231–240 of 469 posts
surprised this is at the top of HN. isn’t it obvious that every app does this? tiktok, snapchat, even linkedin all open links in their built-in browser and can track what you’re doing. click open in safari if you’re doing anything more than visiting a single page.
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> instead they just made "SFSafariViewController" which does none of these things Actually, SFSafariViewController acts as a full Safari without giving any ability to the developer to inject scripts or receive data to track you(except for ad taps through Private Click Measurement). It's actually a nice solution, it shares cookies(non-session ones) with Safari.
Right... by "none of these things" I meant... the stuff I listed, which for the record is not incompatible with isolating the browser from the initiating app. It would be totally viable to give SFSafariViewControllers "write only" access to your history (implemented as just an API call that SFSafariViewControllers makes to notify the OS of a page navigation, which it can then store the URL of in your history, so that…
For example, write only access to history will also mean SEO-consultant-type people paying app developers to write certain websites to the users history. When Safari does suggestions on the address bar, browsing history is a major source.
But developers continue to use them as HTML + CSS + JS is the easiest way to develop a graphical dynamic UI, for a newbie. Many schools & colleges even teach basic HTML, CSS & JS, so the barrier to entry is very low.
I am not sure what a good solution here would be, but maybe we could start by limiting access. Or another way could be to have some way to convert the rendered UI to compiled binary code
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Or maybe... just don't give your kids an iPhone? Seriously, using the internet/computers should be treated with the same level of caution as grown-up scissors or fillet knives; powerful tools, but they need training to avoid hurting yourself with them. If this is what you're worried about, why are you even giving them a small computer in the first place? Your kids will always be more cunning than your security policy…
You can't live in today's world without a phone. All the mechanisms of the past that were geared for this no longer exist. For example: Drive on the road, get to a toll, don't have a Transponder to pay the bill? No problem - just call a phone number. Uh, what if I don't have a cell? This literally never even occurred to them, there is no alternative way to pay the bill. That's life today, and it applies to children a…
I've meant to write a blog post about this, but here goes: In-app browsers allow users to view inappropriate content, often against the wishes of sensitive individuals. People especially at risk for this include addicts and children. Nearly every app, even "safe apps" including children-rated apps, allow access to an in app browser. Even when iOs has locked down all access to Safari, a parent has removed access to al…
Or maybe... just don't give your kids an iPhone? Seriously, using the internet/computers should be treated with the same level of caution as grown-up scissors or fillet knives; powerful tools, but they need training to avoid hurting yourself with them. If this is what you're worried about, why are you even giving them a small computer in the first place? Your kids will always be more cunning than your security policy…
I've meant to write a blog post about this, but here goes: In-app browsers allow users to view inappropriate content, often against the wishes of sensitive individuals. People especially at risk for this include addicts and children. Nearly every app, even "safe apps" including children-rated apps, allow access to an in app browser. Even when iOs has locked down all access to Safari, a parent has removed access to al…
A feature doesn't become a problem because 1% have an issue with it (people who use parental control). The internet is the internet if you want to restrict what people can see on the internet the only solution is to not have access to it at all
I was super confused by this since to the best of my knowledge SFSafariViewController blocks anything like this, you, as a developer, cannot inject anything or peak into the view it creates. Then I got to the bottom and realized I was correct, but FB/Meta/IG/etc aren't using SFSafariViewController and instead using the older ways to embed a web view. Honestly I thought all other methods had been deprecated and had no…
One thing about both webviews is that there are callbacks with these implementations that developers can choose to open a link in the embed webview or not. It might be useful for privacy/security for Apple/Android to force developers to allow-list a domain (like iOS's Associated Domains) or such that an embedded webview can load (besides local html and files). It might be something in addition to the developer's callback.
iOS WKWebview: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebview Android Webview: https://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/webview Associated Domains: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Xcode/supporting-a...
I generally don't see any appeal to in-app browsers in the first place. They often have extremely broken navigation controls (i.e. attempting to swipe back to a previous page usually just returns back to the app), block the ability to navigate to a specific URL, content blockers don't work, don't allow opening "smart links" that would typically open in another app if opened from a normal browser, etc. From what I'm g…
I'm sure this has gotten better as people have become more used to smartphones, but I worked on a popular app for a big company a number of years ago, and we would send people out to Safari to open links. The number of customer service calls we got from people who couldn't figure out how to get back to the app after that was ASTOUNDING. We eventually gave in and did an in-app browser. Not only did it get rid of that…
It's like putting a toilet in every room because people can't find the bathroom when maybe the bathroom shouldn't have been hidden down in a hatch under a rug. But you can't easily rebuild your house, and now there's shit everywhere, so what is one to do?