I hate how everything requires you to download a shitty proprietary data harvesting app nowadays when everything can be done just fine without an app.

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨MagneticFusion@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

I have recently started university and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy, for the dining plan, when it would literally work perfectly fine using your student ID and ordering to a real cashier, LIKE HOW IT HAS BEEN DONE FOR DECADES.

I have also read many stories of people that live in apartments that require them to use a mobile app for god damn LAUNDRY. All you need, is a card reader, and it will work perfectly fine like it has been for the longest time.

Privacy concerns aside, it is just annoying that you need this app and that app and this app and that app and it just clutters space on your phone. Security concerns too as now they have all of this additional info on you online, such as your phone number your email your real name, instead of just your credit card info like a card reader would have. And I am willing to guarantee that their security model is absolute horseshit because they have such a small team of engineers working on the app and the servers.

Literal enshitification

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Comments

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pdxfed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I remember when no one had an app. 2011ish, only fucking banks made Android apps since corps were still unsure if Android (or the other competing standard app stores) were going to be worth their effort to develop.

I remember reading the permissions required by apps on install and committing to mobile web browsing if I was on my phone…and this was before most companies even understood every consumer had walking geolocation in their unknowing pockets suddenly.

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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  And this is why I root. Then I can control perms on a granular level.
  
  Even better now that Magisk supports modules, and has things like LXposed, which provides very good perms control.
  
  Next phone will be mostly Google-free just for these reasons.
  
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CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Just put my oldest child in school this year and I had to download FOUR apps. Four fucking apps. Why? This could have been a Progressive Web App and a push notification service. There is no need for this.

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- TheBat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Have you considered refunding the child?
  
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- WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I think a lot of the time for universities it’s cause they’re not building their own custom tools for this stuff, just using off the shelf solutions that they can implement locally. So they just grab one app or system for each different thing they need instead of building one connected one.
  
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  - MrLuemasG@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah I’m a programmer at a community college and this is like us. Although we don’t have any apps, we have different web apps that we use. My current job is trying to use the APIs for each of them to try and build cards in one central web app that bring in the functionality from the other web apps to minimize the amount of time you spend going from web app to web app
    
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- Crow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You often can use web apps (of sorts). Most of those apps mirror the functionality of an already existing mobile web page. Then you just make a little web app container of that mobile site.
  
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- yaaaaayPancakes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  PWAs still lock you into the Chrome ecosystem since Firefox doesn’t support them (without plugins and pain).
  
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  - fuzzzerd@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Firefox for Android does support them fully, it’s just desktop Firefox that doesn’t have pwa support.
    
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  - Crow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Safari supports them.
    
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- Stumblinbear@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Progressive web apps don’t work for shit on ios
  
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dezmd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This idea actually turned me off using Sync for Lemmy or other apps that have their own ad injection capability, as you have to pay to turn off ads but the ad tracking payload is still baked into the app, so is it really off or is it on but not showing the ads that it is still tracking data for in the first place?

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- guacupado@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Is it otherwise free? People seem to hate ads but love using free stuff.
  
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  - dezmd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Does Lemmy.world have ads? Cuz thats the free stuff I’m using, a front end glorified RSS feeder is a stretch to allow even more ad tracking.
    
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- root@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Same here. I ended up using C9nnect for Lemmy as it doesn’t collect any data.
  
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- LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Agree, but other options are punished. Back in the early days of Reddit Sync, he made a Reddit Sync Pro app that never had ads at all, but Google punishes duplicate apps. So there’s not really a good alternative option due to the ecosystem.
  
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bobbi_d2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I took an old phone and fully reset it to use for all these shitware apps. I’ve looked into buying an anonymous SIM card so it won’t be at all connected to me, but the underlying assumption seems to be if you want that you must be a drug dealer. Best I’ve found is mysudo, which requires payment, but it’s really not much, and only stores the minimum on their side. Gives you an anonymous email and phone number. The other problem with all these apps is the engineers are given at best half the time they need to do a good job, so they’re always buggy, insecure, and have a shitty UI. But some project manager managed to show Impact and get a bonus.

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Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
All these forced cloud applications annoy the living shit out of me as well.

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Kazumara@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Swiss Post did that too, you used to be able to buy “stamps” (well codes you would write on the envelope serving the same function as stamps) over plain old SMS. They they stopped that since they have that new whatever service. That service works on a PC browser, but on the phone browser the function is not available, no there you need the app. For fucking no reason at all.

