“How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?” • Hacker News Board

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#41

Post by kennell » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #8

Or... you know... just use something like Telegram that isn't owned by Facebook. Their data-sharing / privacy policy is pretty simple https://telegram.org/privacy 1. Sharing data We never share your data with anyone. No.

Who keeps the lights on? The app is free, i have never seen any ads.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#42

Post by AceJohnny2 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #34

Man, remember the late 90s and early 2000s, when the IM scene was a mess of incompatible networks like ICQ and AIM and MSN Messenger, and people were like "fuck this" and came up with this protocol that was interoperable with all the others through gateways and also it was extendable, and we could all be happy together?... /grump The worst part is that WhatsApp is actually based on Jabber >:(

And yes, I absolutely realize that the protocol had flaws, was overly verbose, the base spec required a continuous connection which is hard/impossible on mobile networks, its extensibility meant that clients could end up with little common compatibility, etc etc... But still.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#43

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #34

Man, remember the late 90s and early 2000s, when the IM scene was a mess of incompatible networks like ICQ and AIM and MSN Messenger, and people were like "fuck this" and came up with this protocol that was interoperable with all the others through gateways and also it was extendable, and we could all be happy together?... /grump The worst part is that WhatsApp is actually based on Jabber >:(

[deleted]

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#44

Post by angryasian » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

nicolas_t wrote: post #21

My problem with whatsapp is that there's no way to use it without giving access to my entire contact list to the app. And that's out of the question for me.

I thought with Android Marshmallow and iOS you can deny access to contacts. I guess if you're not on Marshmallow or higher, you're not going to get this benefit

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#45

Post by vthallam » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

So this was quite expected anyway. Though initially the acquisition seemed to be a defensive one where FB prevents Wechat kind of features coming from Whatsapp, the amount of data whatsapp has, is a treasure trove for all the advertisers and as a public company, FB just did what is expected by the shareholders.

But it's kinda scary that emperor Zuck has so much power over the people, like FB/Messenger/Whatsapp/Instagram are the top apps everyone uses. I am glad Snapchat didn't sell out.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#46

Post by Phlarp » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

krelian wrote: post #23

skrowl wrote: post #8

Or... you know... just use something like Telegram that isn't owned by Facebook. Their data-sharing / privacy policy is pretty simple https://telegram.org/privacy 1. Sharing data We never share your data with anyone. No.

Who finances Telegram? Who pays for the serves?

Mostly? The Kremlin...

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#47

Post by redditmigrant » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

plg wrote: post #35

If only there existed a peer to peer solution that doesn't require trusting a central host

A fundamental limitation of the peer to peer setup for messaging is the lack of a reliable way to send a message while your contact is offline. If your answer to that is to have intermediaries that are always available and can store and forward, you run into issues of needing a lot of these intermediaries in a mobile centric(low power, intermittently online) world.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#48

Post by treehau5 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

gyosko wrote: post #20

boobsbr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does Telegram offer voice messages and calls?

No, and a lot of people don't like it because it's cloud based too.

Is this really a concern people have? Do people think on-prem is somehow inherently more secure? They expose their services through the internet. Minus a few details it's all the same. There are pros/cons in both sides.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#49

Post by gonehome » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #8

Or... you know... just use something like Telegram that isn't owned by Facebook. Their data-sharing / privacy policy is pretty simple https://telegram.org/privacy 1. Sharing data We never share your data with anyone. No.

It's not clear to me why anyone would use Telegram over Signal.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#50

Post by Leon » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

angryasian wrote: post #44

nicolas_t wrote: post #21

My problem with whatsapp is that there's no way to use it without giving access to my entire contact list to the app. And that's out of the question for me.

I thought with Android Marshmallow and iOS you can deny access to contacts. I guess if you're not on Marshmallow or higher, you're not going to get this benefit

A lot of apps these days will not run unless they get access to the data they request. What I would like to see is android having the ability to give empty sets of information if so chosen instead of denying access, or to compartmentalize applications access to shared resources more.