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I, for one, do not look forward to having to sideload Facebook, Instagram, Google, Gmail, and every single other megacorps app just because they want to track m

by cmdli 3y ago

I, for one, do not look forward to having to sideload Facebook, Instagram, Google, Gmail, and every single other megacorps app just because they want to track my every click. I would rather give power to Apple than all the other companies.

RIMR 3y ago
I have great news for you: The hyperbolic nonsense you just described will literally never happen.
- eps 3y ago
  The first thing that will happen is Facebook putting up a "light" version in the AppStore with half of functionality removed and pestering people to sideload the "full" version, that will, naturally, come with tracking, snooping and all other unethical bs that they love so much.
  - ranguna 3y ago
    As I mentioned in another comment: yep, that's just like they did on android, except no, they didn't, everything is on the app store. I'm not sure where people are getting these fantasies from.
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    So you, as a person concerned with privacy, will not install non appstore version, easy peasy sr even better- not install fb at all. You keep your security, and ppl that want sideload will have what they want, everyone happy. And it's quite ironic that on Android the app works as usual, no crippled version
dzhiurgis 3y ago
If you were that concerned you’d use web version of all of the above. Would be nice if Apple required you to have a functional web app before installing app. I.E.FB Messenger - the only reason why it doesn’t work on mobile browser is so that FB can track you more via their App.
frizlab 3y ago
Same here. Side loading will open the door to a whole new category of malware/adware/crapware. Yes of course the App Store is not perfect but at least Apple has control over it and can stop things when they are degenerating. I’m not looking forward to a new Facebook VPN that will “enhance my phone,” available through side loading only, that I will of course never install but which my grandma or another unsuspecting entity would…
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  Meta is already in the regulators' sights. Data harvesting is not something the EU is blind to. Presumably there would be injunctions made against them from so easily pied pipering users into doing that. Not to mention, most users do not want to have to jump through more hoops just to have the same old FB/IG/WhatsApp experience. They'd balk.
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
    And you trust governments because?
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      We, the people.
  - Affric 3y ago
    Ah yes... so give Meta a couple of years of all gas no brakes with regards to user data while the legislators play catch up. They have gone for Apple out of pride and short sighted electoral strategy. The answer is to deal with Facebook(Meta) and Google(Alphabet) et cetera first. Pumping money into Gecko development. This is serving up regular people who use smart phones (which in the west are essentially mandatory) to big data on a silver platter.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      What’s your explanation for Japan doing the same to Apple? It’s hardly only the EU who has them (and Google, and the rest of Big Tech) in their crosshairs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393809 > regular people who use smart phones That’s the beauty of it. I’m not convinced that ‘regular people’ are going to have the patience to deal with Meta forcing them to get and manage yet another damn account to use Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp. Just a terrible hurdle that will cause FB to shed a non-zero number of users, at a time where their DAU has not been hot, never mind their long term growth potential. Without a compelling reason for them to join (free Oculuses? Oculii?) you can’t expect users to be forced to sign up for yet another account- not to mention most people are aware at the invasiveness of Meta- and remain quiet. Users already have more streaming services than they can handle, they’re not going to have the patience to juggle multiple app store accounts, just to get the same apps they already have! Forcing users to adopt a new walled garden right away is going to inspire mass consumer backlash right away. And that will cause regulators to weigh in immediately, data gathering operation or no data gathering op. I just don’t see Meta having the product or marketing stones to pull this off. Their last thing with positive buzz is what, Threads? Something dependent on the failure of another’s platform? And that only lasted for like a week.
jansommer 3y ago
We can sideload on Android, but those apps are all on the Play Store, which actually gives them more tracking capabilities, because it's hard to block stuff using Play API's
grishka 3y ago
A good solution to apps wanting to track your every click is not organizational but technical. Just don't give them APIs for reliable cross-app tracking. That advertising ID? It simply does not need to exist at all. Same for all the attribution bullshit. Besides, sideloading enables installation of modded apps giving users more choice.
- catiopatio 3y ago
  The advertising ID gives users and Apple control over tracking when also coupled with AppStore policy that disallows improper use. It’s impossible to prevent fingerprinting of users and devices via purely technical measures — taking away the advertising ID won’t help.
  - grishka 3y ago
    Fingerprinting is hard. Especially when apps are as sandboxed as they are on iOS, and especially when there are so few iOS device models. Any APIs that can be used to share data between apps should be subject to permissions (e.g. file system access) or explicit user action (e.g. sharing content or links from one app to another).
    - catiopatio 3y ago
      Why do you think fingerprinting is hard? It’s truly not — the OS sandbox is nowhere near as restrictive as, say, a browser sandbox. Moreover, if Apple is forced to open the platform to third-party app stores, identifying unique users in collusion with the third-party app store is incredibly easy.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
        > Why do you think fingerprinting is hard? They did manage to answer this question in their comment. It’s the entire last sentence. (It also seems fairly well implied that they mean “iOS fingerprinting is currently hard” given the topic of discussion.) I don’t see how I could reliably fingerprint if so many APIs require user permission. It might be possible but I don’t see easy.
Condition1952 3y ago
I’m looking forward to downloading free and open source software from f-droid. I don’t care about gmail because I don’t use it
- ivanjermakov 3y ago
  Vital email functions are available through many SMTP/IMAP clients anyway.
Apocryphon 3y ago
I don't think that's actually going to happen - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33978081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33978081
lmm 3y ago
