Don't Download Apps

https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/dont-download-apps/

by speckx • 8 months ago

425 286 8 months ago

blog.calebjay.com

I've been dutifully following this approach for a little while now and it's had the nice side effect of pushing me to smaller and more local options.

I think it's also saving me money!

VerifiedReports• 8 months ago

Giving your phone number is just as bad. I was buying stuff at World Market and they had big signs touting 20% off some things... but when you got the counter they told you didn't get that unless you coughed up your real working mobile number so you could receive some BS code.

See ya, jerks.

liamwire• 8 months ago

You can use my phone number, +61 400 000 000 :)

sevenseacat• 8 months ago

except it needs to receive a code that you give back to them?

xiaomai2• 8 months ago

Native phone apps give me the creeps. I assume the developer's are able to track me in various ways even without my giving permissions. Is that an unfounded fear on my part?

Can an app uniquely identify me if I don't give it control over my phone number / nearby devices?

Can apps geo-locate me if the location permission has not been granted? (seems like they could just make a network request to their servers and use the IP address of the request for a rough idea).

I _really_ wish using the network was a permission (even if it was an "advanced mode" thing).

noman-land2• 8 months ago

Simply your IP address can be used to track you so any app or website you visit knows roughly where you are with every http request unless you use an always on VPN. It can also fingerprint you in various ways without the need for any special permissions.

bji9jhff• 8 months ago

Then the VPN provider does geolocation instead and get the list of hosts you accessed

xiaomai2• 8 months ago

Agree with you about fingerprinting (also a bummer). I guess the difference here though is that I must be actively engaging with a website in order for it to be tracking me, but an app (I assume) can be tracking me basically whenever it wants.

encom2• 8 months ago

Is that an unfounded fear on my part?

Given the security record of app stores, probably not.

disambiguation• 8 months ago

Netguard solves this, available on the play store and F droid

https://netguard.me/

Flere-Imsaho3• 8 months ago

Pro tip: use the fdroid version as it allows you to set a host file to also filter ads, etc.

https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md

lsaferite4• 8 months ago

I love netguard. Some apps refuse to work without network access, but most work fine. The lack of ads is great.

n4bz0r2• 8 months ago

How does it work without root? Any app can just block other apps from connecting to the internet?

aceazzameen• 8 months ago

Netguard is fantastic. I even use it on my Sony android TV to block everything except for a few streaming apps.

evilduck2• 8 months ago

Netguard is amazing but I'm convinced the dev is mildly colorblind and unaware of it. The color choices and even optional themes are... something.

throw4039• 8 months ago

Network is a permission on Android, it's just that phone manufacturers and likely Google don't want you to be able to control it. Most custom ROMs, including GrapheneOS expose it properly, often at the install dialog.

TrianguloY• 8 months ago

On play store you can see the permissions that an app uses and they are grouped by category. Have full network access is set in the "others" category, same as notifications and vibration. This is a category where (supposedly) permissions are automatically granted.

But to be honest, other similar dangerous permissions like "view network connections" and "receive data from internet" are also there, categories are for "camera", "microphone" etc.

I suppose that the average user is more concerned about specific features, and since basically almost all apps require internet it may be there to avoid noise. Still, an "internet" category would have been nice...

lsaferite4• 8 months ago

They really should just let me spoof all the permissions and associated data for apps if I don't want them to have the access.

Animats• 8 months ago

"Network" is too broad. What you really want for most apps is "can only talk to its home domain from which it was downloaded".

frizlab• 8 months ago

They can track you on a website perhaps even more reliably than on an app, at least on iOS…

galleywest200• 8 months ago

The difference is I am not carrying around my desktop computer, the location data stays static.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

You realize that if you are concerned about apps tracking you without you explicitly giving it your location, a website could do the same since there are browser APIs that can retrieve the same information only gated by the same OS controls?

When you go to a website, they have always known the originating IP address.

doctor_radium3• 8 months ago

Better (?) browsers also have an internal switch to disable location.

rejhgadellaa• 8 months ago

Not entirely true. Browsers are paranoid by default (because visiting a website is as easy as clicking a link). Operating systems aren't (because the user explicitly installed an app, it's been "vetted" by app store experts, and because... well, the OS vendor wants you to build native apps and not a website, so they have to make it worth the extra trouble of building a separate app for each platform instead of one website that works everywhere).

Also, browsers tend to bring their own sandbox (on top of what the OS already does). For example, Chromium was able to mitigate Meltdown/Spectre before OS vendors shipped an update (except on iOS where browsers can't bring their own engines, so iPhone users had to wait for Apple to ship an OS update...)

snthd• 8 months ago

Facebook & Yandex used apps to correlate browsing sessions to the app user.

https://localmess.github.io/

jampa• 8 months ago

In the beginning of Android / iOS, just installing an app and registering was enough for the company to get your device's MAC address and thus your indoor location with accurate precision.

They could access your Wi-Fi network's BSSID (whose location is often public due to wardriving databases), and in public places, they had partner companies (malls, airports, etc.) whose routers would triangulate your position based on Wi-Fi signal strength and share information like "John is in the food court near McDonald's."

