Comment by jfkebwjsbx
5 years ago
> ... web pages that talk to ... health devices ... there is no way to block ads in an app
Wait, what?? Why on earth would you use an app with ads for health devices?!?
Moreover, why on earth are you using apps with ads for anything?
Please, please, please, pay for your apps and games. Stop making everything an ad service. The race to the bottom in the web and mobile world is disturbing.
Would you want to pay for your house plumbing by being forced to watch an ad every time you shower? Think about how dystopian that sounds. There are even Black Mirror episodes on that.
> Wait, what?? Why on earth would you use an app with ads for health devices?!?
GP said they want to _write_ a web app that talks to health devices. And that they like the web platform because it's easy to block ads shown to you by other web apps.
I will add that it's also easier to detect/block tracking. Browsers such as Firefox even try to do this for you these days. And to generally examine what the app is doing (e.g. by running it in JS debugger).
Yes, paid apps usually (but not always) remove ads. They keep the telemetry, though.
> ... web pages that talk to ... health devices ... there is no way to block ads in an app
You’ve selectively mixed two paragraphs to change the meaning of what I actually said.
I did not say I want to use apps with ads with health devices, at all. That’s a complete straw man.
I said I want to access my own sports equipment via Bluetooth from a webpage I’ve written myself.
I also said that I dislike apps because the user looses control over things like tracking, selecting text, zooming and whether adverts are shown.
On the privacy end of things, ads certainly aren't helping, but a pretty large number of even paid apps are happily vacuuming up data and sending them to the developer and often third parties (vendors of analytics/debugging platforms in particular). I tend to think of an app for most things as a loss of privacy and try to avoid using them when possible.
> a pretty large number of even paid apps are happily vacuuming up data and sending them to the developer and often third parties
Please name some examples. I certainly do not have not use nor know about any paid software that "vacuums" my actual data or tries to track me.
> analytics/debugging platforms
You cannot compare anonymous, aggregate details about overall usage of an app or crash stacktraces (which is what most paid/OSS apps do) to the kind of identification webs do for ads.
Again: native apps do not care about showing personalized ads to you nor their business depends on it.
> I tend to think of an app for most things as a loss of privacy
Mobile apps from vendors like Facebook definitely. Normal paid/OSS desktop software, no.
There are many apps that continue to show ads even in their paid version / upgrade. Might not be an option for him?
I would seriously consider any alternative vendor or simply living without the app. No serious health device will show you ads of any kind in their software.
There is a modern overreliance on apps for everything these days.