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Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

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Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#41

Post by cortesoft »

saagarjha wrote: post #36
Dylan16807 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a solution for some situations, but not the one userbinator was talking about. The problem here is needing to trust the filter program. Moving code into a sandbox doesn't help, because you still need an app outside the sandbox to make it actually filter, and the problem is not being able to trust an app .

I mean, you really can't trust that the app just isn't a dud and does nothing. But with sandboxing you can prevent the app from reporting your browsing history.

It has to be able to take the web content, manipulate it to remove the stuff it is trying to block, and then return it to the browser... what is to stop if from returning content with image tags with sensitive data encoded in the url? The browser will have to load the content to display.

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#42

Post by saagarjha »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #40
saagarjha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you can't trust that the app actually does filtering, because as you said the filter list is loaded and evaluated by code that has no obligation to do this. But it can't track your internet browsing because the component that could, the VPN extension, is inside a sandbox.

You can put most of the code in a sandbox. But the part of the code that does the vpn CANNOT be inside a sandbox. It has to interface with actual connections. If you sandbox 100% of the code, it doesn't work.

There is a specific API I am thinking of: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/n...

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#43

Post by Dylan16807 »

saagarjha wrote: post #42
Dylan16807 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put most of the code in a sandbox. But the part of the code that does the vpn CANNOT be inside a sandbox. It has to interface with actual connections. If you sandbox 100% of the code, it doesn't work.

There is a specific API I am thinking of: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/n...

Interesting! So what you're really saying is that a VPN isn't needed. But this function only works on "supervised" devices. That's a pretty severe limitation.

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#44

Post by 283627283637 »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #20

This is literally, one among many reasons (ha!), why I use Firefox. Every other browser vendor is a for-profit entity, and as such will limit good ad-blocking measures as Safari and Chrome have done recently with their new "security" policies. This is also why I don't use a VPN I don't run (or certainly not one that hasn't been audited with a good reputation), and I certainly would never fucking dream of using a free…

Firefox is like that really ugly flower that blooms once every hundred years, they leapfrog the competition briefly and then eventually degrade back to being crap for regular users. I'm aware of the technical politics around what causes this but that only really matters for people who choose browsers based on cyber politics. Quantum was good for six months, now we're back to the same situation where almost everyone outside the tech bubble is using Chrome.

You'd think that maybe this would cause them to exercise some strategy, like rushing to conquer mobile since Chrome's mobile ui is trash, but nope. Hell, Brave of all things is doing better at mobile than Firefox.

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#45

Post by lonelappde »

283627283637 wrote: post #44
rubyn00bie wrote: post #20

This is literally, one among many reasons (ha!), why I use Firefox. Every other browser vendor is a for-profit entity, and as such will limit good ad-blocking measures as Safari and Chrome have done recently with their new "security" policies. This is also why I don't use a VPN I don't run (or certainly not one that hasn't been audited with a good reputation), and I certainly would never fucking dream of using a free…

Firefox is like that really ugly flower that blooms once every hundred years, they leapfrog the competition briefly and then eventually degrade back to being crap for regular users. I'm aware of the technical politics around what causes this but that only really matters for people who choose browsers based on cyber politics. Quantum was good for six months, now we're back to the same situation where almost everyone o…

Firefox mobile can't even render pages reliably. That matter more than the UI.

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#46

Post by lonelappde »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #40
saagarjha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you can't trust that the app actually does filtering, because as you said the filter list is loaded and evaluated by code that has no obligation to do this. But it can't track your internet browsing because the component that could, the VPN extension, is inside a sandbox.

You can put most of the code in a sandbox. But the part of the code that does the vpn CANNOT be inside a sandbox. It has to interface with actual connections. If you sandbox 100% of the code, it doesn't work.

But what if the turtles (sandboxes) are standing on the backs of other turtles (sandboxes)?

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#47

Post by lonelappde »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #24
chimen wrote: post #2

Most of them are using your connection to sell access to residential proxies: oxylabs (NordVPN), luminati (Holla) etc.

> oxylabs (NordVPN), luminati (Holla) Wow that's misleading. Oxylabs and Luminati are both residential proxy networks. Hola is a VPN that sells access to Luminati. NordVPN is a VPN that does not sell access to anyone. It is not sending anyone else's data through your connection. There's an accusation that it shares ownership with Oxylabs, and that's about it. NordVPN might be buying , not selling, residential proxy a…

Oh Nord's not bad because pay other people to break into other people's computers but but respect their own customers' privacy?

https://medium.com/@xianghangmi/resident-evil-understanding-...

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#49

Post by lonelappde »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #25
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good related article, in case anyone still thinks well of NordVPN: https://medium.com/@derek./how-is-nordvpn-unblocking-disney-...

That article isn't good at all. It jumps to conclusions that are not at all justified.

How about this?

https://medium.com/@xianghangmi/resident-evil-understanding-...

Re: Sensor Tower owns ad blocker and VPN apps that collect user data

#50

Post by ComodoHacker »

283627283637 wrote: post #44
rubyn00bie wrote: post #20

This is literally, one among many reasons (ha!), why I use Firefox. Every other browser vendor is a for-profit entity, and as such will limit good ad-blocking measures as Safari and Chrome have done recently with their new "security" policies. This is also why I don't use a VPN I don't run (or certainly not one that hasn't been audited with a good reputation), and I certainly would never fucking dream of using a free…

Firefox is like that really ugly flower that blooms once every hundred years, they leapfrog the competition briefly and then eventually degrade back to being crap for regular users. I'm aware of the technical politics around what causes this but that only really matters for people who choose browsers based on cyber politics. Quantum was good for six months, now we're back to the same situation where almost everyone o…

>Quantum was good for six months, now we're back to the same situation where almost everyone outside the tech bubble is using Chrome.

Did Quantum became worse or you're basically saying Mozilla is bad at marketing (and having huge vertically integrated ecosystem)?

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