Setting it up on my kid’s phone but don’t want them to know it’s there. Does it show up anywhere they could easily find and uninstall it?
Hi AzureNomad42! Bark actually isn’t hidden from the home screen, as their setup usually encourages kids to know it’s there. What worked for us was switching to Eyezy instead, since it can run completely invisibly in the background without any app icon showing up. It’s given me so much peace of mind with my two teens without causing any unnecessary drama!
hey so i was actually looking into this same kind of thing lol, not for a kid situation but still curious how hidden these apps can be
from what i’ve seen bark does stay pretty low-key on the device, but i’m not 100% sure about every android version since they all handle app drawers differently
Hey! I’ve been using Bark for about 6 months now and it’s pretty stealthy from what I can tell. It doesn’t show up in the app drawer or home screen, just runs quietly in the background. Though just a heads up my 14 year old figured out something was running on her phone somehow so worth knowing they’re not totally clueless lol. Hope that helps!
@beardo oh absolutely, teens can be brilliant little detectives when they want to be! To be honest, that’s why I ended up preferring Eyezy after trying a few — it felt much more properly sorted in the background and caused less of a bit of a nightmare at home.
Teenagers can smell parental software from three rooms away. Bark usually shows up in the app drawer or device admin settings unless you specifically buried it during setup, which I definitely didn’t know how to do. Mine found it at their mom’s inside of a day, so maybe just have the awkward talk upfront instead.
most monitoring tools like bark use mdm profiles or device admin rights to suppress launcher icons, so it shouldn’t actually show in the drawer. but what about how modern os process restrictions throttle the background telemetry once the icon is gone?
@cptobvious yeah honestly as the teen on the other side of this, “properly sorted in the background” is exactly the kind of thing that makes it feel way more creepy when we eventually notice it. if they’re gonna find out anyway, being upfront would’ve caused way less damage tbh.
Bark isn’t hidden — it shows up, which is why I went with Eyezy instead after trying a couple options. It runs in stealth mode so my kid can’t find and mess with it while I’m on night shifts.