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Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

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Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#281

Post by eis »

They not only track very invasively what you are doing but they create real problems for websites because certain features wont work anymore. Be it due to them disabling them or third party services having to block their usage because of the huge privacy and data safety issue.

Simple example: try to use "Login with Google" from within one of those in-app browsers and you will notice Google had to actively detect them and block the attempt because otherwise the app could spy on the login credentials without anyone noticing.

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, TikTok.... the list goes on and on.

I am very confident that these companies are breaking GDPR laws left and right on an absolutely massive scale. They are spyware at this point.

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#282

Post by Zababa »

CodeSgt wrote: post #275
Zababa wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's an absolutely crucial issue that no one seems to be talking about or taking seriously. Most men communities talk about it in one form or the other. However, most men communities on the internet are usually close in one form or another to the right politically.

I suppose I should have said it's not being talked about by any mainstream authorities or outlets in the same way a lot of women's or equity issues are (not to say porn isn't also a women's issue, it very much is, but seems to disproportionately impact men). It is a shame that any group which advocates men's issues tends to get labeled as right-wing or incelish, which then attracts those types and makes those labels…

I share the same view of the situation as you. A consequence of the increase in demands for justice, political correctness, and stuff like that seems to be that every community has to be focused on a oppressed group or it will be considered right-wing and thus attract people like you said.

The incel label is a good example of how bad men are treated sometimes. If you treated poor people like this by saying they're involuntarly not rich and then proceeded to say that it's mostly their fault because they don't work enough, think they can just show up to work, do their job and become rich, shouldn't expect money to be given to them, most people would react by saying that you're wrong. And when some parts of the population have trouble having sex/companionship like some trans people, it's called discrimination. But the same rules don't apply to incels it semms.

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#283

Post by Broken_Hippo »

Minor49er wrote: post #234
ars wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The toll roads I've seen on the east coast will just scan your license plate and mail you a bill if you don't have a transponder

This is the common way in Norway. Have the toll thingy or get a bill.

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#286

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

brk wrote: post #271
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Netware backend server was it's own OS, IIRC. However on the client side, you had MS-DOS and Windows Netware clients to login to the Novell server and access the associated shared resources.

Right, but those clients weren’t “Novell netware”.

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#287

Post by Fogest »

celtain wrote: post #224
Fogest wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most of the usecases mentioned in this thread wouldn't suffer if the in-app browser had to be invoked with a whitelist of approved domains/urls. Perhaps apps could request permission to run an unrestricted in-app browser, and that could be used to facilitate parental controls. As an aside, is giving parents the option to disable in-app browsers removing a capability or adding one?

Yes I think in app browsers should still follow parental controls, and I don't see why that wouldn't already be a thing on devices. If I can use a VPN on my phone and have that block sites for me, it seems like it should be pretty trivial for the phone to respect parental controls across all apps, not just specifically web browsers.

That would be an additional capability. But having to force a website to give specific apps permission to display them in-app seems like a removal. Some people are also suggesting removing in-app browsers which also seems silly.

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#288

Post by franga2000 »

bigfudge wrote: post #237
polote wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you have kids? It’s really not easy to withdraw all internet access without substantially disadvantaging them. But I don’t want them reading 4chan either. Anything which makes that less likely without fundamentally breaking things is welcome to me.

What do you think is more likely? That your child will stumble upon, correctly identify and successfully exploit an in-app webview, or that they will simply type "4chan" into Google on a school/library/friend's computer/phone?

Unless they are under constant supervision, they will find a way to access what you're hiding from them. And if they are, well then you don't need technical blocks in the first place, do you?

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#289

Post by eis »

solarkraft wrote: post #285

No shit! Instagram tracks what I do in the Instagram app!

You get a link inside Instagram to some website that does not belong to Instagram. It is none of Instagrams business what you do on that website. People do not even realise they are still inside Instagram while logging into their bank account and Instagram keeping a log of some of their activity inside that bank website. It's insane.

Re: Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

#290

Post by upupandup »

andix wrote: post #212
upupandup wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't. By that logic any browser is liable for violating ToS of websites, which btw isn't the law and you are not obligated to follow anyhow. This of course is a different case for corporations with a dedicated legal team.

First Instagram is not a browser. And second the browser manufacturer (usually) doesn’t make any money by tracking their users. They provide them with a tool, a browser. There is the browser Brave, that replaces ads on websites (and makes some profit with that), and there are some serious legal issues coming with that.

My god...you are like the 8th inactive HN user I saw that suddenly springs into action to suggest Brave or post links to Brave

I think we can see whats really going on here. Any chance to drop or mention Brave, after not being active for weeks or months, suddenly congregate to push Brave browser

Dang really needs to do something about this type of astroturfing

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