined give you the best possible privacy for your files in Gif Viewer, are explained below.
One: set a pin-code to open GIF-Viewer Extra
If you give your phone to someone else so show a WhatsApp message etc., this person might also start up your Gif Viewer app. Setting a pin-code prevents such accidental access to your private animations and images in Gif Viewer app memory.
Via the Preferences screen you can set a four-digit pin code. You can’t enter the twenty most common pin-codes like 1234 or 4321, because they are too easy to guess by someone else. You must select a more unique pin-code.
Second pin-code to show some animations to your friends
When setting a pin-code, you will notice that a second pin-code is automatically generated for you, as shown above. This second pin-code gives access to a separate part of the Gif Viewer app storage.
After you started the app with this ‘friends’ pinc-code, you can import some non private GIF or WEBP animations, to:
- Share with friends, while your other and private files stay completely hidden. So no problem if your friend holds your phone to browse through these GIFs;
- Demonstrate someone else how this app works, by showing some sample GIFs;
- When asked, open this password-protected app to show you have nothing to hide.
Two: encrypt all data on your Android device
Device encryption converts all of your data stored on your Android phone or tablet into a “scrambled” form. Only to become readable or visible again with the correct credentials: the pin-code, gesture pattern and/or fingerprint for unlocking your device.
If your phone gets stolen, chances are that hackers might eventually break into internal app memory and can view your private animations or images. When encrypted, all the hacker then gets is a lot of meaningless bytes, which are impossible to decode back to the original GIF files.
You can only encrypt your Android device if you have first locked it, by setting a pin-code, pattern or fingerprint. Then go to the Security section of your Settings app, tap on the “Encrypt Phone” or “Encrypt Tablet” button and follow the instructions.
Drawbacks of encryption
The greatly improved security of encrypting all data on your Android device, does not only have advantages:
- Slightly slower performance. The decrypting (when opening) and encrypting (when storing) of files takes Android processing power. If you don’t have the latest high-end phone, this might be noticeable.
- You can’t undo it. Once the storage of your Android phone or tablet is encrypted, you can only reverse this via a factory reset: start again with an empty phone. Only a few manufacturers have ‘decrypt’ option. So best to make a back-up before you encrypt.
- Does not work on a Rooted device. Some Android users root their device to give them access to features of the device and operating system that may not normally be available. If you have done this, please Unroot before encrypting. Otherwise, you might lose part or all of your data.
- Can take an hour or more to complete. Google is improving the speed of the initial encryption process with every new version of Android, but you will need to block some time to complete this. It is not something that will fit in a coffee break.
Encryption by default on most recent models
More and more manufacturers encrypt their Android phones and tablets by default. If that is the case for your device, it will look like this in Settings:
Get our unique and flexible GIF/WEBP Viewer app for Android
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