All of this happened without you even needing to connect to their Wi-Fi, because your phone used to broadcast its MAC address if the Wi-Fi was simply on. But now your MAC is now randomized, but it took a lot of time for Google / Apple to this.

fluoridation3• 8 months ago

What do you mean? The MAC address is used to identify the device within the same network segment. A program running on the device cannot derive location information just from the MAC address. It's a meaningless number. What the MAC address can do is make you visible to other devices in the same network segment. So for example, a wireless router can know you're nearby because your known MAC address has joined the network, but this is a problem regardless of what apps your phone is running.

Flere-Imsaho3• 8 months ago

Android 15 supports Private Space [0] that is essentially a separate profile you can install apps into that you can put to sleep. Basically I put all low trust apps into it, but can still access easily enough.

[0] https://support.google.com/android/answer/15341885?hl=en

bashkiddie• 8 months ago

The web page says Private Spaces can hide an app from the user.

What I want to do is hide my address book and gallery from the app.

ChrisMarshallNY6• 8 months ago

iOS always asks for permissions. I suspect the same is true for unrooted Android.

But the general pattern is that you install some stupid vendor crapplet, and the first thing it does, is ask for every permission on your phone. Native apps can access a lot more stuff than ones restricted to a WebView sandbox. That's why they want you to use them.

No thankee.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

Exactly what do you think an app can get off of your device that a website can’t without your permission?

ivanjermakov• 8 months ago

Can an app uniquely identify me

Even browsers can identify* you, if they really want to.

*not as cleanly though, could be tricky for fingerprinting to track one user across different devices/browsers/netowrks.

Recent discussion on fingerprinting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46016249

m4632• 8 months ago

Is that an unfounded fear on my part?

no. especially with the value of data. Many apps just link into some advertising sdk that does anything it can get away with.

and it is unfortunate that people are shamed for being conservative (want a tinfoil hat?)

beAbU• 8 months ago

Are you not exposed to all these things via a webpage as well?

encom2• 8 months ago

An annoying trend I've noticed is being asked for phone number or email at checkout (IRL). I bought a blood pressure meter a few days ago, and the salesman asked "what phone number should I put on the order?" Zero. Fuck off. I guess most people just answer out of reflex, or believe it's required to complete the purchase. It's creepy and irritating.

kirtakat• 8 months ago

[Your Area Code]-867-5309 is what I always use - alas they are becoming wise to that

dylan6044• 8 months ago

[areaCode]-555-1212 is one I use, but any 555 prefix will work as it is not meant for actual phone numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number)

phyzome2• 8 months ago

I've used 213-456-7890 a few times on throwaway things.

867-5309• 8 months ago

cool example :)

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

This has been a thing since the 1990s when I worked at Radio Shack.

pessimizer• 8 months ago

It was only a thing at Radio Shack, and I would never give them my number.

tomwheeler2• 8 months ago

At least they gave me a free battery every month.

I feel sorry for their database because I was a teenager with a bunch of guitar pedals and an ongoing need for 9V batteries. I made up a LOT of phone numbers.

didgetmaster• 8 months ago

I often use my old landline number when stores ask me for a phone number. I gave it up about 20 years ago. I feel a little sorry for the guy who has it now (only a little sorry) because whoever it was reassigned to, probably gets many spam calls on my behalf.

gishh• 8 months ago

“Can I have your phone number for this order?”

“Nope.”

Already pisses me off that companies make a profile of me based on credit card numbers. I’ve had this number for decades. I’m sure you could build a complete profile of me based on my cell number, and this is the only “social” site I use. I got off fb in 2008, never even joined the rest (twitter, insta, reddit, et. al.) just because my phone number has been raped out of anyone else who has my name and number in their phone.

doctor_radium3• 8 months ago

As a teenager I worked at a discount store, and sometimes ran the service desk, which (among many other things) involved processing returns. The returns form included a spot for "phone number", to which some customers would respond, "my number is unlisted". We honored that. Today in the USA, it seems the phone number is the new Social Security Number, which everybody wants to use for tracking. Stores used to give out physical discount cards (which I wasn't keen on either...) but now (obviously because it saves them money) so many stores have switched to a system where your account is tracked through a phone number or an app or both. No thank you.

qwerpy• 8 months ago

The more effective way to do this that is popping up everywhere is a loyalty program that uses your phone number as the identifier. Buy 10 coffees, get one free, but the purchases are only tracked if you input your phone number.

GJim2• 8 months ago

is being asked for phone number or email at checkout

For amusement, I often counter that by simply smiling and asking the cashier for their phone number (maybe with a sleezy wink). Their inevitable grin does rather drive home the point that, no, neither of us are giving our number to random unknown strangers.

mmcclure• 8 months ago

I switched to using PWAs for social media apps for similar reasons the author outlines. A pleasant, but somewhat unintended consequence is that I just use them a lot less because the experience is pretty bad. It makes me a little sad because I’ve always believed in the PWA dream, but the reality is that they’re bad because companies certainly don’t want to make an experience that rivals the app they really want you to download.