Amazon used to encourage you to sideload their app store on android. You got a free copy of Angry Birds 2 if you did, and I think at one point you may have needed to do it if you wanted to install prime video at all. It still ended up going away and they gave up. So allowing sideloading is hardly the threat you think it is.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Maybe. Incentives are different on iOS. Apps are more-restricted and the platform’s more valuable. Could play out like it did on Android, but might not.
  - oblio 3y ago
    Incentives are exactly the same, $$$. And you're making it out like the Play Store is worth peanuts. https://cybercrew.uk/software/app-store-vs-play-store/#h3 https://cybercrew.uk/software/app-store-vs-play-store/#h3 App Store led with an estimated revenue of $85.1 billion in 2021 Google Play Store generated revenues of nearly $47.9 billion in 2021. Nobody's ever going to try something shady for "just" $47.9 billion :-)))
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      … and the platform’s more restrictive. There were two factors I mentioned. And that’s just store revenue—it’ll skew harder toward Apple if you include other ways of making money on mobile. I don’t recall Facebook publicly throwing any tantrums over Play Store policy changes. It’s also possible that being able to put a store on both platforms is the kind of thing that would get, say, Facebook to expand the Quest software store to mobile. They’ll want to do that for Apple’s headset at least, if these changes open that up to them—expanding that effort to include iOS and Android seems like something with decent odds of happening.
      - oblio 3y ago
        Knowing the EU, further privacy policies are probably going to be announced at some point, greatly crippling the current form of targeted advertising, including on Android.
emsy 3y ago
How about not installing them at all?
breeze1990 3y ago
Has it occurred to you that Apple might not be that different from other companies you listed. It's just good marketing strategy like Google had "don't be evil" years ago. Essentially apple is like only I can access all user data for profit, improving products, ads, while others can't.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  Apple a) has a mutual interest in them remaining privacy centric as we do. B) most of your data is locked onto the device and cannot be accessed by anyone including apple themselves.
  - politelemon 3y ago
    Both of your statements are Apple marketing speaking, and demonstrably false.
    - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
      Present your work / citation needed.
      - Scoring6931 3y ago
        https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-privacy-censorship.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-pr... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
jbverschoor 3y ago
You know, it’s be good. Bc then I would only use crippled web apps, which will probably get rid of the habit of opening these time traps
Moldoteck 3y ago
So don't sideload them and use apple's products just like before, you have the freedom to not install them
- runeks 3y ago
  > […] you have the freedom to not install them What if Instagram decides to require side loading to install their app — in order to increase ad revenue?
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    Don't use instagram, simple choice))) Or, hear me out, you would be able to use insta in the browser with iblock installed so that you don't have ads and part of tracking!
    - FridgeSeal 3y ago
      And what about the users who wish to use Insta for sharing photos on socials, but don’t want to allow fb wholesale access to their data? Why are their concerns so glibly ignored?
      - Moldoteck 3y ago
        ask fb? it's the business of the fb to distribute their apps. Or, you can use insta for sharing photos... in the browser, and even block the ads.
  - marticode 3y ago
    They don't on Android, why would they on iOS?
    - Moldoteck 3y ago
      BuT wHAt iF TheY CoUld?
sensanaty 3y ago
Yeah it's hell on android having to install all of these separate app stores.... Oh, except it isn't, 99.9% of these apps just exist on the Play Store. If you don't like them, just don't use them, right? I mean that's the argument we're seeing against these changes, how does it not apply equally the opposite way? If you don't want to use an app like Facebook because it's on its own separate appstore, then don't. Besides, I don't see a reality in which these companies forego the easy native solution with millions of users in favor of whatever the process sideloading would involve.
- breakfastduck 3y ago
  Apple have much stricter requirements, which is the point the person is making and you are willingly ignoring. Apple, right now, have the ability to ensure the apps are transparent about what they track, have an explicit dialogue to confirm if you'd like the app to track you. These big corps hate that apple have that control and want to keep their customers informed on what's going on, and as such, they will stop using the App Store and ask customers to side load so they can release much more invasive versions of their apps that track everything without any user ever being informed. So yes, this IS objectively a bad thing and ripe for explotation.
  - sensanaty 3y ago
    Sounds like Apple, with their trillions of dollars and apparent focus on quality, should invest into figuring out an OS-level permissions system then, which I presume they already do have. The OS should be handling such issues, not the App Store from which apps come from. Even if the user installs some botnet willingly, it shouldn't be able to break out of the OS sandbox and do things the user doesn't want simply because it was sideloaded (assuming a non-jailbroken/rooted phone which no non-technical user will ever accidentally find themselves with). > These big corps hate that apple have that control and want to keep their customers informed on what's going on... Oh yeah, the noble small Apple - the richest and biggest corporation to have ever existed - only has their user's best wishes in mind... It's totally unrelated to their own ad network, which they're building on top of the data they exclusively have access to thanks to their walled garden! And no, I'm not saying others should have access to this data, this data shouldn't be able to be used at all, not by Apple nor anyone else. > ... they will stop using the App Store and ask customers to side load so they can release much more invasive versions of their apps that track everything without any user ever being informed If the only thing protecting users from this is the fact that you can't sideload and have to rely on the App Store review process, then that's some real shit security, and Apple should definitely improve things there. > So yes, this IS objectively a bad thing and ripe for explotation. Funny how saying something is objective doesn't make it so. It's objectively bad for Apple, sure, since they lose their iron-tight grip on their own users. They also lose out on that sweet 30% of every penny a dev makes. Won't find me shedding a tear for them though, the less money Apple and the other megacorps get to suck dry, the better. And again, all they have to do is spend a few thousand of those trillions of dollars they have to put up an obnoxious and hard-to-get-rid of warning when sideloading. People who care about sideloading like myself will happily oblige and go through the warning screens even if they're tedious, while the hypothetical vulnerable grandmas get greeted with a screen they don't know how to work around.

