Technology

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.

i was looking for a new toothbrush yesterday... they have app enabled toothbrushes. bluetooth. why the fuck do i need an app to brush my fucking teeth?

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.

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.

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.

All these forced cloud applications annoy the living shit out of me as well.

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.

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). Not to mention how hard it is to edit content on a tiny phone screen instead of a full browser window on a laptop.

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?

I went to Buffalo Wild Wings the other day and they tried to have me download an app to pay my bill. I almost had my first Karen moment when I saw that.

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.

I'm about to suggest another app for you to install. :p

If you're using an android phone (I don't know if it exist on iOS) install the DuckDuckGo app. It has a feature called "App Tracking Protection". It is supposed to block all trackers. I think it works as one of the games i have installed on my phone takes about a minute longer to load, compared to without the tracking protection. I think this is the next best course of action (apart from not installing / using the required apps).

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.

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.

If you're feeling angry, there's an app for that :-)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calm.android

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.

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.

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.

It was so much better 20 years ago when all the shitty proprietary data harvesting apps came pre-installed with Windows.

(Yeah, I know they still do that, just slightly more covertly.)

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. :(

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.