Any time I’m required to use an app for something that could be a website, I leave the app a one star review.
‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners
Submitted 2 months ago by nahostdeutschland@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Zak@lemmy.world 2 months ago
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Phone apps are nothing more than modern toolbars. And in case you forgot or missed this phase of the internet…
AstralPath@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Click to win a FREE LOBSTER Dinner 🦀🦞🦐
Man I miss this era of the internet. It truly felt like a new frontier.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
I clicked, but all I got was a dancing stripper and something called Conficker.
terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Peak internet wdym
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
No argument there, especially with Bonzi Buddy lol
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
“2020 search”
Bruh someone’s grandma needs help, we need to fix this computer, it looks like it’s about to get stuck on zombo.com.
JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nothing wrong with getting stuck on zombo.com. After all you can do anything there.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Domino@lemmings.world 2 months ago
I want a re-made Bonzi buddy with AI.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
I don’t vouch for these, as I have not used them. But, I found this rewritten one and this one with LLM.
AlwaysNurture@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I remember toolbar days… I used to lov— sorry i admit this … Installing them … shivers for my sins
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 2 months ago
needs more sheep
486@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, Bonzi Buddy!
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Then you could agree with any barely computer-savvy person that such things should be killed with fire.
Now a lot of very competent person will try to persuade you how you are a luddite and wrong, except 5-10 years ago they’d also promise some bright tech future in addition to that, and now you’re just wrong because they can exist in that environment and like it, and you can’t.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
you can’t.
Can, but refuse. Big distinction for me. I’ve lived through these arguments once already, and have watched their computers keep over and die several time from the viruses these toolbars often bring, and I will now watch as their phones do the same.
techforwhat@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Could you expand on that thought a bit more? How is an app like the internet tool bars of old?
Genuinely curious. I’m a little too young to have experienced internet toolbars like the ones in your image.
alekwithak@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Every service and site had their own malicious toolbar they’d ask you to install and / sneak it into the install for other software. They also came loaded with malware and or siphoned data from you. Older/more tech illiterate people would have browsers looking like the picture above and come to you wondering why their computer is so slow or why they keep getting viruses.
FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Hooboy
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
I missed that phase because I was using Netscape.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Then you didn’t miss it. You glossed over it, like a boss
guyoverthere123@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
No Virtua Girl?
ladfrombrad@lemdro.id 2 months ago
I literally had to switch bank accounts because I couldn’t reset my password “on the web” and required me to use Virgin Money’s app.
Customer service agent(s) on the phone after prolonged discussions why their app wouldn’t work on three Android phones right in front of me surfaced, and I shit you not
Well sir, I have my iPhone here and can login just fine maybe you should buy one of those instead
That day I found out about this
TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I also had to switch accounts because after an update, the banking app didn’t work any longer on my rooted phone and I couldn’t log in. Thankfully, I’ve been keeping two accounts since forever, with the main motivation being that banks really like changing their TOS and introducing all sorts of fees, which I don’t want.
j4yt33@feddit.org 2 months ago
Everything by Virgin is shit. I don’t understand why they’re so big
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Dude that comment would make my blood boil, like holy shit.
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Your switch is guaranteed
The Current Account Switch Service makes switching your current account simple, reliable and stress-free. You could even switch with an overdraft, just speak to your new bank first.
Over 11 million current accounts have been switched so far and over 50 banks and building societies are already part of the service.
The Account Switch Service Guarantee means your new bank will switch your payments and transfer your balance, and your old bank will take care of closing your old account. So you don’t need to worry.
reksas@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
also those who dont want to install that spyware shit on their phones. Even if you dont care about the data collection it still consumes battery faster as more and more data is being transferred
benjaminb@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
McDonald’s (in Germany at least) needs your location to “see when you arrive at the restaurant”. What the hell?! That doesn’t even work properly and they force it on me! I uninstalled the app and now I am actually happy, because without the promotion and discount stuff, I don’t eat McDanks that often anymore.
RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
I use an app for OTR (petrol chain in Aus) and they’ve removed the requirement for location which is… Unexpected, to say the least. Anything except using the pumps on the app no longer needs it when all orders previously needed it.
archchan@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
McDonald’s wants your IQ too. Seriously, it’s in their privacy policy.
Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf 2 months ago
Yeah, I couldn’t be arsed to install that shit. I’m also not taking out my phone for this kind of bullshit. I’m sick and tired of smartphones.
CubitOom@infosec.pub 2 months ago
If you don’t have a smart phone in the US, even temporally, your almost a second class citizen.
Then if you don’t install corporate apps on your phone, there are even more problems for you.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Social Friendly Browser can usualky get around this
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I remember this being true almost as soon as smart phones and QR codes were invented. There were so many things you just couldn’t do as easily if you didn’t have one. Even in 2006.
kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I use GraphineOS on my Pixel 7 and even I feel penalized for caring about my privacy. Its absolutely nonsense, not everything needs an app.
DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Yeah. My bank is one of the few UK banks whose app won’t work with Graphene, which is irritating. Also, the lack of Wallet access for payment cards is annoying.
But all in all everything else works fine.
Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Lloyds? they’re closing my local branch as well really need to go in and close the accounts tbh.
Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
These useless apps make Linux phone adoption harder, fuck them!
nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 2 months ago
I still miss firefox os and feel sad for them not succeeding. Their app system could have become a multiplatform standard and allow us to have much more options in the smartphone market, as well as better desktop integration and interoperability :(
throwback3090@lemmy.nz 2 months ago
that is your takeaway? You’re part of a cult if that’s really how you think.
Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Part of a cult for wanting more options…
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
everyone wants to force you to use apps instead of websites, because websites and browsers have inbuilt protections.
Apps don’t.
Idiots install apps, give them the 400,000 permissions they ask for, then go on their merry way…ignorant to the fact that they just installed a data vacuum on their phone thats siphoning everything off of it to be used and sold and resold for marketing purposes… Even the phone itself its not safe, cause its sitting there, listening to your conversations, even when not on a call, to more “Accurately” spam you with bullshit.
Auli@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Phones are not listening and if you have proof post it. No security researcher has ever posted this.
alekwithak@lemmy.world 2 months ago
[youtu.be/0dGqR4ue8dg?si=tA1s-S3jdz2SwEoo](Idk i trust Snowden’s take on this over yours)
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 months ago
See:
- MindShift
- Cox Media Group (Alternative non-subscriberwalled link here)
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
yeah yeah, people said the same thing about google home and amazon alexa for years… until data leaks proved that was a lie, too.
leadore@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s called “Active Listening”
commander@lemmings.world 2 months ago
because normal websites and normal browsers have inbuilt protections for you.
Ding ding ding.
Tiger_Man_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
This is why I install such shit only if i have to, and only on vm
ambitiousslab@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
This affects me a lot day to day. I have a phone, but it runs postmarketOS, not iOS or Android. It really shows me the importance of open standards. I feel that every business should be required to support open standards for each of the services they offer.
For me, buying train tickets used to be ok, but is getting harder now. Some train operators are really pushing you to use their app now, and getting rid of the option to download a PDF. It really frustrates me: it’s not like it costs them more to offer PDF download - if anything, it’s much cheaper to offer that functionality than to build and maintain an app for iOS and Android.
Back when I had an Android phone, I used Monzo, and it was so easy to send money to friends, set up standing orders etc. I wish they offered a proper web interface. Now, I use Natwest’s online banking, and it’s a real pain - I use the card reader to authenticate, then the website logs me out seemingly every 2 mins of inactivity. Some features, like pre-notifying that you’ll be travelling abroad, are only available on the app. I only see this trend continuing.
The concert tickets example in the article is insane to me. I can’t think of a use case that is better suited for PDFs, and that’s what we’ve been doing for the last 10+ years without any issues. It really is user hostile and excludes people on the edges of society who don’t fit, for whatever reason, with what the 80-90% do.
glitchdx@lemmy.world 2 months ago
apps allow user tracking and advertising though. Much more valuable to the corpos than a few lost customers.
benjaminb@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Also mich More valuable to Google, as they are the biggest Advertising company. I looked it up and according to this source I has ~70% of the pay-per-click market.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 months ago
The reason venues don’t allow PDFs is so that you’re forced to use their own platform for resale where they take a commission.
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
As I’ve been making an effort to replace apps with the browser version of the service. It’s so abundantly clear that companies don’t want you using their website.
Even if they don’t outright cripple functionality, they’ll hound you endlessly to install the app.
It’s infuriating to say the least.
finder585@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Even if they don’t outright cripple functionality, they’ll hound you endlessly to install the app.
Still don’t understand the logic of doing that.
It’s like saying,
“Our website is nigh unusable, please install our app instead. We pinky promise our app works”.
Wrrzag@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
It’s because you have control over your browser, but they control their app and all its trackers, ads, etc
dukeofdummies@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I for one cheer and root for my flip phone friends.
I’d never do it, but we have one at work and he’s singlehandedly causing so much grief at work. Because none of the engineers wanna use a security app for login. They want a fob.
IT refuses to pay for fobs and wants us to use an app, but they also don’t want to pay for a phone for anyone in engineering just to use the security app because it opens a floodgate of people with company phones.
It’s just wonderful to watch this fight from the sidelines sipping tea.
DeaDvey@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I have no smartphone and am unable to access any of my college resources or email from home because you need a security app for remote login. I’ve got in trouble a few times for it but idk what I’m supposed to do. I wasn’t able to access my Exam Timetable because of this and had to ask some friends when the exams were because my teachers didn’t know (somehow). It’s very annoying.
toynbee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You could install an android emulator on your personal computer then run the authenticator from there.
Xanthobilly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s also a gigantic information harvesting ploy.
distortwave@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The whole using your phone for everything from grocery shopping to just doing whatever Like getting deals or whatever?, Can it please go away?