Expected, but just leads to reinforcing the idea that PWAs won’t ever be as good when every one people try from someone with a popular app is so awful.

georgefrowny3• 8 months ago

I'm convinced many companies purposely gimp their web sites to drive people to apps.

Uber for example doesn't seem to work from my phone browser.

What surprises me is how many engineers must be involved in this kind of scummy shit and keep it tightly under wraps.

jsheard• 8 months ago

I'm convinced many companies purposely gimp their web sites to drive people to apps.

And then their app is just a webview wrapper. But that still gives them more access to your device.

grvdrm3• 8 months ago

Instagram - major offender.

hdjrudni• 8 months ago

I don't know if big companies even know how to make web apps. Honestly. Which is extra insane to me because there's so much investment in web technologies. On my team at $BigTech there's like 1 or 2 people out of 30 people on our team that knows web, the rest are mobile. I'm a web guy but I refuse to touch our web-app because they butchered the tech stack and I don't have the energy to deal with that BS. We still have an mobile-web version distinct from the 'desktop' version because.... I don't know why, whoever wrote it never learned about responsive web design and we never bothered to move out of the stone ages because if people want to use the app on their phone, they should download the native app of course! And by "native" I mean we built our own half-baked framework so that we could cross-compile for Android and iOS.

Also I don't think these people know how capable PWAs are. There's very little you can't do in a web-app that you can do with a native app.

pavel_lishin2• 8 months ago

You can't use Facebook Messenger on the web at all, unless you go to Facebook and switch to the desktop version. Then it's a simple matter of zooming in without accidentally clicking anything, using their fiddly interface to load up the conversation you're interested in, and get bounced around the screen as the input focus changes around.

m4632• 8 months ago

Uber for example doesn't seem to work from my phone browser.

Remember when uber wouldn't work for regulators either?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber...

jeroenhd4• 8 months ago

PWAs can be good, but for a lot of social media, they're only as good as their website experience. Many (most) companies seem to make their website intentionally slow and buggy, probably with the idea that users only need to use their web UI for a short while because they lost access to their apps or something.

For instance, I've installed Mastodon as a PWA and it performs great. Photoprism also works so well I haven't even bothered to look for an app.

array_key_first• 8 months ago

The absolutely batshit insane part is that the 'native apps' are almost certainly created using web technologies which call the exact same APIs as the web app.

There's zero reason the web apps should be so slow.

severine• 8 months ago

Try Phanpy for the fediverse: https://phanpy.social/

Maybe the best web app I've used.

qWoodpecker• 8 months ago

What's funny is that desktop versions of websites in a lot of cases are responsive, and work fine on small screen. BUT at the same time the mobile version is crappy and lacks some features (or just shows "download our app").

Recently I've set up Firefox on Android so that it always run in desktop mode. I needed to also change screen width in about:config, because otherwise everything is too small. But after this websites seem to work better.

cubefox4• 8 months ago

What is the relevant setting in about:config?

chii• 8 months ago

But after this websites seem to work better.

quite likely that the site has a mobile "mode" and a small-screen mode (for desktop), each made by different teams. some mobile mode website is fine, but others suck. Where as the small-screen mode for desktop tend to be made by the same team/person as the main site (it's a css media query after all) - so it's likely to be more coherent.

henriquemaia2• 8 months ago

What a great suggestion. I've followed your advice and it works. What a treat!

Thanks for sharing.

aembleton• 8 months ago

To avoid the download our app nonsense, you can add this filter to uBO: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/ref...

lanfeust63• 8 months ago

Personally my experience with PWAs has been solid, on Firefox w control over JS. I still use them a lot less because I don't stay signed in.

ruralfam• 8 months ago

I have had a FOSS web app for learning arithmetic for quite a few years. I occasionally review it, and make changes. Each year Chrome and Safari both nip at the edges of what allows a PWA to be OK. No one really cares until one has to write documentation helping folks install the PWA and avoid issues that did not affect the PWA a few years ago. I mean really, are Tim and Sundar really that afraid ?? I guess so. They have dozens of millions on the line. Capitalism... gotta luv it.

boppo12• 8 months ago

Hmm, I'm making a site and I planned on using a PWA for the app experience instead of a native app. Am I setting up for a bad time? I'm not too worried about the installation hurdle, my potential early adopters are motivated and smart.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

And you don’t realize that social media apps put cookies on other websites so they know you have been to another website and then start showing you ads based on your interests?

Apps can’t tell what you do in other unaffiliated apps nearly as easily at least now on iOS that there is no globally unique identifier that apps can use to track you.

socalgal2• 8 months ago

Apps require you to sign in so they've got you immediately. They can share all your activity with whoever they want. Websites (many) do not require you to login (youtube, reddit, hacker news, etc....)

Apps also try to open all links into their own webview, a webview in which they can track all activity.

robhlt• 8 months ago

All privacy-respecting browsers block 3rd party cookies by default now, which prevents that kind of tracking. There's still other forms of fingerprinting they can use, but those can be used in apps as well.

DANmode• 8 months ago

Normies just see everything as “apps”,

and don’t mentally differentiate how they’ve put it on their homescreen once it’s there.