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- jaamesbaxterr@lemmy.ninja ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Just a thought, but have you tried requesting the desktop site from your mobile browser? I’ve had luck with a few websites that have missing features on their mobile pages.
  
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  - Kazumara@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I tried that but it didn’t get me around it, I don’t remember if the site just didn’t respect the browser request or if it was unnavigable…
    
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  - someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s so easy to forget that setting exists.
    
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- Neon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  the SMS stamp was really really great
  
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  - meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Just assume everybody harvests your data. There’s no way to prove that they’re not liars and just doing it anyway.
    
    There are several examples of companies and government agencies that have been caught doing things and retaining data they shouldn’t - only after a breach released all the info.
    
    Home Depot wasn’t supposed to store credit cards but they did it anyway in violation of PCI, for example.
    
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  - ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Everyone that doesn’t have the brains to institute good security harvests your data. It’s just for someone else that they’re doing it.
    
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- BrowseMan@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Swiss post are the worst… Abusing the state monopoly given to them to push their shitty login platform for EVERYTHING.
  
  I bet this platform is as safe as all the rest…
  
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clonedhuman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Anyone with any power or any product is going to milk every single penny they can out of every single interaction they have. There are no ethics in business. No one cares about your privacy, and they only care about laws if they think they’ll lose money by breaking them. Otherwise, these laws don’t exist for them because they get in the way of more money.

We’re a world where the biggest fucking cunts also have the biggest market share of our culture.

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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  “No one cares about laws”… Well, getting caught at least, lol. They couldn’t give a shit otherwise.
  
  Even then, the fines are generally so small it’s just an operating expense.
  
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burgundymyr@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Seriously email your IT and/or privacy team at the university level. I work at a university and that would be removed ASAP for sharing PII. If you’re in the US or UK it’s a major violation of your privacy. Unfortunately most IT offices aren’t involved in many of the decisions and many of the people making those decisions are complete ignorant to the situation.

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blind3rdeye@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
My response to this is that I refuse to use apps like that. For example, the only app I have on my phone is a OSM+ (maps). (As well as core basics: clock, contacts, camera, phone app, etc.).

I’ve never once scanned a QR code, I don’t have any phone apps that require an account for anything whatsoever.

…

And I can say that as time goes on, I feel more and more like I’m in the minority. I’m seeing restaurants where you are meant to order with a phone; and I’m seeing people paying for stuff with their phone; and during covid contract-tracing times, there were a lot of different things that assumed the use of a phone… I just hope that there are enough people in the world with values similar to mine such my life doesn’t get harder due to phone apps being required for more and more things.

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- new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The argument I keep seeing against fast food being too expensive is “use the app! It’s cheaper”. Fuck that. I bought frozen junk food and an air fryer. McDonald’s can keep their 15$ meals*
  
  *Disclaimer that I don’t actually know how much a meal is these days, but I know it’s gone way up. Also, I do still buy from McD when I need to shit out a hangover. Sue me.
  
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  - DJDarren@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’m old enough to remember when you could get a McD’s meal for £6. These days, on the rare occasions I go there for me and my wife, I’m looking at around £25. It’s shocking how much more expensive it is.
    
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ThatHermanoGuy@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It really makes me sad more of these services haven’t embraced PWAs. Being able to run your app protected by uBlock origin is truly the best of both worlds.

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Ignisnex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I work on the enterprise apps team at my university. We’d dump that so hard you’d think we were using it to get liftoff. Definitely complain. Also, it’s not inclusive to students without smart devices (they exist!).

If they do still have the option for manual use (with ID card scanners), there are a number of membership card / ID card wallets that are free on most platforms. You can just type the barcode into the app, and it’ll make a virtual card that can be scanned. Same convenience, no physical plastic. If you’re not offended by Google products, Google Wallet works pretty well. Or Stocard, but I’m not sure what level of tracking they implement. Granted, you’re still installing an app, but you get to pick your poison a bit, instead of being railroaded into Facebook shenanigans.

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- KonalaKoala@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  In which the only liftoff app that would be best for you to be getting is this one. Liftoff for Lemmy
  
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RufusFirefly@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
They put Bluetooth in our apartment complex laundromat and if you don’t have a smart phone or Internet service on your phone, you don’t do laundry.

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- AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That type of shit needs to beade 100% illegal! I’d absolutely stage a riot in the complex laundromat if I were living there!
  
