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Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

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Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#441

Post by MichaelZuo »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #427
xmprt wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nice thing about reddit is that no one is forcing you to follow such broach subreddits which appeal to the common denominator. In my experience, any subreddit which has more than a few millions members is going to be pretty terrible. Find a more niche subreddit like /r/ running (although location subreddits fall into a similar trap) or /r/longdistancerunning and you'd probably find them to be more interesting sim…

I agree with your comments about the large subreddits, but I also agree with Mistletoe that even many niche subreddits (or at least "midsized" subreddits) suffer from the same moderation problem. Namely, once a subreddit becomes popular or has basically "the default" subreddit name, it's extremely difficult to just start a new subreddit if you don't like the moderation on the old subreddit, because it's so hard to ge…

If someone/some group can’t successfully create a smaller competing subreddit, what prospects would they have to successfully convince over half the existing userbase of a subreddit to formally vote for a “fork”?

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#442

Post by wkat4242 »

billfruit wrote: post #328
wkat4242 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obsidian isn't open source by most reports. On FreeBSD I can build a full copy from source (in fact I have to, there is no binary package). The only issue seems to be licensing, not source availability. Personally I don't care about licensing (I completely ignore it all anyway) and it doesn't stop you from inspecting the source code. I think Obsidian is a really great package, I just happened to have moved over fro…

Obsidian on Android source seems not available. Even generally the reports seems that source is not available. May be the freebsd build is using some binary library packages? A cursory search indicates that one of the freebsd 'build-scripts' used for installing obsidian uses a binary package for obsidian itself, not building it from source. It strange that about obsidian which seems to be rather popular here has many…

You probably mean this one: https://github.com/jgrafton/freebsd-obsidian

That's just a user contributed thing though. It's also just in the official ports collection. There's only a makefile there and some config files for electron (electron is kinda a PITA to compile on FreeBSD because there's no package)

Now, it can update itself automatically but it's all JavaScript. No binaries.

But it's safe enough for me anyway. Especially because the dev community uses it do much. If it did something untoward it would be noticed quickly.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#443

Post by bloomingeek »

subscribed wrote: post #436
bloomingeek wrote: post #342

Perhaps crazy question: is it a good idea to have two phones now? One for making calls only, with as many apps as possible removed. And another phone for email, web surfing, photos, etc...? edit: Oops, I left out texting. Which phone for that?

If you don't need ANY apps on your main number, good dual-Sim feature phone (but be extremely picky, some are utter trash). The for all the smart stuff, Pixel 6 with GrapheneOS. You can confine various "classes" off apps to dedicated profiles, so they'll never know of each other, and you get a vastly improved security (multiple releases in the month) and significantly improved privacy.

Excellent, thank you.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#444

Post by octacat »

mojuba wrote: post #223
xxprogamerxy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, UX. The reality is, most webapps for mobile just suck. The UX is nowhere near that of a native application. I don't want any text to be selectable. I don't want pull to refresh on every page. I don't want the left-swipe to take me to the previous page. You can probably find workarounds for all these issues. The new Silk library ( https://silkhq.co/ ) is the first case I've seen that get's very close to a nati…

To be fair, browser apps do have their advantages: - text is selectable - content is zoomable - you can have an ad/nuisance blocker - page source is open While native apps have their own advantages: - much smoother experience esp. navigation, scrolling, animations, etc. - better overall performance (JavaScript will always lose to the native binary) - access to hardware opens new possibilities; audio, video accelerato…

+ working notifications - adblocker is more of a minus for publishers though

But mainly don't expect any good web app integration on mobile, because it would hit the store 30% tax.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#445

Post by billfruit »

wkat4242 wrote: post #442
billfruit wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsidian on Android source seems not available. Even generally the reports seems that source is not available. May be the freebsd build is using some binary library packages? A cursory search indicates that one of the freebsd 'build-scripts' used for installing obsidian uses a binary package for obsidian itself, not building it from source. It strange that about obsidian which seems to be rather popular here has many…

You probably mean this one: https://github.com/jgrafton/freebsd-obsidian That's just a user contributed thing though. It's also just in the official ports collection. There's only a makefile there and some config files for electron (electron is kinda a PITA to compile on FreeBSD because there's no package) Now, it can update itself automatically but it's all JavaScript. No binaries. But it's safe enough for me anyway…

The "official" packages seems derived from the Nix build for Obsidian, which is using binary caches to get the Obsidian binary is what I could understand.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#446

Post by mercutio2 »

hk__2 wrote: post #211
WuxiFingerHold wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts. It is so annoying that it’s either "give access to ALL my contacts and ALL their information (yes, even the notes I took on their favorite things for next Christmas)" or "don’t give access". I wish we could limit the number of contacts and the level of information we give.

iOS hasn’t allowed access to contact notes for several years, and last year added support for providing arbitrary subsets of contacts to all apps.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#448

Post by hilbert42 »

schnatterer wrote: post #320
pava0 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "break open the app sandbox"?

I found this description about the security risks of rooting very eye-opening https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html It also explains the sandbox.

As dataflow says that site has an agenda. I've used rooted phones continuously since Android v4 and I've had no trouble. Moreover, I'd posit that much of the crap I remove from phones lowers the attack risk which to some degree offsets the risk of rooting.

Granted, I'm not suggesting that everyone should root their phones, in fact in recent years I even stopped suggesting it to my tech-savvy friends (that is unless they approach me for advice).

I don't need to lecture about these things but all those who've rooted their phones know the huge advantages—power and control one has over one's phone is enormous.

For example, some apps contain so many trackers that normally you'd never use them except they're the only apps suitable for one's purpose. Rooting allows you the user to take control and have them do what you want and not that of the developer.

Yes, rooting has its risks but for my purposes its benefits far outweigh them.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#449

Post by lazycouchpotato »

xxprogamerxy wrote: post #202
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

Simple, UX. The reality is, most webapps for mobile just suck. The UX is nowhere near that of a native application. I don't want any text to be selectable. I don't want pull to refresh on every page. I don't want the left-swipe to take me to the previous page. You can probably find workarounds for all these issues. The new Silk library ( https://silkhq.co/ ) is the first case I've seen that get's very close to a nati…

The "pull to refresh" is probably the most annoying one.

Other than that, I'd like text to be selectable! I don't like it when apps don't allow you to copy text.

I use Copy [1], and when that doesn't work I use the OCR text selection feature on my Pixel phone.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weberdo.ap...

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#450

Post by weinzierl »

Slitted wrote: post #440
weinzierl wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the interesting question is which PIN codes is the author hinting at and which week of the year and why. This is what I want to know. I think I can figure out the rest myself. But while we are at it: What is the significance of a cow trading app. Is it used by people who treat cows as sacred or the opposite?

I’m sorry but I have to bring this up: are these comments bait? The questions are a little too naive yet purposeful.

No, I was just in a different frame, seeking cultural significance while missing the obvious.

I expected something more along the lines of:

There is this cultural group some people refer to as WASPs, but they usually would not self-apply that designation. They are not a formal organization but more a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification.

Their cultural lives (and to a large degree their business processes) are organized along an annual cycle starting shortly after the northern winter solstice, even though they claim this is the date of birth of their religious leader. During that time and before a new cycle starts, their businesses practically come to a standstill for a week of celebrations.

A certain subgroup of them has become highly influential in the tech industry. Their most prominent leaders and their companies often gather in and around the zip codes 94024, 94040, 94301, 95014, 95030 in an area called "Silicon Valley."

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