by cmdli 3y ago

RIMR 3y ago

I have great news for you: The hyperbolic nonsense you just described will literally never happen.

eps 3y ago
The first thing that will happen is Facebook putting up a "light" version in the AppStore with half of functionality removed and pestering people to sideload the "full" version, that will, naturally, come with tracking, snooping and all other unethical bs that they love so much.
- ranguna 3y ago
  As I mentioned in another comment: yep, that's just like they did on android, except no, they didn't, everything is on the app store. I'm not sure where people are getting these fantasies from.
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  So you, as a person concerned with privacy, will not install non appstore version, easy peasy sr even better- not install fb at all. You keep your security, and ppl that want sideload will have what they want, everyone happy. And it's quite ironic that on Android the app works as usual, no crippled version

dzhiurgis 3y ago

If you were that concerned you’d use web version of all of the above. Would be nice if Apple required you to have a functional web app before installing app. I.E.FB Messenger - the only reason why it doesn’t work on mobile browser is so that FB can track you more via their App.

frizlab 3y ago

Same here. Side loading will open the door to a whole new category of malware/adware/crapware. Yes of course the App Store is not perfect but at least Apple has control over it and can stop things when they are degenerating. I’m not looking forward to a new Facebook VPN that will “enhance my phone,” available through side loading only, that I will of course never install but which my grandma or another unsuspecting entity would…