Plenty of great crossplatform webapps, if you’re not exclusively using social media or spyware. Often even if you are!

boppo12• 8 months ago

I'm making an app and I plan to go the PWA route to save myself on managing native apps. Any tips on making my experience first-class?

bstasse• 8 months ago

If you're using React, I'd recommend using Silk (silkhq.com) to create native-like bottom sheets, pages, sidebar, etc.

Most animations, including the swipe, are hardware-accelerated, and it deals with a lot of common issues you encounter on the mobile web (body scrolling, on-screen keyboard, etc).

Disclaimer: I'm the creator of Silk.

jbombadil• 8 months ago

100% agree. The level of tracking has gotten to absurd levels.

I needed a couple of grocery items and happened to be next to an Amazon Fresh. Cool, let’s try it! Went in, found everything I needed and went to self checkout. When it was time to pay, the machine wouldn’t accept Apple Pay. I ask an employee who helpfully informs me that I can pay with physical cards or my Amazon account.

I didn’t have my physical cards, nor wanted to do my Amazon account so I had to leave empty handed. Why don’t they accept Apple Pay? Because they can’t track you. If you use a physical card, they can likely link that card number to an Amazon account and thus attribute the purchase to a person. If you pay with contactless payment they get a one time token that they can’t tie to anyone.

StilesCrisis• 8 months ago

Walmart is the same. I believe it's very very slightly more expensive to process Apple Pay payments (Apple's getting a tiny fractional amount of the sale), and this was the actual sticking point.

dylan6044• 8 months ago

Walmart rolled out their own QR code payment plan just so they didn't have to revshare anything. When you're the size of Walmart, you can get away with those types of decisions even though they are technically very much inferior

evilduck2• 8 months ago

It's not any more expensive for the retailer, it's a small fraction paid by the card company. Walmart just wants to track everything about you.

paulddraper5• 8 months ago

Why don’t they accept Apple Pay?

Apple charges for the interchange.

This is the same reason that Walmart doesn’t accept it.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

Every credit card company charges interchange fees. Apple charges an additional .15 cents.

Walmart doesn’t accept Apple Pay because they want you to use their app and think they are big enough not to.

piperswe2• 8 months ago

No, they don't. Apple isn't involved with the transaction processing at all, the phone just acts as an EMV device to transmit the payment details to the terminal.

phyzome2• 8 months ago

In Massachusetts, they also would have been required to accept cash, as all business locations are.

(It appears that Amazon Fresh has not opened any locations in MA. That's fine with me.)

aduitsis• 8 months ago

IIUC, contactless payment via apple pay does have a secondary card number of sorts that's linked to your original card.

I once accidentally paid for AppleCare with apple pay (a mistake), so when at some point I switched phones I had to get new secondary card numbers tied to my physical cards. The old secondaries went away when I wiped my old phone, so AppleCare was no longer able to draw the monthly payment. The number in the invoice was likewise not the original physical card number, but some other number.

Whether the secondary numbers are easier or impossible to track is certainly a question, but I believe there's always a number.

Tylast• 8 months ago

Apple Pay doesn't matter if they're scanning your face. https://epic.org/krogers-surveillance-pricing-harms-consumer...

sholain• 8 months ago

We need strong regulation.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

This is dumb. Websites have many more ways to track you across websites than apps have to track you if you don’t explicitly give them unnecessary permissions.

lanfeust63• 8 months ago

Native apps have privileged access to far more personal data on your device. A website has, what, cookies and fingerprinting? You can already mitigate this on Firefox but even if not, it isn't in the same league

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

Have you looked at all of the APIs that are part of the standard?

These are from the Firefox website

Of course it also knows your device, operating system version, screen resolution, phone orientation, etc.

Not to mention that websites can track you across other websites.

What information do you think apps have without your permissions that websites don’t?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Geolocation...

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Acceleromet...

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/g...

https://www.w3schools.com/tags/av_prop_volume.asp

everdrive6• 8 months ago

The fact that apps have permissions settings has lulled you into a false sense of confidence.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

You realize that the same OS settings also are used to enable websites to read your GPS, camera and microphone?

If you don’t trust your operating system to follow your instructions when using an app, then why do you trust the same operating system with your browser?

Do you have any evidence to support your conspiracy theory?

chitza• 8 months ago

"never hand your phone over the counter" - do people actually hand over their phones to random strangers? I'd never do that unless I really know the person

jasonjmcghee• 8 months ago

Occasionally restaurants to pay for something if you don't have a credit card. But never had them go take it somewhere.

hexbin010• 8 months ago

Yeah I've seen younger people hand it over to railway workers, airport gate agents, event employees etc whenever something does not immediately work or the worker has a query. Very reckless and pretty common

Incredibly concerning, but it's just another outcome of anxiety disorders

komali25• 8 months ago

Blogger in question here, Taiwan is so utterly app dependent it's a pretty common thing at banks, hospitals etc. And the apps here have so atrocious UX that nobody bothers to teach you how to use them, staff are used to just doing things for e.g. old people that can't figure it out.

jovial_cavalier4• 8 months ago

Generally agree with the sentiment, I basically only have banking apps, messaging apps, and a browser on my phone.

