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

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321–330 of 469 posts

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

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is infuriating that I can't browse certain Reddit pages because they want me to "use the app so they know I'm over 18". Nothing's stopping you. There is no such message on old.reddit.com.

I had no idea this existed

Use it while you can. Can bet they'll disable it soon.

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

#322
post #311
post #164

Earlier 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

As a kid I loved doing this in every museum/library/other place that always had 'locked down' interactive Windows systems back in my youth. One of my favorite ones was in a museum where I was with a friend, and there was a PC. We were bored and wanted to play some flash game, but we only had access to a mouse, and clicking links inside the locked fullscreen browser. With enough clicks we got to google and managed to…

And I'm just excited to be able to 'visit' a museum from the internet :-)

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

#323

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.

I think what they mean is the Netware login dialogue, on Windows. My classmate hacked our high school's network, getting him thrown out of class. I'm pretty sure he used a different method, though. He got a job working for the school. This was in the mid 90s.

Colonial? (This definitely happened at my school, wondering how common this was.)

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

#324
post #7

Any reason why Google Maps wouldn’t* use the same in-app tracking? Edit: meant why Google wouldn’t do this. I guess what I really mean, is what are the chances they don’t do this?

Yes, Google Maps probably tracks your usage of Google Maps. But when you click through to a location's website, it doesn't open that in a local webview and track how you use their website.

Whether Chrome tracks how you use it...

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

#325

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…

Reminds me of stories I have heard about users of computer systems with “strong” access controls figuring out ways to make it to unfiltered internet; examples include: student/prisoner computer labs, public libraries, flight entertainment systems, public kiosks, operating system logins, etc.

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

#326
post #47

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…

The very first thing I do, every time, is click "open in browser", just because, if nothing else, the framing of the site always feels "off" to me when using one of those in-app browsers.

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child of the 2000s: just let them look at the horrifying underbelly of the internet. One trip down grossout lane isn't going to undo all your parenting and make them some kind of perverted monster. Children aren't prisoners.

Back in the early 2000s we didn't have people actively recruiting young frustrated men into incel and far-right terrorist groups though. We didn't have people thinking it was cool and edgy to make jokes about gassing Jews. Hell even the pedo/grooming problem wasn't much of a thing. Yes there was porn and vile gore floating around and you had to take care to not fall victim to dialers changing your dial-up information…

Maybe not in the "early 2000s", but you'd have to be a child of the 90s, not the "2000s", to have missed it, because all of that was around by the second half of the decade (with perhaps the exception of the far-right recruitment, which didn't fully hit its stride until the early 2010s).

It's been out there since the beginning; the problem is not the access to it, it's relationship with the internet. Back in the day, you were told to never give your real name online, now you're expected to type it into forms three times a week, while you have a public profile of all of your picture that anyone can look up while an algorithm serves it to the whole world. And yes, some of it is because kids are getting access to this world as toddlers when we weren't able to get there until early teens or the end of grade school at least. Kids need to be taught digital safety more than we need to continue the losing fight about securing access. Kids are smarter and more motivated than you are, they'll find a way around it.

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

#328

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…

You don't have kids.

Your child would be the only one at school with no phone and probably be pretty embarrassed about it.

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

#329

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…

Doesn't the harm of surveillance outweigh the harm of viewing "inappropriate content"?

Think of the addict is a new one, but I am automatically suspicious any time someone cites child protection.

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

#330
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.

As a non mobile developer, no, this was completely surprising to me.
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