There has been a lot of hubbub about HTC Sense devices (like the Droid Incredible or the EVO 4G) keeping thumbnails of your bookmarked web pages and this is drawing some concerns about privacy.
The problem is that even after doing a factory reset of your device, the handset will still store thumbnail images of pages that you have bookmarked. Privacy nuts are concerned this can potentially expose private data (or an embarrassing browsing history) if you sell the device.
An HTC representative was not super helpful when we reached out for comment.
HTC is aware of the reports and is currently looking into them. At this point we don’t have any additional information but I’ll make sure you get it once we do.
We’ve looked into this issue with our Sense devices, including the HTC Aria and think this is much ado about nothing. The thumbnails are stored on the microSD slot, which isn’t wiped during the factory reset. I haven’t been able to find password information or anything else too compromising when looking at the images either. These thumbnails are used to populate the bookmarks widget on the home page and it won’t reveal your entire browsing history.
If you want to completely erase any traces of your bookmarks, you simply just have to delete all the information on your microSD card. This should take care of the problem, lickity split.
This does point to a potential issue that could happen when you layer software on top of Android, but I haven’t seen this arise with something like MotoBlur. I don’t really see this as a “bug,” but it is an inconvenience that can weird some people out. As Facebook will tell you, the Internet can freak out when privacy is concerned.
So, readers, was there any concern when you heard about this bug?
[Hat tip to Phonescoop]