I am skeptical, though, of the price discrimination claims. If McDonald's decides that the right price of a Big Mac for me is $1 and for you $4, that creates an arbitrage opportunity. You can pay me $3, and I pocket $2. The result is that I buy more big macs, and they bump my price up. You buy less, and they take your price down. Now it just trades at the market rate it was before, but with more steps.

Nextgrid• 8 months ago

Which is why there is such a big push against automated usage of apps/etc, so that nobody could implement such a system.

sfRattan3• 8 months ago

This assumes the information is clear and consistent enough across time and distance for arbitrage to happen. Pricing in-app, per customer, changing per day would introduce too much unpredictability for most customers to attempt arbitrage. If people in a group all check their apps, and the person with the best prices orders for everyone, it could work in the context of a shared meal.

But imagine trying to sort out X number of people who each want a different basket of items from, say, the Walmart app. Each of those items fluctuating daily in price for each customer independently makes arbitrage almost prohibitively difficult to coordinate.

The best case scenario is something like Steam sales, where a wishlist function notifies you when items you've "watched" are on sale. There are third parties like, for example, Deku Deals that track this pricing data across time for console games.

But Amazon is already trying to banish external AI agents from any access to its data. And what does a price history graph even mean if prices are specific to each customer and stochastically varied each day to induce impulse purchases?

jovial_cavalier4• 8 months ago

what stops anyone from creating a third party order book that allows people to submit bids and offers on price discriminated items? It can match buyers and sellers just like a stock exchange.

gbear6052• 8 months ago

Arbitrage between McDonalds burgers doesn’t really work. It’s not a meaningful open market - someone paying $1/burger can’t go in and buy 100 burgers and sell them to someone else for $3. For one reason, it’s illegal. For another, no one would buy them, they’d think it’s a scam.

jovial_cavalier4• 8 months ago

For one reason, it’s illegal.

Says who?

For another, no one would buy them, they’d think it’s a scam.

I think what's needed is a third (fourth?) party as I outlined in a sibling comment

nerdponx4• 8 months ago

This is all fine and valid but the real problem is that binding arbitration is legal.

rolandog5• 8 months ago

It's definitely dystopian: "we reserve the right to be judged by the judge we have been treating to yearly all-inclusive vacations and to whom we've been paying his grandchildren's college tuitions."

spiritplumber• 8 months ago

I think if someone yoinks your phone and installs stuff on it the basic options are "call the cops" or "make them call the cops".

koakuma-chan• 8 months ago

People who create download our app pop-ups need to go to jail.

siliconc0w• 8 months ago

One possible future to look forward to is one where everyone is essentially forced to become a commodity player that exposes an API for your AI Agent to order food, book a rideshare, book a ticket, check flight status or whatever. I don't think they'll go willingly but the market may force their hand.

pharrington• 8 months ago

Downloading software? On MY handheld computer??

BenFranklin100• 8 months ago

Just another confirmation that the majority of the IT industry depends on spying in order to be profitable and for developers to make a good living. It’s a disgrace really.

bouncycastle• 8 months ago

Why wouldn't this physical sign be the same? "If you step your foot over this stone, you agree to the following terms:"

tomwheeler2• 8 months ago

For all of these same reasons, I never signed up for the "member rewards" program at the local grocery store. I did read the terms and conditions once, when I needed a good laugh.

Obscurity4340• 8 months ago

Friendly Social Browser is a great alternative to having to download everyone and their kitchen sink's app but not sure if their privacy is great

rav3ndust• 8 months ago

indeed, been preaching this kind of thing for ages. the main apps i keep on my mobile are my web browser, my comms apps (element, telegram and signal), and some other stuff from f-droid like retro music, ffupdater, newpipe, termux and stuff like that.

any social things i add as pwa through the browser.

not interested in any of those fast food or store apps. never selling ad-space (and privacy) on my own device to save $2 on a hamburger and some fries, and even if i did want them, chances are high they wouldn't run on my device anyway (feature not bug) lol

thankfully in my area, we have some good local places where you can order food just fine over their website. and if it didn't work over the website, i can simply do it the old-fashioned way, pick up the phone and say "i'd like to place an order for XYZ.."

imgabe2• 8 months ago

A company will know that you just got paid and so charge you just a bit more for your chicken nuggets than they do when you haven’t been paid in two weeks.

I know there's various data apps can collect. On iOS at least it seems like you have to grant permission for the app to access most of it. But how on Earth is this supposed to work? How does the app on my phone know if I just got paid?

SamuelAdams• 8 months ago

For me I have a recurring calendar appointment reminder for when I get paid. So anything that requests calendar access would know that.

nerdponx4• 8 months ago

Because another app knows you got paid, and that information was sold to some data broker, and now McDonald's knows.

imgabe2• 8 months ago

But then McDonald's could just buy the information. They don't need an app on my phone to get it.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

It’s not because the app knows - your credit card company knows and it sells the information.

charcircuit2• 8 months ago

Guess who hires them? Not you!

