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Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta's Apps (and Yandex) (msn.com) 39

Meta's Facebook and Instagram apps "were siphoning people's data through a digital back door for months," writes a Washington Post tech columnist, citing researchers who found no privacy setting could've stopped what Meta and Yandex were doing, since those two companies "circumvented privacy and security protections that Google set up for Android devices.

"But their tactics underscored some privacy vulnerabilities in web browsers or apps. These steps can reduce your risks." Stop using the Chrome browser. Mozilla's Firefox, the Brave browser and DuckDuckGo's browser block many common methods of tracking you from site to site. Chrome, the most popular web browser, does not... For iPhone and Mac folks, Safari also has strong privacy protections. It's not perfect, though. No browser protections are foolproof. The researchers said Firefox on Android devices was partly susceptible to the data harvesting tactics they identified, in addition to Chrome. (DuckDuckGo and Brave largely did block the tactics, the researchers said....)

Delete Meta and Yandex apps on your phone, if you have them. The tactics described by the European researchers showed that Meta and Yandex are unworthy of your trust. (Yandex is not popular in the United States.) It might be wise to delete their apps, which give the companies more latitude to collect information that websites generally cannot easily obtain, including your approximate location, your phone's battery level and what other devices, like an Xbox, are connected to your home WiFi.

Know, too, that even if you don't have Meta apps on your phone, and even if you don't use Facebook or Instagram at all, Meta might still harvest information on your activity across the web.

Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta's Apps (and Yandex)

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  • You are all "dumb fucks" according to Zuck.

    • Mod parent funny?

      However i think the biggest joke may be that the sharks might be going after each other. Not the only reason, but one of the requirements for becoming so stinking rich is that they ALWAYS want MORE money, even though they already have more money than makes any human sense. Up to now, they have mostly been content to squeeze blood out of the impoverished cabbages like you and me, but if they are sincerely attacking each other, then maybe they've realized there isn't any more cash = blood ava

  • I wouldn't exactly trust DuckDuckGo either. I still use the Fox Fire, but there are better options out there.
    • Personally, I like Startpage.com. Yes, it uses Google for the actual searching, but not only does it act as a proxy so that Google can't get your IP or know who searched for what, it doesn't keep any logs so that there's no records for the police or three-letter agencies to grab. And, they trim off all of Googles huge list of ads from the results and replace them with a much smaller set of their own. (How do you think they get their money?)
  • No one in their right mind would install or use any Google or Meta app. I'm glad to see common sense prevailing at WashPo for a change.
    • I knew I needed to immediately remove any Meta app when I get a new phone. I wasn't sure why, but now I have confirmation.

      As for WaPo, what prevails there is the owner's direction. Certain things they aren't allowed to talk about, like if an Amazon app were to be doing something like this, or the "CBP One" app.

      • There are phones that ship with Meta garbage preinstalled? Is this some kind of shit that happens if you get the "free" phone from your carrier?

        Man, I forgot what it's like to not just buy the phone that isn't carrier locked and stock from a manufacturer that hasn't pre-sold your information to someone in order to pretend like they're doing you a favor by saving you a few hundred bucks.

        • There are phones that ship with Meta garbage preinstalled?

          Yes, virtually all of them. Carrier locking has zero to do with it. That's how phones work, they come with popular stuff pre-installed unless you get an Apple "we decide what is popular" phone, a Google "only Google apps here" phone, or a Chinese "Meta? What's that? Ask on WeChat for the answer" phone. That said they aren't fully installed, it's more like a placeholder that installs on first launch.

  • by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Saturday June 07, 2025 @12:29PM (#65434171)

    Good advice from 2010.

  • Must use Whatsap - not optional because "reasons". And empirical evidence suggests that (due to its obviously mandatory access to the microphone) it does listen in and processes conversations for later ad targeting. Wish Apple had an option to block microphone access except when the app is active and in foreground.

    • If your microphone is active, it should at least show an indicator light and a top-row icon, I'm pretty sure.

