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Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

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Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#21

Post by lucideer »

mattnewton wrote: post #5
ravenstine wrote: post #4

I uninstalled every Facebook product from my phone. Turns out I really didn't need Messenger after all. As I still concede to using Facebook, I have decided to install a Chrome shortcut to mbasic.facebook.com. It does everything I need without tons of scripting, doesn't optimistically download content, and loads fast when my bandwidth is reduced. It never notifies me, and that's a good thing. Without infinite scrolli…

+1 for mbasic.facebook.com I never use the rest of the site, but there are some contacts that I can only reliably reach through messenger

https://github.com/ZeeRooo/MaterialFBook is a great app for anyone who finds mbasic a bit basic.

Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#22

Post by lucideer »

parthdesai wrote: post #10
ravenstine wrote: post #4

I uninstalled every Facebook product from my phone. Turns out I really didn't need Messenger after all. As I still concede to using Facebook, I have decided to install a Chrome shortcut to mbasic.facebook.com. It does everything I need without tons of scripting, doesn't optimistically download content, and loads fast when my bandwidth is reduced. It never notifies me, and that's a good thing. Without infinite scrolli…

Uninstalled Fb app and messenger long time ago. I can't uninstall whatsapp even if i wanted to and it's hard to uninstall Instagram.

Uninstalled all Facebook apps as soon as I got my phone, a few months ago, but only recently discovered there were two remaining hidden apps that didn't show up in the normal app list: https://forum.xda-developers.com/tmobile-lg-v10/help/suspici...

Before I disabled them, one of them was running.

Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#23

Post by Karunamon »

ravenstine wrote: post #11
parthdesai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uninstalled Fb app and messenger long time ago. I can't uninstall whatsapp even if i wanted to and it's hard to uninstall Instagram.

I remember uninstalling Facebook was pretty difficult. I was only able to truly get rid of it by rooting my phone(I didn't do it for that purpose, but that ended up being one benefit). They must pay Samsung a lot of money because there's no good reason why a non-critical app would be so hard to remove.

Wouldn't merely disabling the app (in system -> applications) have accomplished the same except for freeing up a couple hundred megs of storage on the system partition? Disabled apps don't have their services run.

Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#24

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

ravenstine wrote: post #11
parthdesai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uninstalled Fb app and messenger long time ago. I can't uninstall whatsapp even if i wanted to and it's hard to uninstall Instagram.

I remember uninstalling Facebook was pretty difficult. I was only able to truly get rid of it by rooting my phone(I didn't do it for that purpose, but that ended up being one benefit). They must pay Samsung a lot of money because there's no good reason why a non-critical app would be so hard to remove.

I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime and was able to uninstall Facebook the same way that you would uninstall any other Facebook app. It's the first Samsung phone I've ever used that was like that.

Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#25

Post by ballenf »

This is the app that was instrumental in FB consolidating their monopoly on horizontal markets, using the data pickpocketed from users to analyze potential acquisition targets. We need to explore whether antitrust scrutiny should consider data hoarding as a factor.

I also wonder if this sleaziness is why we can't have ad-blocking faux-VPN apps on iOS anymore (see AdGuard, e.g.). FB weren't the only ones abusing users' trust, but there were legit apps that allowed one to selectively block any device connection (not just DNS lookups) without any data leakage -- all blocking done on-device. But no more as of fall 2017.

Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#27

Post by djrogers »

Of course it does, as it explicitly claims to in the App description. What's news here?

Also, that's some of the worst scroll-jacking and browser behavior modification I've come across - you cannot read it zoomed in on Safari because it jumps around instead of scrolling.

Re: Notes on Analytics and Tracking in Onavo Protect for iOS

#28

Post by searchencrypt »

djrogers wrote: post #27

Of course it does, as it explicitly claims to in the App description. What's news here? Also, that's some of the worst scroll-jacking and browser behavior modification I've come across - you cannot read it zoomed in on Safari because it jumps around instead of scrolling.

It's news because people use VPNs to protect their privacy. If they are under the impression that Onavo will keep their data private, they are wrong. Just trying to inform...
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