Comment by bnpxft

5 days ago

Another reason not to install big tech's apps and only use their websites if you must.

Not only our their websites painful which discourages use, websites are more sandboxed.

17 comments

bnpxft

Reply
danieldk  5 days ago

I am not sure which Meta apps open ports, but e.g. Samsung phones come with a bunch of Meta apps pre-shipped. IIRC just removing the Facebook app is is not enough, there is another service installed that is not visible as an app (com.facebook.services etc.), which you can only uninstall from the data partition with something like ADB/UAD.

Or buy an iPhone or a Pixel.

  • hereme888  5 days ago

    I remember a few years ago analyzing a modern Samsung phone's web traffic. It had by far the most ad-related and monetizing connections out of any other phone I've ever seen. And they were part of "necessary" functions, so you couldn't just block that traffic.

    Samsung has great tech, but I avoid because it's so bloated and abusive.

  • jmm5  5 days ago

    The Pixel "Private Space" feature should prevent Meta apps from running in the background. It also prevents you from getting notifications.

    • Groxx  21 hours ago

      I kinda wonder if pushing it into a separate/work profile would isolate it from this... though it kinda smells to be like something that might accidentally (or "accidentally") leak.

  • johnisgood  5 days ago

    I tend to buy stock Android, e.g. Motorola moto g30, etc. It still has lots of Google stuff, but you can get rid of them, and I have a work profile specifically designed for Google-related stuff, and my personal profile is de-Googled as much as possible.

    • danieldk  5 days ago

      I would recommend everyone who wants a clean Android to look into Google Pixel phones. Aside from being mostly bloat-free (and most bloat can be uninstalled), it is one of the few phones that supports unlocking/relocking and a secure open source alternative (GrapheneOS).

      2 replies →

  • SchemaLoad  5 days ago

    Samsung devices are loaded with malware and AI slop in general. I'd avoid them if you at all care about privacy. Since Google is still missing end to end encryption for cloud data, iOS seems like the only good choice currently.

    • danieldk  5 days ago

      iOS sends data to metrics.apple.com, metrics.icloud.com, iadsdk.apple.com, etc. a lot. They are much better than Samsung (who send data to Samsung and other parties), but I am not convinced they are much better than Google devices. It's more who you prefer sending your data to.

      In the end something like GrapheneOS is the only good choice. Has all the security features of Pixel (which is similar to iPhone) and the tracking of neither.

      1 reply →

shuckles  4 days ago

> Not only our their websites painful which discourages use, websites are more sandboxed.

This isn't remotely true. It is pretty trivial for a well-resourced engineering organization to generate unique fingerprints of users with common browser features.