McDonalds doesn't hire them either. But, they will pay a bigger share of the arbitration fees than you do.

they’d have to settle it out of court with a mediator that Disney hired

It would be a mediator hired by JAMS, a neutral 3rd party.

nerdponx4• 8 months ago

And surely a for-profit extrajudicial court system that holds a monopoly on extrajudicial courts is going to be a fair and impartial resolver of disputes, especially when the defendant is essentially a valued repeat customer and the plaintiff is some nobody and not a major revenue source. What could possibly go wrong?

Arbitration between businesses acting in good faith makes perfect sense. Arbitration between an individual customer of a large corporation is nothing but a violation of that individual's basic rights.

charcircuit2• 8 months ago

Monopoly

There are several organizations for arbitration.

valued repeat customer

They are locked in by the arbitration agreement. No matter how many times they rule in the consumers favor, Disney would still have to pay filing fees every time a consumer filed.

If the arbitor was actually biased you can challenge it in a real court.

nazcan• 8 months ago

Is it somehow easier to have binding arbitration in an app vs. a website, assuming there is an account needed for both?

dangoodmanUT• 8 months ago

Using the website doesn’t get you around these clauses either. It’s more like “don’t agree to terms you don’t read”. Chatgpt can help spot things like this without much effort now, but about every single business is going to have an arbitration clause.

motbus3• 8 months ago

This is all true. But I work in a company where the folks are actually nice guys. Lately we wanted more people to use the apps so we could block bots more aggressively on web because it is getting annoyingly expensive

crazygringo7• 8 months ago

The author has this backwards:

but the new trend is surveillance pricing. A company will know that you just got paid and so charge you just a bit more for your chicken nuggets than they do when you haven’t been paid in two weeks.

First of all, no, a company has no idea when you get paid. The reality of lots of apps (like McDonald's) is discount pricing. You pay full price at the store if you're a rich person who can't be bothered with apps. Downloading an app and creating an account is the modern equivalent of cutting out coupons or buy-10-get-one-free cards -- price-conscious consumers will go to the trouble and get cheaper prices. They're just loyalty programs. Price discrimination like this is nothing new, and it lets rich people subsidize the lower costs for people with less money.

These apps run in sandboxes. There's not much to surveil. Obviously don't grant them permissions to see your contacts or track your location all the time. Will the app be able to tie all your purchases to a single identity? Of course. But the stores already do that anyways if you use the same credit card for each purchase.

I don't mind downloading apps for the 5-10 stores/restaurants I go to most. Beyond that, I obviously won't because it's too much of a hassle. But the loyalty discounts I get save me real money. I have no problem with that.

muppetman• 8 months ago

McDonalds has been shown multiple times to use their app to figure out how much someone is really willing to play for their slop: https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/350476761/mcdonald-s-under-fir...

To you and me, the consumer, the value of an app is "the same" as the old loyalty cards. But the value to the company is huge! How often you open the app (how often are you thinking about their food), how often you accept an offer, what the price of the offer is, what card you used to pay, where were you when you opened the app etc etc.

Going to be fun times when in 10 years time they sell all that information to your health insurance provider for them to go "Holy hell" and jack your insurances prices up 5 times over.

But sure, we got 20c off a burger.

crazygringo7• 8 months ago

You don't need to use words like "slop", it's pejorative and has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

And the link you use is just different people getting different discount coupons in the app. Companies also mail different coupons to different people based on their purchase history. I can't really find myself getting worked up about different people getting different promotions.

And it's illegal for health insurance to offer customized pricing like that. And the credit card companies already know I eat at McDonald's or wherever else. Using the app isn't adding any new data.

And it's not $0.20 off. It's usually more like $5 off a $15 meal that brings it down to $10. And those numbers add up over the course of a year -- across a few apps, it adds up to hundreds of dollars of savings a year.

grugagag• 8 months ago

Its more than coupons. These apps track your location, usage and so on then sell this data to a 3rd party. Coupons don’t do that. Do you read full useragreement you accept when installing apps? Most people wouldn’t understand the legalese in those.

A coupon could still be an image you find online that can be scanned and that’s it. Apps are totally not necessary unless they squeeze something out of the user.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

An app can’t track your location if you don’t give it permission.

crazygringo7• 8 months ago

So the McDonald's app knows I'm... at McDonald's when I use it? And that I'm using the app to order?

That doesn't seem like I'm giving up much information. Considering I'm placing the order at that McDonald's anyways, and they know the addresses of their franchisees.

Like I said, the same information is already revealed when I use a credit card.

I'm not granting it permission to track my location when I'm not using the app, obviously.

rolandog5• 8 months ago

That's a beautiful strawman argument; let me have a tussle with it to see if it holds on its own.

First, let's not miss the forest for the trees. We're engaging in a common "hacker" watering hole. Our opsec skills are very likely not representative of what your average person has, and the point of the article is to educate the average person.

Second, most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions.

Next, it's not the same if the establishment I'm buying chicken nuggets from ties down my credit card to my identity or if it does the same plus a ton of extra data that I've been forced to grant.

