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Apple is not your friend

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Re: Apple is not your friend

#61
post #13
post #9

However, out of that list of four, Apple is the one that I have seen being “least evil” with me and my data. Google dropped their “don’t be evil” motto for a very damn good reason, and the safety of their own app marketplace is a fucking joke. Facebook is even worse than Google, in that it has never stopped trying to appear innocent of wrongdoing while paddling like mad under the surface. Microsoft… has gone all Spyw…

Your argument is flawed. How do you know that Apple protects personal data better than others? I think it has the least experience and probably Google is the best in that area. Microsoft is maybe second.

You can easily argue that Apple unlike those others hasn't shown signs in the direction of selling your personal data (directly or indirectly).

Google is an advertisement platform so they are the most experienced in using and selling your data (indirectly).

Microsoft is moving heavily in the SaaS direction with an insane amount of telemetry going out towards their servers from Windows 10. (If you have any concern for your privacy you will have to either disable that via powershell or 3rd party scripts/applications and verify that after every update it is still disabled.)

Facebook is infamous for their facebook pixel, they're looked upon as invading the privacy of everyone in multiple ways. So they're rightfully looked upon as an evil. They've sold and continu to sell private data directly and indirectly, including people who are not on their platform.

Finally Apple doesn't make their money using your private data (at least not on the same scale as those other companies mentioned). So you can view them as the least evil, at least when it comes to private data.

Re: Apple is not your friend

#62
post #9

However, out of that list of four, Apple is the one that I have seen being “least evil” with me and my data. Google dropped their “don’t be evil” motto for a very damn good reason, and the safety of their own app marketplace is a fucking joke. Facebook is even worse than Google, in that it has never stopped trying to appear innocent of wrongdoing while paddling like mad under the surface. Microsoft… has gone all Spyw…

> Google dropped their “don’t be evil” motto for a very damn good reason

They didn't drop it though.

>> "And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"

https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/

Re: Apple is not your friend

#63

Off topic for this particular submission but on topic for Twitter submissions in general: is anyone else rate limited like 90 % of the time when accessing Twitter using the mobile browser on mobile data? Maybe it is because I'm signed out of Twitter in Safari, but I can't read most of the tweets and threads posted to HN.

Use a different browser, something like Privacy Browser [1] which enables custom Javascript/referer/cookie/etc. settings. For Twitter I tend to block anything and everything which makes it revert to its non-JS page. Enabling Javascript gives the normal page without all those popups and app nags. I have never been rate limited. I am a passive Twitter reader since I do not have an account there so for me this solution works, I do not know whether it is possible to actually post anything on that site in this manner.

[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.stoutner.privacybrowser....

Re: Apple is not your friend

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes money on their HW and their media sales and application sales. You have to spend the money by choice for Apple to make money. What does most of the world pay Google for? At Google you are the product. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand. The same goes for FB.

> At Google you are the product. Nothing prevent Microsoft to sells Windows Home/Pro as beta version of Enterprise and gets money & free QA. If you pays money nothing guarantee your personal data will be used too.

That is mostly true, people are generally concerned with the way Windows 10 handles disabling telemetry and other privacy concerns such as automatically reinstalling or reenabling 'features' after updates. In addition you get the bonus of having ads in your start menu by default, a mess of features/software you can't remove and opting out of everything is quite the process.

You can of course sniff your network traffic to see what does get collected, and that way you at least know what they collected and you can imagine how it can be used and abused.

Re: Apple is not your friend

#65
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes money on their HW and their media sales and application sales. You have to spend the money by choice for Apple to make money. What does most of the world pay Google for? At Google you are the product. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand. The same goes for FB.

I don't see a big difference, I would trust my data with the competent one. Especially when I look at Apple / China situation. It just shows what their actual focus is.

This is the case with all these corporations, making money is their primary concern. In addition their options are 'comply to our laws if you want to sell your products here' or 'no selling on this market'. Not justifying their actions, this just isn't a uniquely Apple thing.

Re: Apple is not your friend

#66
post #9

However, out of that list of four, Apple is the one that I have seen being “least evil” with me and my data. Google dropped their “don’t be evil” motto for a very damn good reason, and the safety of their own app marketplace is a fucking joke. Facebook is even worse than Google, in that it has never stopped trying to appear innocent of wrongdoing while paddling like mad under the surface. Microsoft… has gone all Spyw…

your argument does not hold water since there are many more alternatives to use. You are in no way forced to use either of these services.

That doesn't really address the issue he raises though, you are somewhat forced to use modern devices if you wish to partake in the world/society. In addition if you get the choice at work between certain laptops and certain phones, you are absolutely forced to use those.

In addition if you look at the alternatives in the smartphone branch you get the choice between high-end android-based devices and iOS devices or outdated mid-range hardware with relatively poor support and you might not have all the apps you require.

In addition to that there aren't any services out there as well integrated as apples ecosystem is. (device to device), so if you want features like that you don't really have much of a choice outside of the big three.

Re: Apple is not your friend

#67
post #9

However, out of that list of four, Apple is the one that I have seen being “least evil” with me and my data. Google dropped their “don’t be evil” motto for a very damn good reason, and the safety of their own app marketplace is a fucking joke. Facebook is even worse than Google, in that it has never stopped trying to appear innocent of wrongdoing while paddling like mad under the surface. Microsoft… has gone all Spyw…

You really think Google dropped their motto for a damn good reason? Really?

Re: Apple is not your friend

#68
post #24

I have a lot of privacy concerns with Google. But they have also enabled my phone to run on mostly Open Source code, both OS and applications. This is important to me, and for that reason I bunch them apart from Apple and MS.

> mostly Open Source code, both OS and applications. It's not true. Without closed kernel drivers and closed-source Play Store/Youtube/Pay apps any Android is just piece of plastic.

The device drivers can be a problem on many devices, even when running AOSP-derived distributions many of these are lifted from a stock distribution and used as blobs. The bit about Android needing Play Store/Youtube/Pay apps is not true though, I do not have any of these on any of my devices which continue to work just fine - I'd go so far as to say that they work better without these parts: battery consumption goes down markedly, privacy invasion goes down tremendously. I might not be getting the 'Android experience' as Google intends but seeing as I do not want that anyway I don't see this as a negative.

Re: Apple is not your friend

#69

Off topic for this particular submission but on topic for Twitter submissions in general: is anyone else rate limited like 90 % of the time when accessing Twitter using the mobile browser on mobile data? Maybe it is because I'm signed out of Twitter in Safari, but I can't read most of the tweets and threads posted to HN.

Same here. I just switch to the "desktop version" and it works.

Re: Apple is not your friend

#70
post #30

Apple mightn't be your friend, it's true, but it's not as though they're blocking the web app version of this which has been available to any device from day 1. I'm not stating this to defend Apple, whose decision I also find questionable (although relatively consistent with some other rejected/pulled apps, like the one for locating and avoiding alcohol-testing checkpoints), but rather to give us all a bit of perspec…

Apple intentionally held back mobile web that companies cannot build mobile web apps that are as capable as native apps. So this is partly why we're all at the mercy of walled garden App Stores.

> Apple intentionally held back mobile web that companies cannot build mobile web apps that are as capable as native apps.

Are you suggesting that random websites should have the same level of access to your device as native apps?

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