Apocryphon 3y ago
Meta is already in the regulators' sights. Data harvesting is not something the EU is blind to. Presumably there would be injunctions made against them from so easily pied pipering users into doing that. Not to mention, most users do not want to have to jump through more hoops just to have the same old FB/IG/WhatsApp experience. They'd balk.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  And you trust governments because?
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    We, the people.
- Affric 3y ago
  Ah yes... so give Meta a couple of years of all gas no brakes with regards to user data while the legislators play catch up. They have gone for Apple out of pride and short sighted electoral strategy. The answer is to deal with Facebook(Meta) and Google(Alphabet) et cetera first. Pumping money into Gecko development. This is serving up regular people who use smart phones (which in the west are essentially mandatory) to big data on a silver platter.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    What’s your explanation for Japan doing the same to Apple? It’s hardly only the EU who has them (and Google, and the rest of Big Tech) in their crosshairs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393809 > regular people who use smart phones That’s the beauty of it. I’m not convinced that ‘regular people’ are going to have the patience to deal with Meta forcing them to get and manage yet another damn account to use Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp. Just a terrible hurdle that will cause FB to shed a non-zero number of users, at a time where their DAU has not been hot, never mind their long term growth potential. Without a compelling reason for them to join (free Oculuses? Oculii?) you can’t expect users to be forced to sign up for yet another account- not to mention most people are aware at the invasiveness of Meta- and remain quiet. Users already have more streaming services than they can handle, they’re not going to have the patience to juggle multiple app store accounts, just to get the same apps they already have! Forcing users to adopt a new walled garden right away is going to inspire mass consumer backlash right away. And that will cause regulators to weigh in immediately, data gathering operation or no data gathering op. I just don’t see Meta having the product or marketing stones to pull this off. Their last thing with positive buzz is what, Threads? Something dependent on the failure of another’s platform? And that only lasted for like a week.

jansommer 3y ago

We can sideload on Android, but those apps are all on the Play Store, which actually gives them more tracking capabilities, because it's hard to block stuff using Play API's

grishka 3y ago

A good solution to apps wanting to track your every click is not organizational but technical. Just don't give them APIs for reliable cross-app tracking. That advertising ID? It simply does not need to exist at all. Same for all the attribution bullshit. Besides, sideloading enables installation of modded apps giving users more choice.

catiopatio 3y ago
The advertising ID gives users and Apple control over tracking when also coupled with AppStore policy that disallows improper use. It’s impossible to prevent fingerprinting of users and devices via purely technical measures — taking away the advertising ID won’t help.
- grishka 3y ago
  Fingerprinting is hard. Especially when apps are as sandboxed as they are on iOS, and especially when there are so few iOS device models. Any APIs that can be used to share data between apps should be subject to permissions (e.g. file system access) or explicit user action (e.g. sharing content or links from one app to another).
  - catiopatio 3y ago
    Why do you think fingerprinting is hard? It’s truly not — the OS sandbox is nowhere near as restrictive as, say, a browser sandbox. Moreover, if Apple is forced to open the platform to third-party app stores, identifying unique users in collusion with the third-party app store is incredibly easy.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      > Why do you think fingerprinting is hard? They did manage to answer this question in their comment. It’s the entire last sentence. (It also seems fairly well implied that they mean “iOS fingerprinting is currently hard” given the topic of discussion.) I don’t see how I could reliably fingerprint if so many APIs require user permission. It might be possible but I don’t see easy.

Condition1952 3y ago

I’m looking forward to downloading free and open source software from f-droid. I don’t care about gmail because I don’t use it

ivanjermakov 3y ago
Vital email functions are available through many SMTP/IMAP clients anyway.

Apocryphon 3y ago

I don't think that's actually going to happen - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33978081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33978081

lmm 3y ago

Amazon used to encourage you to sideload their app store on android. You got a free copy of Angry Birds 2 if you did, and I think at one point you may have needed to do it if you wanted to install prime video at all. It still ended up going away and they gave up. So allowing sideloading is hardly the threat you think it is.

hotnfresh 3y ago
Maybe. Incentives are different on iOS. Apps are more-restricted and the platform’s more valuable. Could play out like it did on Android, but might not.
- oblio 3y ago
  Incentives are exactly the same, $$$. And you're making it out like the Play Store is worth peanuts. https://cybercrew.uk/software/app-store-vs-play-store/#h3 https://cybercrew.uk/software/app-store-vs-play-store/#h3 App Store led with an estimated revenue of $85.1 billion in 2021 Google Play Store generated revenues of nearly $47.9 billion in 2021. Nobody's ever going to try something shady for "just" $47.9 billion :-)))
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    … and the platform’s more restrictive. There were two factors I mentioned. And that’s just store revenue—it’ll skew harder toward Apple if you include other ways of making money on mobile. I don’t recall Facebook publicly throwing any tantrums over Play Store policy changes. It’s also possible that being able to put a store on both platforms is the kind of thing that would get, say, Facebook to expand the Quest software store to mobile. They’ll want to do that for Apple’s headset at least, if these changes open that up to them—expanding that effort to include iOS and Android seems like something with decent odds of happening.
    - oblio 3y ago
      Knowing the EU, further privacy policies are probably going to be announced at some point, greatly crippling the current form of targeted advertising, including on Android.

