Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

krausefx.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 469 posts

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

#301

Post by altairprime »

riazrizvi wrote: post #235

Only Instagram? Every app maker who makes an in app browser can see what you do, that’s the point of embedding it. And why not? You arrive there because of a link in the container app you clicked on. They want to see what you do with the link they gave you. Otherwise only Google/Apple can see what you do with it. Someone can see what you do with the link no matter what.

Not necessarily. If they’re using a WKWebView, they can’t see what you’re doing, which is why Safari Autofill remains enabled in some but not all app-embedded web views.

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

#302

Post by sneak »

senttoschool wrote: post #253
sneak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Self-host vaultwarden, it's free, and it syncs to all your devices so you have a bunch of backups.

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

#303

Post by altairprime »

webercoder wrote: post #231
kart23 wrote: post #103

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.

I naively assumed that they were using a WebView object and that Apple had tight controls over source code injection. Silly me!

Apple has deprecated but not yet removed the legacy web embeds that app developers use to spy on and track their users.

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

#304

Post by underwater »

smoldesu wrote: post #195
graham1776 wrote: post #152

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…

This is such a naive take. I assume you don't have kids or teens?

Children don't exist in a neat subservient bubble. They have peers, social pressures, see advertising, consume television and movies.

Our kid's school had everyone buy an iPad. Already, at pre-phone age, so much socialisation has moved into the digital space. FaceTime, iMessage, Roblox, etc.

I was going to say banning phones would be like a kid in the 80s without television. But really it would be like being a kid in the 80s who wasn't allowed to have a TV, listen to the radio, have a phone line, and wasn't allowed to socialise outside of school.

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

#306

Post by Zababa »

FabHK wrote: post #296
Zababa wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don’t want them reading 4chan either. I don't think access to 4chan is going to fundamentally change who your kids are.

I think you accidentally a word.

I did, thanks. For the record, my post was missing "change" before.

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

#307

Post by t8ty2evj »

graham1776 wrote: post #152

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…

This seems like a non-issue. Where's the damage? I'm tired of people using children and a miniscule population of users w/ severe content sensitivities as excuses to justify features that are really just tools for asserting norms. The children are fine. We've been talking about how bad the internet is for children so long that those children grew up, led fufilling lives, had their own children, and now those children are apparently being ruined by the internet. What children need isn't more protection it's an escape hatch from all the forces trying to manipulate them during their most vulnerable years.

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

#308

Post by 0x0 »

nocsi wrote: post #243
kccqzy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original SFSafariViewController did share cookies with regular Safari. The documentation says > In iOS 9 and 10, it shares cookies and other website data with Safari. I was also also disappointed that they removed it in iOS 11. But it's still a step-up from other even more horrible in-app browsers like in Instagram, which are implemented with WKWebView. I refuse to read anything in those in-app browsers; I always…

lol what you’re describing as a ‘feature’ is actually insecure & vulnerable. There are strong security reasons why Apple mandates WKWebView and bans SFSafari.

What are you talking about? Care to give some sources for this?

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

#309

Post by d110af5ccf »

CodeSgt wrote: post #250
graham1776 wrote: post #152

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…

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…

You claim to be extremely liberal in your social views but then in the next breath make the assumptions that difficulty forming relationships today is significantly greater than in the past and further that this fact is due to effects that are caused (ultimately) by viewing porn. Those are both very socially conservative viewpoints and I have yet to find scientific data (or anything else I'd consider even remotely reliable) that back either of them up, particularly the second one.

If I were to accept (purely hypothetically) that it is significantly more difficult for many people to form relationships today then how do you suppose to show that this change is due to porn instead of, say, the prevalence of dating apps such as Tinder? Or any number of other factors including things like job stability, housing prices (and thus perceived security of living situation), and where people choose to spend their free time (for example going out on the town in the past versus perhaps doomscrolling twitter and watching netflix).

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

#310

Post by nofunsir »

asadlionpk wrote: post #58

I hope Apple doesn't disable JS injection in WKWebViews in response to this. JS injection is the (only?) way to call native Swift methods from JS ie. bridging. I am not sure what the solution here is. Maybe only allow injection to sites you control (via apple association file).

I hope they do.
Post reply on HN