“We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.” • Hacker News Board

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#161

Post by spc476 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

ironsides wrote: post #142

JimDabell wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ironsides was referring to sending email, not receiving it. Sending email from a mail server without a good reputation can often land your email in spam filters these days. It's all very well saying that the amount of spam you get is manageable, but that doesn't really matter if your own outgoing email becomes unreliable because you aren't using a recognised provider.

Jim, what can we do to increase the odds of our email reaching the intended destination on self-hosted domains?

I'm not Jim, but what I've done is:

1) have a valid PTR record for the email server.

2) Set up SPF records.

3) Just run email on it. If you do run a webserver on the same server, DON'T RUN PHP! In my experience [1] the single most abused attack vector on webservers is PHP and about 60% of the time it's abused to install spam sending software on the server and that leads to the IP address getting marked as a spammer.

[1] About fifteen years in web-hosting.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#162

Post by ajays » Sun, May 31, 2015, 1:30 AM UTC

izacus wrote: post #117

ajays wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an API in iOS to get information about other apps? How is Twitter doing it? I thought all apps were 'sandboxed' in iOS.

You can 1.) Scan for custom URL schemes the applications register so you can open them from other apps or web URLs. 2.) Retrieve a list of currently running processes in the background

Apparently Apple will shut you down if you overuse the canOpenUrl method: https://www.ihasapp.com/

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#163

Post by ajays » Sun, May 31, 2015, 1:31 AM UTC

kranner wrote: post #97

ajays wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an API in iOS to get information about other apps? How is Twitter doing it? I thought all apps were 'sandboxed' in iOS.

Apps can register custom URL schemes to enable other apps to open them, pass them data and even deep-link to within them. There is an official API called canOpenUrl: which will let you check if a particular URL scheme is registered on a particular device. So that, along with a database of public URL schemes published by other apps, lets you detect which apps are installed. I wasn't aware of this before but apparently…

Apparently Apple has closed the "canOpenURL" loophole: https://www.ihasapp.com/

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#164

Post by chinpokomon » Sun, May 31, 2015, 3:01 AM UTC

djent wrote: post #139

JimDabell wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they continuously show me a feed of content I resent. Then why do you use Twitter at all?

To be clear, I don't hate the content I choose to view from the people I follow, I hate the content that Twitter provides for advertising. There was a weird time when Twitter was actually showing me relevant ads - about computer stuff, startups (close enough). Now the ads are all random.

Maybe they'd do a better job if they knew what asps you have installed? /s

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#165

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Jun 01, 2015, 1:59 AM UTC

zxyzzxxx wrote: post #74

dredmorbius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search is the easier: DDG. I've been using it all-but-exclusively for nearly three years solid (and another couple on-and-off before). I do still make use of some Google special collections (Scholar, Books), and for time-bound searches (really wish DDG would support those). Email took me a while longer to sort, but while I have a primary personal account somewhere safe, anonymous / pseudonymous accounts were harder t…

DDG is the fastest of all the privacy-respecting engines, but it consistently gives me the least accurate results. It works if you search for mainstream keywords, otherwise it mostly doesn't.

I use it for all manner of searches. Knowing how to tune a search appropriately helps. Tossing in an additional keyword, or a set of associations can help:

    (phrase one| phrase two|phrase three)

Using bang syntax is also quite useful.

In my experience, where a DDG search doesn't turn up good results, an SP or Google search (both bang-searchable) are generally not much better. I'll revise my terms at that point.

Again, date-range is the notable exception, and it's not a minor issue.