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  - RufusFirefly@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    As with most property management companies, they’ll just tell you, “Hey if you don’t like it, move”. I think they may have put a small blurb in the apartment complex newsletter a month prior but nobody reads those. Also, I had just upgraded to a phone that had mobile data, otherwise, I could not have used the machines because they no longer had coin slots and the app must connect to the Internet to use it. I also had a large bowl of quarters left over that I ended up using at the car wash… Which will soon be cashless also.
    
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obinice@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If you’re feeling angry, there’s an app for that :-)

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calm.an…

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scytale@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
As a musician, I have to maintain an artist account on all the major social media platforms. It’s frustrating that a lot of features for posting only exist on their respective mobile apps instead of making them available on the web version where I have all of them neatly arranged in tabs on my laptop browser. Instead, I had to install all their apps on an extra phone (because I don’t want those things on my primary personal phone).

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- Whisp@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  What sites are you mainly using?
  Which one is the most pain in the ass to manage?
  
  Love to check out your tunes if you'll drop a link!
  
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  - scytale@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    All the big ones (fb, instagram, twitter, youtube). They all have their own pains on web. For example, you can’t schedule posts on instagram on its own. You also can’t create reels on both fb and IG, although at least Meta’s business suite allows you to post standard photos and vids on both platforms simultaneously. You can’t create shorts on youtube web too. Twitter is absolutely basic, and I can’t say much about the app because I refuse to install it even on my extra phone. Besides, it’s not really intuitive for posting anything other than links, static photos, and standard videos, and most musicians are more active on IG now.
    
    Thanks for the interest! You can check out my music at www.linktr.ee/secondstagenavigator. I do a different genre on every release so there are genre tags for each album. Just pick your preference :)
    
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- BlueKey@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Maybe an Android Emulator can at least help with the tiny screen problem.
  
  More isolation without the need of an extra phone.
  
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root@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I also hate apps which request for unnecessary permissions. I have a dashcam which has an app to view the recorded videos. The app requires bluetooth as well as gps location info. Bluetooth is understandable but I don’t see the need for GPS. Unfortunately for me I can’t seem to get mock locations working properly on my phone. It also refuses to work if i do not give it location permission. :(

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- bretti_kivi@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  For locating the camera with BLE. Needs to see relative location, only possible with location permission. Turn it off after pairing.
  
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  - root@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    If I turn it off after psiring, it’ll refuse to connect the next time.
    
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  - cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    These are the kind of things that apps should be more clear about.
    
    The new Fujifilm app requires location access to even open the app, which you use to download images wirelessly. I know they want it always on to add GPS data to photos, but there’s no reason the app requires it to even launch! I should have the right to opt out of tracking because I don’t want to use Fuji’s weird social network feature.
    
    But Google Photos on iOS requires access to all your photos and their metadata to even open. But I don’t want to use Google Photos to store ALL my pictures, I just want to download my photos. Google and Facebook both stored the exif data to determine your location, and so I can’t use Google Photos at all on iOS.
    
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  - sudoku@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    “Nearby devices” permission has been created for this very thing.
    
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- nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This is actually how Android used to handle pairing with BT devices. As I understand this has been adressed in Android 12 and now giving permission to pair with an exterior device does not mean giving location to the app.
  
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Jmii@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Is there not an app that can partition these apps that we are made to download. So the companies are happy that they are installed. But they have no real access to your real data. The app could feed it fake info when requests are made.

But when you have the app actually open maybe give it real GPS access as they are store specific on most of their apps.

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- roi@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  So…an advertiser hell sandbox
  
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- nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  of course there is.
  
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- totallynotfbi@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I know there is Island for Android, but I don’t think it can isolate much without root. Jailbroken iOS users also have Crane
  
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rdyoung@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Are you using apple or android? If you are using android check out adguard. It runs a local VPN and filters that shit out. I’ve actually had to white list some apps like geico because it broke them and they weren’t using (as far as I can tell) any fb or other data collection trackers.

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- MagneticFusion@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I already use AdGuard DNS on top of Mozilla VPN on Android. But that is besides the point, it is just annoying how everything requires an app nowadays
  
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  - rdyoung@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Then why are you bitching about this? If you are already blocking the trackers, why the need for this post?
    
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- pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  While this is the recommended way for us tech savvy people to block trackers, it still doesn’t change this enshitification shift with data harvesting apps.
  
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  - rdyoung@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Not arguing that. I’m simply providing an option for those situations where you have no choice. Your other option may be to buy an old pixel or something and use it only for those apps that you can’t not use.
    
