It's really concerning that everyone treats their children like prisoners. Your kids are gonna find a way to look at what they want anyway, why make it MORE appealing to them by making it verboten? Are you protecting them or are you controlling them?
Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
251–260 of 469 posts
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#252I'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…
The in-app browsers could use a domain whitelist if parental controls are turned on.
It shouldn't be a parental controls thing for IG, it just needs to be made so when you're using an in-app browser, you're using it for one reason, whatever site you clicked on. Leaving the domain ends the process or opens in another browser.
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Under what circums do you want this? Click on "Sign In/Up with Google". Opens in app browser. Not logged in even though I'm with Safari. Type email. Type password. Get password wrong. Type password again. Get text/email with 2FA code. Every single time. Or Gmail app. Click link. Open in-app browser. Not logged in.
You shouldn't be typing passwords in 2022, get a password manager.
Not paying a subscription for a password manager. And don't want a single point of failure for all my accounts.
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tangential, but these same links have always been a great way to break out of poorly designed kiosk systems. I recall noodling with a huge interactive display on the side of a bus stop that had an embedded map, and surely enough the TOS link launched a browser, and from there you could use the Save As dialog to get to anything to execute
Novell Netware had a similar bug circa 1998 whereby pressing `F1` at the login screen of the terminal opened the help dialog, which opened links in IE ... from there the main Windows shell could be ran and bingo ... you're in.
I never saw IE or Windows running on Novell Netware. It was a server operating system. What you’re saying is akin to saying you can create a windows shell from inside linux.
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#255[deleted]
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#256I 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…
This has actually been fixed since iOS 9: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/sfs...
This opens Safari, but makes it appear like it's an in-app browser. Best of both.
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m a developer and I remember turning off in-app browsers whenever I could and I absolutely hated it My browser would get littered with old tabs and coming back to the app for a small click became a hassle On the off-chance I do want to save a link, I know I can just open it in my browser anyway So I much prefer in-app browsers as a user and a developer
I think Android's "custom tabs" functionality is a great compromise. Apps can open a separate instance of the user's default browser which becomes part of the app's activity stack and doesn't share tabs with the main browser instance. However the UI and navigation are controlled by the browser, not the app. Cookies and local storage are also shared with the main browser instance, allowing seamless SSO without the app…
iOS has essentially the same: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/sfs...
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#258I'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…
I'm glad to see someone mention addicts. I feel as if internet addiction, and especially subsets of it such as porn addiction, aren't given enough weight by either the addiction treatment community or the technical community. Before someone accuses me of being a conservative religious zealot as tends to happen when anyone denounces porn, I'll say that I'm far from a puritan and am extremely liberal in my social views…
What does it mean to be addicted to porn? Daily viewing? Hourly? Constant?
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#259I'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…
They’re given chrome books in school and can’t complete assignments without them. Now what?
Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
#260I'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…
I have a browser based game I play that makes use of many userscripts and browser extensions to further improve/enhance the game. However mobile users suffer from a problem of not having such extras. There is a very nice app someone made on Android and iOS that uses in-app browsers in order to be able to add a lot of custom things. There are many useful instances for the in-app browsers and I don't think they should…
Ok guys, you’ve heard it, there’s an app that uses in-app browser to let you play some browser-based game! I guess we’ll just have to accept the status quo, otherwise the mobile players of this niche browser-based game would be inconvenienced!