Anyone have tips on how to avoid having the WhatsApp app on your phone?
Use telegram
Why telegram instead of signal?
Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
161–170 of 346 posts
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#162I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me-
What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#163Text-only, no Javascript:
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1GecPs
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> While still allowing random third party javascript to run unchecked on a parent website. Lol, why are you commenting as if somehow allowing it to run negates the other good ideas in some way? Obviously some is better than none, and all is better than some, but each step takes more effort.
lol, because ads pay for the content you're reading. it pays salaries. what I _don't_ want is to be _tracked_. show me ads all day if you want.
They'd like to show you personalised ads, for more effective manipulation, which implies tracking.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting privacy advice from an adtech funded outlet sounds like reading democracy advice from the Chinese ruling party or vegetarianism advice from lions to be honest. It might be correct-and-incomplete but they just have no credibility on the topic.
WaPo is dependent on subscription revenue, not ads. They limit the number of articles non subscribers can read. They're also owned by one of the richest men in the world...
Of course it's dependent on ads, what are you talking about, nothing prevents showing ads to subscribers to the tune of 180 mil/year
https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/washington-post-lost...
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#166Without the suggestion to install an adblocker, this is not credible advice.
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Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#167I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me- What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
In principle, I think most people believe their morals would prevent them from working at a company like Meta.
On the flip side, how much are morals worth if you have the opportunity to be financially free?
There's also the opportunity to work on interesting problems.
Anecdotally, of course, I know a Meta engineer at the L7 level (generally staff engineer in these large tech companies). He makes over seven figures a year, 75% of that being from stocks. The money is there.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's effectively malware—this article has some more detail: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/meta-and-yandex-are... Basically, they created a channel between the browser and a localhost webserver running in their native apps, by abusing the ability to set arbitrary metadata on WebRTC connections. That way, they were able to exfiltrate tracking cookies out of the browser's sandbox to the native app, where they…
Is there any way to fix it within Android? damn...
Yes, don't install their native apps.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#169If any software engineers out there are working on things like this I can only pray they STOP and think about why what they are doing. Implementing features by having to jump through hoops, just so that their employer can better spy on people and make more money.
That is so wrong, on so many levels ... I personally couldn't do it.
I hate this even more than NSO Group's Pegasys, which could easily get people killed. I'm ok with my reasoning, and I really hate that one as well.
Here, with Meta and Yandex, you see what you always see.
As soon as people catch on, they immediately remove it. But they will keep using it until that day comes.
For money, while trying to hide it from the users they are spying on.
It's greedy and evil and whoever in these companies think up these ideas should be let go. Immediately, in a perfect world.
Instead they'll just try another approach.
While everyone else has to clean up this latest one.
"Following public disclosure, Meta ceased using this method on June 3, 2025. Browser vendors like Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and DuckDuckGo have implemented or are developing mitigations, but a full resolution may require OS-level changes and stricter enforcement of platform policies to prevent further abuse."
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#170I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me- What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
> What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this?
I got this exact thought IMMEDIATLY (yet again) and posted on it here as well, putting my two cents in.
This is totally unacceptable for a software engineer to implement features like this simply because their company told them to, doing what the company tells them to makes them money, so they do it.
No apparent thought into whether they are creating is harmful, or caring about it.
I've given up on any anger directed towards the company itself. They will make money any way they can. Now, the engineers who actually implement it bothers me, because it is clearly not something that should be built.
To me, I don't care how much I'm being paid or how bad it would be to lose my job at that time.
I would resign before working on features like this and deal with the consequences.