Also, one of the main concerns from the article is surveillance pricing... So yeah, you sure "saved" a bunch ($100) over the course of 1 year at a restaurant, but overall you're worse off because some data broker managed to have all airlines raise your flight prices by $500 because they learned that you're going to have to attend your best mate's wedding.

And last, but not least, the article mentioned the binding arbitration clause that one blindly signs away when accepting the app's ToS:

Walking into a restaurant to buy a cheeseburger, there’s no way a company can force you to enter a contractual agreement that includes binding arbitration. Downloading an app, however, requires agreeing to a “Terms of Service,” and those can absolutely include a binding arbitration clause, and that clause can be applied even to cases outside the app. This happened to Jeffrey Piccolo when his wife died of food poisoning in a Disney World. Disney made a motion to dismiss because a couple years back, Jeffrey had signed up for a free trial of Disney+, which included a binding arbitration clause, which meant that if Jeffrey wanted to complain about how Disney murdered his wife, they’d have to settle it out of court with a mediator that Disney hired. No jury, no judge, no oversight. [...]

I have no words to describe how depraved that is.

raw_anon_111142• 8 months ago

Second, most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions.

I can’t think of a single iOS app I’ve installed in over 15 years that forced me to give it unnecessary permissions for it to work

crazygringo7• 8 months ago

It's not a strawman, please don't be insulting. But OK, let's tussle:

most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions.

That's false. I've never seen an app that required any permissions data upfront, except sometimes my location data while using the app if I wanted to be able to find the nearest restaurant.

plus a ton of extra data that I've been forced to grant.

Again, there's no extra data. E.g. when I install the McDonald's app, it's not asking for my contacts or my photos or anything like that. This is not common practice among any major brands I've ever seen.

but overall you're worse off because some data broker managed to have all airlines raise your flight prices by $500

That's not a thing. And it's really easy to check prices anonymously.

As for arbitration, sure check the ToS. The Disney case is the famous one and it's the only one I've heard of, but that was for a paid streaming service, not even an app. Arbitration is a separate problem to do with ToS's... and most of these apps don't even have ToS's you have to scroll through and accept, because that causes friction. So it seems like a different conversation.

marcus_holmes• 8 months ago

Individually, yes, each app cannot obtain much data. But all the apps sell their bit of data to a third party, and buy the resulting profile about you, because they can identify you.

So no, the McDonalds app doesn't know when you got paid directly. But it does know that you bought a cheeseburger in the last two weeks of every month, and it knows that your grocery expenses are higher in the first two weeks of every month, and you tend to eat at a restaurant in the first week of every month, and you take less ubers in the last week of every month; it's not hard to conclude that you get paid at the start of the month.

And that's without your banking app selling your info, which it might do. In which case it knows exactly when you get paid, and your probable current bank balance right now when you place your cheeseburger order.

hyttioaoa• 8 months ago

Very much in line with Cory Doctorow's thoughts on enshittification: https://youtu.be/Eiu6FxigqrI?si=aT3vzWVSxV2pi_4U

txrx0000• 8 months ago

Right now, using web portals is indeed better than installing apps, but this does not have be the case. In fact, it should be the other way around.

You only need to make two changes to make your native app a better choice than your web portal, even for privacy:

1) Make your app open-source, and remove all the tracking.

2) Don't make a web portal. Your website should just be a website that displays information, not 5 MB of JS+WASM with a load of security issues.

wowamit• 8 months ago

I’ve had shop staff tell me about some discount if you download their app, and when I decline, say something like “It’s really easy! Here, just give me your phone and I’ll do it for you.”

This behaviour is pretty prevalent worldwide, I believe. Especially the phone plan setup use case happened to me in Bangkok, too. This happens to me in India at gas stations, cafes and even local supermarkets. All want me to install their apps, and the first step is to log in with my mobile number.

With auto-detection of mobile numbers/Google Accounts on Android, it's even easier to create an account in one click.

chasing0entropy3• 8 months ago

I'll do you one better, download a no root firewall that channels all of your traffic through a fake VPN which then drops it. You will be amazed at how many ads you don't see.

Obviously if you're not competent or are lazy with whitelisting apps when you need them to use the internet and then disabling it again this will be unhelpful to you; continue to feed the machine.

devmor2• 8 months ago

If someone had an easy set up for this documented so the less technically-inclined could do so, it’d be a great public service.

workfromspace• 8 months ago

Very similarly, I use NextDNS, with all the filters enabled except few exceptions that I manually add.

It's basically like a Raspberry Pi hole; but on cloud, very easy to configure and with so many options and ready-to-use blocklists. It's free up to 3 million queries a month.

ProllyInfamous2• 8 months ago

I am not super technical (blue collar electrician) but I use a PiHole (/r/PiHole or Pi-Hole.net) to block the majority of online tracking/advertising.

Extremely intuitive, relatively inexpensive... you can even force your entire network to obey ad-blocking lists (I tell my DHCP router to issue DNS lookups to PiHole; if individual machines need to be un-filtered they manually set DNS to 192.168.0.1 [router] instead of default PiHole) .

