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Before you flag this as duplicate, I researched this question a long time ago and found this and this, which both suggest that the right side of the notification bar is a system apps ONLY zone.

However, I recently used Betternet and after connecting to the VPN, these two icons appear:

Betternet app screenshot

Betternet is not a system app, and my HTC On3 M8 is not rooted. How did they do it?

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iTurki
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1 Answers1

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The left icon is a Notification. These can be displayed by any app.

The right icon is a standard icon, added there by Android, indicating an active VPN connection. These are not put there by apps directly, though certain things that apps implement (e.g., VpnService) might result in an icon being shown there.

CommonsWare
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  • Oh. Never though the `key icon` is a stock icon. Thanks. There goes my dream of displaying my icon on the right :\ – iTurki Dec 22 '15 at 15:15
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    @iturki: Yeah, sorry, AFAIK there still no way for apps to put icons on the right, other than triggering stock ones (VPN, alarm clock, etc.). Custom ROMs, of course, can do what they want. – CommonsWare Dec 22 '15 at 15:21