    And as far as tech savvy? No, even the tech unsavvy to install it and set it up. Adguard isn’t pihole, you don’t have to run your own server, it does all of the work and if you can manage to browse tiktok or Twitter, you can use the app to white list any apps that need it to function properly.
    
    I have seen maybe 10 ads in the past decade between adguard, noscript, etc. The times I’ve seen ads has been because I had to turn off adguard for a reason or forgot that I had a specific browser whitelisted for a reason.
    
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- Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Trackercontrol is also pretty nice
  
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- SuperSpaceFan@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Duckduckgo app tracking protection is pretty awesome too.
  
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LillyPip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It was so much better 20 years ago when all the shitty data harvesting apps came pre-installed with Windows.

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HurlingDurling@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
All I can say it’s the fault of marketing and the statement of “we want more information from our users, but we don’t know exactly know what information to collect, so we collect everything possible in hopes to see some connection and predict what the user wants”. I wish companies would actually ask the user what they want. Do users want to use their phone? Cool, make a nfc enabled card that can be added to the phone’s wallets, and give users a portal to manage their funds if needed, no more app needed.

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- Jako301@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Problem with that is that most users have no idea what they want. And user wishes often enough don’t line up with user needs.
  
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  - HurlingDurling@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Users know what they need to accomplish a task just fine, they might not know how to best implement it, but they do know.
    
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j4k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It took me a a couple of years and 3 phones before I started using Graphene OS as intended without many extra apps at all. Doing everything in vanadium without any stalkerware is far better. After nearly a year of heavy daily use, the battery still lasts two days on a charge with a decent margin of battery left by day two.

If you ever take a deep dive into the AOSP user permissions space and learn how it achieve an idiot-user “safe” environment, you’ll see why everyone wants their own stalkerware user app for data mining. In a nutshell, the app dev is similar to a Linux user within their app’s sandbox. They have as much or more privileges than the user in that space. Additionally the zygote launcher automatically loads most apps into memory all the time on Android to supposedly save init response time. In practice, it is a fraction of a second and completely irrelevant on human time. It’s just an excuse to run stalkerware 24/7 IMO

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rainbowgreen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
One potential solution is to use an old phone and keep accounts/apps that you HAVE to deal with solely on that device. Dont use the device for anything else. Use it only on wifi. Keep it at home.

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- slurpeesoforion@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  ~~Keep it at home~~
  Keep it turned off.
  
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milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I use the work profile via Insular/Island, and certain apps I don’t like but do want I put in there, and freeze whenever not in use.

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Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Lol. This is how I know I’m old.

From 2013. reddit.com/…/ha_i_dont_want_your_fucking_app/

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- mod@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Haha and Reddit ofc asks you the same. But I have the feeling that it’s more widespread practice nowadays. I haven’t seen this in Europe that strongly yet though. Seems like there are more proective data regulation laws.
  
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Rottcodd@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The thing I really can't understand, and a likely consequence of the ubiquity of apps, is all of the people who can't seem to function without them.

Like when the Reddit exodus to the threadiverse happened, people started immediately crying for Lemmy apps. And it doesn't seem to matter that much how bare-bones or unstable one might be - the important thing is that it's an app. That's all that seems to matter to them.

It's as if they aren't even aware of the fact that these are all websites, so they all work in a browser - as if to them, an app is a necessity and they can't figure out how to accomplish anything otherwise.

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Tom_bishop@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wait until you need an app to visit your child’s grave

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Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve moved mostly to progressive web apps that truly stop when you close them. For sure they will try to use trackers when they’re running but you can stop that with pihole or NextDNS if you’re on the move with your mobile. You can regain some control if you have the motivation to do so. If you have to install an app, you can still block tracking via these methods and more.

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- worldsayshi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’d anyone actually making progressive web apps?
  
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  - Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s pretty common. I ditched Amazon, Instagram and a bunch of other apps for their PWA equivalent. You can find pretty comprehensive lists on the interwebs and it’s growing.
    
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RunningSpaces@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Feels like we’re in a TechnoFuedal society

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Anonymousllama@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m totally sure all these shithouse apps adhere only to the strictest standards in regards to data security also…

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Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Honestly its fucking annoying literally had to make several user profiles just for my work life and my other invasive activities

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piexil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Similarly I hate that everything requires an app when a webpage works absolutely fine.

Nothing more infuriating than sites that have a fully (or half) working mobile version but then force you to use the app (stars eyes at reddit - although the unofficial apps are way better than either the mobile site and official app)

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