  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Saturday June 07, 2025 @12:44PM (#65434203) Journal

    Know, too, that even if you don't have Meta apps on your phone, and even if you don't use Facebook or Instagram at all, Meta might still harvest information on your activity across the web

    Meta[stasize]: the world's biggest privacy rapist.

  • They got caught activating your microphone and listening to you a while back too.

    Facebook is not an advertising company they are a data aggregator that sells data. That is where most of their profit comes from. The advertising is just a cherry on top.

    What I find funny is everyone knows these huge corporations are evil and plan on doing bad things to you and it's not controversial to say that.

    But as soon as you talk about regulating them or taking away the almost unlimited amount of power billionaires have by limiting how much money they are allowed to have that's controversial and it ain't going to happen. Nobody is going to vote for that.

    It's because Americans have no nuance. They can't think in gradations or iterations.

    So if you say that Elon musk should not have enough money that he can threaten to run primary election challenges against every single member of the House of Representatives that's not controversial.

    But as soon as you say you're going to actually take his money away from him so that he really can't do that anymore everyone assumes the next step is for the government to steal their car and house and toothbrush.

    Because you can't have nuance. You can't say that we aren't going to let somebody have this much money because it's too much power but you can still have your freaking automobile and your dumb little mcmansion.

    The assumption is if we are going to take Elon musk's money away we have to take your money away because you can't just do one thing and then stop. Either it gets done everywhere or it gets done nowhere because nuance is something that doesn't exist in the mind of a 12-year-old, and we are a nation of 12-year-olds.
    • by Sebby ( 238625 )

      They got caught activating your microphone and listening to you a while back too. Facebook is not an advertising company they are a data aggregator that sells data.

      Hence the reason they should be referred more accurately as "privacy rapists".

      What I find funny is everyone knows these huge corporations are evil and plan on doing bad things to you and it's not controversial to say that.

      Referring to them as what they truly are ("privacy rapists") would align the optics better.

      It's because Americans have no nuance.

      Because Americans are stupid. They've proven that twice now.

      • I'd feel so much better about the direction of things if we had only proven our collective stupidity twice.

        You give us too much credit.

    • by hwstar ( 35834 )

      Facebook refusnick here. Never installed Facebook on any computer or mobile device and never will. In my opinion, they're a giant Hoover vacuum when it comes to your privileged and personal data. I'm sorry, but the benefits of Facebook are not worth the risk of them leaking your personal data to third parties, or if they have a data breach.

    • by hwstar ( 35834 )

      "But as soon as you talk about regulating them or taking away the almost unlimited amount of power billionaires have by limiting how much money they are allowed to have that's controversial and it ain't going to happen. Nobody is going to vote for that."

      American psyche: "Don't penalize the rich, because I could be as rich as them someday". Unfortunately, the odds of you becoming rich are exceedingly small.

      In contrast, your odds of living at least a comfortable life with stable non-precarious employment, and

  • Slashdot ran a similar story [slashdot.org] just a few days ago.

    Although both Meta and Yandex have stopped spying on users in this manner, that doesn't mean they won't do something different.

  • by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Saturday June 07, 2025 @01:52PM (#65434301) Homepage

    For your completely unbiased opinion. Knowing this advice is sponsored by someone with absolutely no conflict of interest makes me happy.

  • by GrahamJ ( 241784 ) on Saturday June 07, 2025 @02:17PM (#65434349)

    Not using anything made by Alphabet or Meta is definitely a good start.

  • When it became clear that the owner of that newspaper has as much in the way of backbone as a jellyfish, and that he will bend his knee whenever the orange orangutan makes noises in his direction, the credibility of the Washington Post went down the drain. And that's where it will remain as long the ownership of that paper remains the way it is - unless its owner grows a backbone, that is.
  • This is the WaPo article:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

    OP used an MSN link which ironically is another way big tech has been siphoning off your data. Google loves to return an entire page full of MSN links because Microsoft has been aggregating and news links for fun an profit using Edge as a default browser. The story should have included eschewing the use of Edge along with Chrome.

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