They’re collecting our data anyways.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Even if I was willing to download all of those apps I don’t have room for them. They chew up 50-300mb each (why!?) and if I installed all of them I’d run out of memory. Since most phones now don’t support memory expansion I have to be picky about which ones I use.
recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
A mobile app requirement is an easy excuse for me to nope the fuck out.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
THIS IS ACTUALLY SO REAL FUCKING SMARTPHONES I HATE STEVE JOBS FUCK YOU WHY DID YOU RUIN TECHNOLOGY.
ok rant over, but seriously though, it’s so fucked how you basically just need a smartphone to do ANYTHING these days. I don’t want a phone, i have no use for one.
SabinStargem@lemmings.world 2 months ago
I am still on a flip phone. It is usually silent, and I don’t spend much time with it at all. While I am missing out on discounts and such, I simply hate the idea of constantly using a phone. Email is my telecommunication of choice, but receptionists don’t understand the idea, unfortunately.
My household bought a Rinnai water heater, and the bastard needed a phone to set the temperature. Thing is, it couldn’t communicate with the two or three phones that were used on it. Fortunately, there was an old-school modification for a physical keypad, but that had to be bought separately.
Phones are just not my thing.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That is what I noticed. Everything these days require app to get shopping vouchers, book tickets, go in to your local gym, pay in store (we are being weaned off from using cash) etc.
BigTrout75@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yep, the homeless pay more!
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Not having a phone really sucks in this day and age. Imagine getting out of jail for something stupid like marijuana possession and then a parole violation due to a missed appointment. No one will hire you with your rap sheet. You live in a halfway house with a bunch of petty BS every day. And you can’t keep up with your parole demands because of how much your lack of a phone gets in your way. At the end of the day, there IS a way to succeed if you make the right choices, but shit it’s just so much harder for some people to make the right choices when every day is crisis mode. And all because of WHAT?
answersplease77@lemmy.world 2 months ago
they make older phones become useless after ditching their support
daggermoon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m young and I fucking hate apps. I have android phone without a google account which works well for the most part. I’m too dumb to install LineageOS. and Linux phones aren’t really an option in the US.
dirthawker0@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m in California where we have a grocery chain, Safeway. They’ve had a loyalty card for decades, which works great, gets you good deals, can be scanned by the checkout clerk or at self checkout. It also racks up points which can be used for discounts.
About 2 years ago I started seeing signs in the store offering even greater savings through the app. There will sometimes be 2 signs side by side for the loyalty card vs the app. The app is always a better deal.
So I downloaded the app and learned
- the app cannot scan your membership at self checkout, you have to be checked out by a clerk
- the app’s membership number is different from your loyalty card number and the two cannot be merged.
- because of that your points can’t be transferred to the app
It’s the dumbest thing ever. Why not just offer the better savings to the loyalty card? Isn’t that the whole point behind loyalty? I literally shop at Safeway less often now.
FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The same goes for customer loyalty cards. All market tracking schemes should be rightfully banned.
Cool_Name@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I am still using a flip phone. My new goal is to make it to 2027 marking two decades of rejecting the smartphone era. Each time I consider compromising something gets even more awful about smartphones and I double down on saying no.
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
YES full support! I have and am sending this from my smartphone but I’ll stop going to your store before I download your stupid fucking app for a free mcflurry or whatever the fuck pisspoor excuse you have for installing malware on my devices.
tabular@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Even if you did want apps the majority only offer it from 1 of the 2 popular repositories (" stores "). It’s a shame they do not have a way to track that lost sale.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 months ago
You don’t need an app to use a loyalty card…
But yes I am against supermarkets that only provide discounts if you use their loyalty program, which in turn allows them to track your purchases. Especially since many items are priced with the discount as the “fair” price and the full price is really just a money grab.
yesman@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There should be a warning label on any establishment or product that requires a smartphone to use.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
How about this:
At the apartments I recently moved out of, there were no quarter slots on the washing machines. They were an app that required a bluetooth connection to pay.
So if you lived there and didn’t have a smartphone? Go fuck yourself, you don’t get to do laundry.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 months ago
That…
Is that not illegal?
white_nrdy@programming.dev 2 months ago
Tbf, my building also uses an app for laundry. However they also have a machine in the laundry rooms where you can purchase an NFC payment card and put money on it. So you can use it without the app. Is that not the case with yours? If not, that’s 100% fucked
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Thank god they decided to keep these free where I live
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 2 months ago
That depends a bit on if it was advertised or not to have a laundry room. At least here in NL it is more common to have your own washing machine than to use a shared one so having a laundry room would be an extra to start with.
Still sucks though
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 2 months ago
The more insane thing here for me is the fact that there isn’t a washing machine inside your apartment.
(btw lived in such once, apparently the owner wasn’t very wealthy. We washed everything by hand)
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 months ago
There was a food truck I went to one time that required you to download some app to look at their menu and order your food. They refused to accept a credit card or cash. I walked. So fucking stupid. I don’t know why people allow shit like that to exist.