I passed yesterday’s afternoon testing a dozen backup apps and unfortunately only AppWererabbit passed all the tests. It’s the only app that recorded owner ID and system permissions correctly in a tar backup file, and the only that restored them correctly. Other apps won’t record them, will record them wrongly, or won’t restore them correctly:
(a) One app (can’t remember its name) recorded owner ID with shortened numbers, so the restoring function was broken.
(b) Backup + App backup & restore records the system info correctly but restores it with added wrong permissions. Restored apps may work but system integrity is compromised.
(c ) MyBackup, Flash-bak Backup & Restore, Super Backup & Restore, Application Backup Pro, Backup Your Mobile, and Oandbackup, like many other backup apps, record app data but don’t record system permissions and owners for each directory and file, so restored apps won’t work most of the time, and system integrity is compromised.
(d) Titanium restored partially incorrect permissions, so its app data backups weren’t reliable. Besides, it uses a totally unnecessary nonstandard backup file wrapping that makes manual repair of backed up system info be a nightmare. It also crashed my System UI when backing up, what would occasionally lead to random reboots.
(e) Helium showed to be intrusive, finicky and unreliable as an app itself, I didn’t even bother to test its backup files.
(f) Ultimate Backup (or App Manager) recorded wrong owner IDs. Unnecessary to say that its restore function always failed. Maybe this bug is the reason why it was pulled out from app depositories, it would have been a good app otherwise.
(g) Swift Backup is Google account dependent: straight to the trash bin.
One of the downsides for me of AppWererabbit is that it doesn’t have scheduling for app data backups, so I do it manually with my weekly TWRP system image backup. The UI is also confusing, for example, install app from SD, an important function, is hidden in a long-press menu. Another install option appears in the top-right dot menu but it’s a paying option (no clue about the difference between the two). Restore data is on the general top-left menu list, instead of integrated with install app from SD. Messy, really. But at least it works.
I find it to be unacceptable that the Android platform offers such poor capabilities regarding backup management, and I put all the responsibility on Google for making it hard for users and developers to use anything else than their own servers to store user information.