Limiting Facebook they way we all should

My phone has a pre-Facebook Home version of the Facebook app.  For those of you who don't know, Facebook Home is an alternative Launcher for Android that turns your entire experience into a Facebook experience.  There is another detail that a lot of people don't know.  A lot of the logic to implement Home is not in the Home app, it is in the main app.  This means the main app now requires access to make phone calls and get a list of running apps.  This is way too much for Facebook to have, so I never upgraded the main app.

Recently, I have been getting messages in my feed in the app telling me that my version of the app might stop functioning soon.  As a (new) mobile developer, I can appreciate the need to limit the number of versions a company has to support.  I still don't want to upgrade because the last thing I need is a Facebook worm that forces my phone to dial 1-900 numbers.

I took to Facebook to complain about this problem, knowing that Facebook's NSA-style monitoring might kick in.  I expressed my design to have some sort of Access Control List to disable permissions for any app that I have installed.  Out of all the features of 4.3, the app ACLs were the feature I was most looking forward too.  When my Nexus 7 got the 4.3 upgrade, I looked, but couldn't find the feature.  That is when one of my coworkers pointed out that the ACL (App Ops) is hidden by default.  She told me I could go to the market to get an app that allows me to launch the hidden App Ops Activity.  Once there, I could disable some of the permissions that I don't want Facebook to have (Facebook can no longer read my contacts!)

Now, the only problem is my phone (AT&T Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket - SGH-I727) only supports up to 4.1.2.  I might have to wait a long time (if ever) before getting 4.3.  Cyanogenmod has nightlies of 10.2, which is based on Android 4.3.  I might have to root my phone and install CM.