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If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

simplelogin.io

21–30 of 105 posts

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#21
I've always tried to get rid of it in the native apps I built in favor of the web based login. It's absurdly big in terms of added download size for a login screen and usually used once. Even with the native SDK it's still a jarring experience in most apps and if you pre-cache the screen it's about as instant as the native implementation. And you app starts don't get tracked every time.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you don't really have a choice if all your friends and family use Facebook...

No. Really. You do have a choice. Exercising unpopular choices frequently requires a spine.

Individually, you have a choice. But not using e.g. WhatsApp needs to be a collective decision or it won't work because everybody else is still stuck in there.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Really. You do have a choice. Exercising unpopular choices frequently requires a spine.

Individually, you have a choice. But not using e.g. WhatsApp needs to be a collective decision or it won't work because everybody else is still stuck in there.

I know some of this is regional, but despite the myriad chat services, I quit them all and have been doing just fine with email and SMS. Can't use phone numbers since it's all spam all the time, tho.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#25
post #4

Original article from Dev.to: https://dev.to/simplelogin/if-you-care-about-user-privacy-do... I've recently implemented authentication for my project and I would just like to say to all the relatively amateur programmers out there: for web based authentication just stick with HTTPOnly SECURE cookies with DB backed sessions that you can revoke. The reason I'm saying this is that there's way too many posts talking abou…

This is a bad piece of advice. Two things I don’t ever want to take responsibility for when starting a project are user authentication and payment processing. I think I know best practices for each, but so does everyone who has gotten hacked.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#26

> If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook. Fixed that for you...

I was going to say the same thing, only in the form of "Duh". Also in the news today, the sky is blue, grass is green, and fire is hot. How in 2019 would any developer believe that any social platform cares about privacy is beyond me. If a social platform is offering anything (the platform itself, SDKs, APIs, etc) for free, then they are going to make money from you some other way. What ever they are offering cost them money to develop, but they did not do that as a charity. This maybe a bit preaching to the choir, but that's how you get the choir to sing. Plus, maybe someone new reads this.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#27
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that storing creds is suitable for newbies either. All authentication is complex and just using HTTPOnly and DB backend is not a solution at all.

Depends on what the project is and also doesn't change the fact that this doesn't happen. Most solo bootstrapped projects are not popular enough initially for someone to spend money / effort to hack them. When they do become somewhat popular though (very small minority of course), I suspect most founders bring experts on board, as they absolutely should. > just using HTTPOnly and DB backend is not a solution at all M…

>most founders bring experts on-board

You have way too much faith my friend. How does bringing an authentication and security expert into your organization make you more money? It doesn't. What people like this tell you change is all cost and only hypothetical benifit. I suspect this doesnt happen anywhere near as much as it should.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#28
post #4

Original article from Dev.to: https://dev.to/simplelogin/if-you-care-about-user-privacy-do... I've recently implemented authentication for my project and I would just like to say to all the relatively amateur programmers out there: for web based authentication just stick with HTTPOnly SECURE cookies with DB backed sessions that you can revoke. The reason I'm saying this is that there's way too many posts talking abou…

I get the motivation of what you're saying - but I'm going more towards splitting the back end from knowing too much. Do authentication in a proxy layer (can deploy as a sidecar if suitably containerized) and then have a bearer token between the proxy and the app server. Yes it's a lot of "architecture" for a newby but it generalizes well to the byzantine Oauth cases without requiring too mach app rewrtiting and this kind of service split is pretty do-able given a Paas.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Really. You do have a choice. Exercising unpopular choices frequently requires a spine.

Individually, you have a choice. But not using e.g. WhatsApp needs to be a collective decision or it won't work because everybody else is still stuck in there.

There is no such thing as a "collective decision". There is only the decision of each person. Any movement to quit these sickness-inducing manipulators has to start somewhere otherwise you end up like those Buddhists who won't enter Nirvana until all other creatures are also ready to enter Nirvana, so they all end up hanging about outside the gates (as it were...), forever waiting.

The decision to be the first,... to lead,... to tread without trepidation where others fear to go,... that's what I called growing a spine. "Won't work because everybody else is still stuck in there" is simply an expression of that fear.

Re: If you care about user privacy, don’t use Facebook JavaScript SDK

#30
post #4

Original article from Dev.to: https://dev.to/simplelogin/if-you-care-about-user-privacy-do... I've recently implemented authentication for my project and I would just like to say to all the relatively amateur programmers out there: for web based authentication just stick with HTTPOnly SECURE cookies with DB backed sessions that you can revoke. The reason I'm saying this is that there's way too many posts talking abou…

This is a bad piece of advice. Two things I don’t ever want to take responsibility for when starting a project are user authentication and payment processing. I think I know best practices for each, but so does everyone who has gotten hacked.

I don't disagree with you, but the state of affairs is basically a protection racket. If you sell out your users to Facebook, they'll keep you safe from all the other attackers.
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