Namely: View network connections, prevent phone from sleeping, measure app storage space, run foreground service, run at startup, have full network access, download files without notification, view Wi-Fi connections. It does have some permissions that aren't marked as dangerous. Facebook App Manager also does not have any 'dangerous' permissions listed in it's app settings.The only permission listed is 'retrieve running apps'.

Facebook App Installer doesn't have any 'dangerous' permissions listed in it's app settings.Neither of these two apps are mentioned in 'Install unknown apps' ( Settings > Apps > Special access > Install unknown apps).

I haven't decompiled these and dug into them just yet, but the fact that 'Facebook App Installer' is listed as the installer of all Facebook related apps, and the fact that Facebook App Installer comes preinstalled should tell you all you need to know to answer the question here of how Facebook circumvents the permission requests to install messenger.įor the sake of completeness I'll also mention

Now, it seems that these two apps come preinstalled on a lot of android devices (most?), and they are responsible for installing updates to the Facebook and Facebook messenger app. More than likely, you'll find 2 apps here 'Facebook App Installer' ( ), and 'Facebook App Manager' ( ). So what is this? Well, go into Settings > Apps to look for it. Now this is key: Notice that it's not saying Google Play, nor Facebook itself. On my devices, it says something like this: If you allow it to install, and check the app settings for messenger afterwards, you'll most likely (depending on version and device) see at the very bottom what app installed it.

Messenger instal