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Note this advice is true for email services as well. Pay for and use an alternative now, or later you won't get the choice. Google is hellbent on locking peopl

Note this advice is true for email services as well. Pay for and use an alternative now, or later you won't get the choice. Google is hellbent on locking people into their ecosystem. One such move is the promotion of AMP: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/13/amp-for-email-is-a-terrible-idea/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/13/amp-for-email-is-a-terribl... Speaking of email and browsers, the Gmail app on top of iOS presents the user with a choice between two browsers: 1. Safari 2. Chrome, which on iOS is a reskinned Safari, but with Sync and controlled by Google obviously But when Safari is selected they actually open links in an app Web View. Which does not share sessions and cookies with Safari. And their reskinned Chrome doesn't do Safari's content blocking either. Firefox on iOS doesn't do that either, but at least Firefox has its own tracking protection. Speaking of Chrome on iOS, they give the user the choice to switch search engines, supposedly, however they only list Yahoo and Bing as alternatives. No DuckDuckGo or Qwant or the ability to add your own. Android still allows users to switch their web browser or to use an alternative app store, but I wonder for how long. I mean they disallow users to uninstall their apps. My guess is that they are afraid of locking Android down more due to fines from the EU. Sadly what made Google great several years back was openness. But times are changing.

saagarjha 8y ago
> Firefox on iOS doesn't do that either, but at least Firefox has its own tracking protection. Firefox on iOS can't do this, unfortunately :(
- diafygi 8y ago
  I'm curious about this. I get that firefox for ios has to use a webview, but why can't it allow extensions that can manipulate what's in the webview? The main reason I'm currently sticking with Android is that I can install firefox and use ublock origin and https everywhere.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    You can run your own JavaScript in WKWebView, which is what Firefox uses, so you can run "extensions" to the extent of what the App Store will allow you to do. What you cannot do in this case is load content blockers, which a newer API that uses a list of selectors to block elements without JavaScript at all. Currently this API is limited to Safari itself and SFSafariViewController, which is untenable for Firefox because it is essentially "Safari in a box" in that the component provides its own UI and you essentially cannot interact with it at all.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    Not sure what the situation is nowadays, but extensions were not supported due to Apple’s App Store policies. I would be happy just with Safari’s content blockers, but apparently they use a type of web view that doesn’t support that either.
- kgwxd 8y ago
  Which is why iOS should be avoided too. They may appear to be playing kind of nice now, but they won't forever. That blatant disregard for openness is a sure sign they're going to end up the same way, no matter what they say now.
  - collinmanderson 8y ago
    > iOS should be avoided too What would you suggest using?
    - kgwxd 8y ago
      Android with as little Google as possible, which is none if you're willing to go far enough. Nothing is also an option if you're extra dedicated.
TarpitCarnivore 8y ago
Copying links out of Hangouts on iOS results in getting a massive Google tracking url.
29083011397778 8y ago
>I mean they disallow users to uninstall their apps All default apps on Android live on the system partition, meaning even if you uninstalled them, regular, non-rooted users wouldn't have any additional space to use. This policy also means you can't really mess up (for average consumers) an android phone by uninstalling something important, like webview or the Play Store. Any updates to the default apps are installed on the user-accessible data (IIRC) partition, and so can be uninstalled by users, actually freeing up space.

saagarjha 8y ago

> Firefox on iOS doesn't do that either, but at least Firefox has its own tracking protection. Firefox on iOS can't do this, unfortunately :(

diafygi 8y ago
I'm curious about this. I get that firefox for ios has to use a webview, but why can't it allow extensions that can manipulate what's in the webview? The main reason I'm currently sticking with Android is that I can install firefox and use ublock origin and https everywhere.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  You can run your own JavaScript in WKWebView, which is what Firefox uses, so you can run "extensions" to the extent of what the App Store will allow you to do. What you cannot do in this case is load content blockers, which a newer API that uses a list of selectors to block elements without JavaScript at all. Currently this API is limited to Safari itself and SFSafariViewController, which is untenable for Firefox because it is essentially "Safari in a box" in that the component provides its own UI and you essentially cannot interact with it at all.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Not sure what the situation is nowadays, but extensions were not supported due to Apple’s App Store policies. I would be happy just with Safari’s content blockers, but apparently they use a type of web view that doesn’t support that either.
kgwxd 8y ago
Which is why iOS should be avoided too. They may appear to be playing kind of nice now, but they won't forever. That blatant disregard for openness is a sure sign they're going to end up the same way, no matter what they say now.
- collinmanderson 8y ago
  > iOS should be avoided too What would you suggest using?
  - kgwxd 8y ago
    Android with as little Google as possible, which is none if you're willing to go far enough. Nothing is also an option if you're extra dedicated.

TarpitCarnivore 8y ago

Copying links out of Hangouts on iOS results in getting a massive Google tracking url.

29083011397778 8y ago

>I mean they disallow users to uninstall their apps All default apps on Android live on the system partition, meaning even if you uninstalled them, regular, non-rooted users wouldn't have any additional space to use. This policy also means you can't really mess up (for average consumers) an android phone by uninstalling something important, like webview or the Play Store. Any updates to the default apps are installed on the user-accessible data (IIRC) partition, and so can be uninstalled by users, actually freeing up space.