I don't carry a cell phone / use apps, but I know there is a method to make your on-the-go queries also filter through your home network's PiHole .

chasing0entropy3• 8 months ago

On Android there a gotchya - google play services is capable of acting as a transparent proxy so remember you MUST also disables google services framework / play services internet access to truly block some apps from using the web (I learned this when a webcam app 'icsee' bypassed the VPN firewall by using play services proxy network access.

There is a bug in older android which allows data to leak past the VPN while the device is starting and if you disable/enable the VPN connection mid connection.

Facebook appears to have a caching component as it will send a large databurst when it's connection is restored.

Here's a typical article but the reason firewall isn't standard is you won't get ads and that juicy data stream stops. You will find some apps punish you for restrictions to their internet - learn which ones and uninstall them. https://www.airdroid.com/mdm/android-firewall-settings/

vismit2000• 8 months ago

8 months ago on HN (~1200 upvotes, ~500 comments): Everyone knows all the apps on your phone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43518866

1vuio0pswjnm72• 8 months ago

Android has some viable non-root "application firewalls" or other apps that use Android's VPN functionality to filter traffic. These can prevent apps, including system apps, from accessing remote servers, e.g., DNS resolvers, ad/tracking servers, etc. There are also Android apps that can automate killing apps that try to run in the background

Not sure iOS has anything equivalent

The problem with "apps" isn't the surreptitious attempts to access remote servers for data collection, surveillance and tracking/ads. Websites do more or less the same thing. The problem is that the corporate mobile OS sucks, it's user-hostile and exceedingly difficult to try to control

The advantage of websites is they do not require using a computer running a corporate mobile OS

1vuio0pswjnm72• 8 months ago

The corporate OS may also include terms requiring arbitration to resolve disuptes

At least in the case of Android, an advertising services company OS, those terms may be on a remote server (owned by the company), not on the computer owned by the "user".^1 As such, the user may block access to them along with all the other advertising-related garbage

1. It's necessary to "download" the terms

RajBhai2• 8 months ago

All the banks I have an account with here in India require SMS permission to use their apps, along with . The last straw was HDFC with their latest app revamp.

I've resorted to using the online web app.

sometimes_all• 8 months ago

LOL in the name of security, HDFC is trying to move their OTP verification to be almost entirely app-only, (not open-source TOTP which can be generated by authenticator/any other auth app; you can only use HDFC's app for that even if you want to log in via desktop).

Regulators sleeping at the wheel on this one.

left-struck2• 8 months ago

I think that’s pretty common worldwide. In Australia I’ve never encountered a bank or government service that allows any widely accepted secure 2FA. It’s always SMS or their own app. There used to be physical hardware tokens as well but they are going away.

RajBhai2• 8 months ago

I don't even care that much if they want to handle the 2FA with their proprietary methods. There are Android APIs that broker the OTP SMS delivery to the app without the app needing full access to the phone's messages.

If they can't do it on iPhone, they don't need to do it on Android.

aitchnyu• 8 months ago

I put non-messaging apps into deep sleep (no background services). My mobile provider app prevents users from making a phone wifi hotspot. Wonder what the others do.

BrenBarn• 8 months ago

It's good advice, but I don't think it's sufficient anymore. I'm quickly losing faith in any kind of "vote with your dollars" argument that by not using the app you can pressure the company to provide a functional website. The big players are too big now and they are close to being able to create and control their own customer base rather than having to woo them. I don't see a positive future without radically stricter laws and enforcement (as in, if a company is conditioning any service on tracking, they're fined in the double-digit percentages of gross annual revenue). These bad actors will not change unless they're bludgeoned into doing so.

fmajid• 8 months ago

A corollary is, don't buy "smart" devices that only work using an app. The app will eventually be discontinued and you will have a doorstop.

ishanmahapatra• 8 months ago

My major pain point is that Google requires me to use the YouTube app to authenticate when I sign. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have it on my phone at all.

wkrsz• 8 months ago

I'm using a separate app for 2FA with both Google. What forces you to use YouTube app?

CRSilkworth• 8 months ago

Seems like that Disney + example can’t be allowed right? Those are two completely different products (theme park/streaming service). Is the law really that f’ed up?

kmfrk• 8 months ago

Are there any desktop browsers out there that are actually great for making apps for websites, so we don't have to rely on React slop?

I've always found it an unelegant, unsandboxed experience to use conventional browsers, but it'd be nice to migrate to something that takes the best of webdev and removes the worst of desktop Windows.

dwedge3• 8 months ago

Sometime in the next 5 years, someone will be forced into arbitration with Uber after being hit by one of their self driving cars

I got hit by an Uber when crossing the road last year. I reported it to Uber who said publicly "oh that's terrible and not ok, DM us" and then completely ignored me.

bbbobbb• 8 months ago

Is there no police where you're from? Why are you reporting supposed hit and run to tech support of an app?

dwedge3• 8 months ago

What I want is a setting on my phone (and in my browser) that just says yeah, give them everything they wants. Cookies, nearby devices, photos, bluetooth, you want it take it. But every time the app/website tries to read from there it just says oh, sorry, no photos

nachox999• 8 months ago

1) download app 2) get free chicken nuggets 3) uninstall app 4) ??? 5) profit

Don't Download Apps

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