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Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

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121–130 of 502 posts

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#122

> everyone knows all the alls on your phone On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.

Speaking of iPhone, Im curious about something. On occasion, I log into the [former] bird app using the web app because it's enough to check up on some key follows. Recently, they released a major update to their LLM feature and I installed the app to check it out. While I had the app installed, every time I checked the mobile website there was a large banner directing me to go to the app. Ad blockers and distraction…

> Why does the mobile website know whether I have the app installed?

To clarify - the mobile website doesn’t. It has meta tags that tell safari what app it’s tied to, and safari displays associated the app banner.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#124

Can windows apps (not installed from the MS store) enumerate through the window titles of all open windows? How hard would it be for an app to monitor all of your web traffic based on the title alone? Legit question. ChatGPT isn't super helpful here since it agrees with everything when I'm really looking for someone to say why this isn't really feasible in the real world.

Long-time Win32 programmer here - yes. This is by design. To use an analogy, Windows is like a "high-trust society". There are functions EnumWindows() and EnumChildWindows() specifically for this purpose. See utilities "Windows Modifier v2.00" (when I first downloaded it there were many pages about it, but it's a sign of how forgetful the Internet has become that I barely get any results about it now even searching f…

How do you identify apps that you shouldn't trust? Sometimes trust is assumed only until evidence is given that trust shouldn't be given. Which makes no sense to me. Why was the initial trust so easily given?

A solution is to not use third party apps but most people aren't going to go that route. The VM idea is a good option though.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#125

> everyone knows all the alls on your phone On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.

iPhones are less of a privacy nightmare.

One of the biggest incentives for creating apps is to scrape all kind of data from the users. Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts. And how many actually need your contacts to function. That's why I'm still a bit surprised that many seem to be surprised by findings like this one here.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#126
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple calls these Smart App Banners. Webkit cooperates with iOS to present them according to a meta tag in the page: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting-a... You can get rid of them with the Unsmartifier extension. https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/q55753/unsmartifier_... The StopTheMadness extension can also remove them (among many other things... this extension is a must have for me): h…

>Apple calls these Smart App Banners. Webkit cooperates with iOS to present them according to a meta tag in the page JFC. Are they disabled if you ask for the desktop site?

I think it won’t. I tried open X.com desktop version on iPad, Safari still showed “open with X app”.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the information. I suppose a more appropriate term of phrase would've been "I'd heard anecdotally...", but I agree I was lazy with my original reply. I appreciate the feedback.

You're too kind, their reply was extremely rude to you. I have been here 16 years, been an iOS developer just as long, and have no idea why your comment is "Reddit." A simple thought exercise for me is "Which of these two comments is more Reddit?" - I'd say the one that came with curiosity is HN, the one that bats around half truths combatively and invoking Reddit isn't.

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Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fingerprinting is the best case scenario

What's the worst case, in your opinion?

The US Customs & Border Control apps ("CBP Home" and "Mobile Passport Control") could check for blacklisted apps and flag you to be deported to an El Salvadorean gulag without due process.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would the OS know if the app that the browser is querying about is actually the current page? Maybe i’m missing something, but it sounds like it would be easy for google to support this functionality by letting developers configure this in their app “bundle”. A property that tells the OS “my app is related to domain example.com”. Make it an array of domains if you must.

> A property that tells the OS “my app is related to domain example.com”. Make it an array of domains if you must. Elaborating on the sibling's comment: There is already such a property that apps must set in their manifests in order for them to be able to react to links/intents for domain-associated-with-the-app.com. But it doesn't address the question of how a browser is supposed to be able to open links to domain-a…

I mean, do Windows or macOS tell the browser which mail apps you have installed when it handles a mail:// URI?
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