emsy 3y ago

How about not installing them at all?

breeze1990 3y ago

Has it occurred to you that Apple might not be that different from other companies you listed. It's just good marketing strategy like Google had "don't be evil" years ago. Essentially apple is like only I can access all user data for profit, improving products, ads, while others can't.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
Apple a) has a mutual interest in them remaining privacy centric as we do. B) most of your data is locked onto the device and cannot be accessed by anyone including apple themselves.
- politelemon 3y ago
  Both of your statements are Apple marketing speaking, and demonstrably false.
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    Present your work / citation needed.
    - Scoring6931 3y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-privacy-censorship.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-pr... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...

jbverschoor 3y ago

You know, it’s be good. Bc then I would only use crippled web apps, which will probably get rid of the habit of opening these time traps

Moldoteck 3y ago

So don't sideload them and use apple's products just like before, you have the freedom to not install them

runeks 3y ago
> […] you have the freedom to not install them What if Instagram decides to require side loading to install their app — in order to increase ad revenue?
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  Don't use instagram, simple choice))) Or, hear me out, you would be able to use insta in the browser with iblock installed so that you don't have ads and part of tracking!
  - FridgeSeal 3y ago
    And what about the users who wish to use Insta for sharing photos on socials, but don’t want to allow fb wholesale access to their data? Why are their concerns so glibly ignored?
    - Moldoteck 3y ago
      ask fb? it's the business of the fb to distribute their apps. Or, you can use insta for sharing photos... in the browser, and even block the ads.
- marticode 3y ago
  They don't on Android, why would they on iOS?
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    BuT wHAt iF TheY CoUld?

sensanaty 3y ago

Yeah it's hell on android having to install all of these separate app stores.... Oh, except it isn't, 99.9% of these apps just exist on the Play Store. If you don't like them, just don't use them, right? I mean that's the argument we're seeing against these changes, how does it not apply equally the opposite way? If you don't want to use an app like Facebook because it's on its own separate appstore, then don't. Besides, I don't see a reality in which these companies forego the easy native solution with millions of users in favor of whatever the process sideloading would involve.

breakfastduck 3y ago
Apple have much stricter requirements, which is the point the person is making and you are willingly ignoring. Apple, right now, have the ability to ensure the apps are transparent about what they track, have an explicit dialogue to confirm if you'd like the app to track you. These big corps hate that apple have that control and want to keep their customers informed on what's going on, and as such, they will stop using the App Store and ask customers to side load so they can release much more invasive versions of their apps that track everything without any user ever being informed. So yes, this IS objectively a bad thing and ripe for explotation.
- sensanaty 3y ago
  Sounds like Apple, with their trillions of dollars and apparent focus on quality, should invest into figuring out an OS-level permissions system then, which I presume they already do have. The OS should be handling such issues, not the App Store from which apps come from. Even if the user installs some botnet willingly, it shouldn't be able to break out of the OS sandbox and do things the user doesn't want simply because it was sideloaded (assuming a non-jailbroken/rooted phone which no non-technical user will ever accidentally find themselves with). > These big corps hate that apple have that control and want to keep their customers informed on what's going on... Oh yeah, the noble small Apple - the richest and biggest corporation to have ever existed - only has their user's best wishes in mind... It's totally unrelated to their own ad network, which they're building on top of the data they exclusively have access to thanks to their walled garden! And no, I'm not saying others should have access to this data, this data shouldn't be able to be used at all, not by Apple nor anyone else. > ... they will stop using the App Store and ask customers to side load so they can release much more invasive versions of their apps that track everything without any user ever being informed If the only thing protecting users from this is the fact that you can't sideload and have to rely on the App Store review process, then that's some real shit security, and Apple should definitely improve things there. > So yes, this IS objectively a bad thing and ripe for explotation. Funny how saying something is objective doesn't make it so. It's objectively bad for Apple, sure, since they lose their iron-tight grip on their own users. They also lose out on that sweet 30% of every penny a dev makes. Won't find me shedding a tear for them though, the less money Apple and the other megacorps get to suck dry, the better. And again, all they have to do is spend a few thousand of those trillions of dollars they have to put up an obnoxious and hard-to-get-rid of warning when sideloading. People who care about sideloading like myself will happily oblige and go through the warning screens even if they're tedious, while the hypothetical vulnerable grandmas get greeted with a screen they don't know how to work around.