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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 surpris

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 11mo 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.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
  Exactly what access do you think they have that you don’t specifically allow that they don’t have from a web browser - running on the same device?
  - chasing0entropy 11mo ago
    That's an easy one, hold my beer: Pwa with permissions granted gives access to: Location, create notification, phone state, phone #, IMEI, motion data Mobile app with permissions gives access to EVERYTHING a pwa gets PLUS, Contacts, sms, notification content, biometrics data, web browsing data, phone activity history, location history, camera access, microphone access, NFC access, near device history, nearby wifi listing, saved wifi networks, Bluetooth device ID, Bluetooth beacons nearby, some device settings, personal data access(photos/music)
    - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      So you mean if I give an app permission to do something it has permissions to do that thing? How is that a security issue to be worried about? And iOS doesn’t allow third party apps to intercept SMS messages.
      - dwedge 11mo ago
        It's rare for me to see this sarcastic attitude in replies on Hacker News. It's common on Reddit, but not here.
        raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        I mean it wasn’t a great argument that apps can do stuff after you give it permission to do stuff.
    - senordevnyc 11mo ago
      Maybe on Android. Literally half of that shit isn’t accessible by iOS apps even with full permissions. This feels like you’re just throwing shit against the wall.
  - vachina 11mo ago
    Apps can leverage system APIs, gain always-on persistence. Not long ago Facebook (Meta) was caught spinning up localhost server on Android devices to gather activities outside of the app.
    - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      On iOS devices you can turn off the ability to allow apps to wake up on a one by one basis “background refresh”. And if you are concerned with your privacy, it’s nonsensical to buy a phone run by an adtech company that only made the operating system in the first place to sell ads and collect your data
grvdrm 11mo ago
Instagram - major offender.
- tifik 11mo ago
  I was wondering if it's just me. I am using Brave on iOS with all the possible blockers enabled, so I'm not surprised when some website doesn't work well. Instagram literally freezes solid after 5-15s of being on the website, so I usually only quickly scan the top 2-3 posts in the feed. I only follow people I know personally, so this is usually enough to do once or twice a day and stay up to date. If I see a close friend posted a story I kinda want to see then it usually takes two or three hard closes of the browser to actually see it. Sucks, but sucks less than being mental gamed into doomscrolling every time I get an app notification.
- chipheat 11mo ago
  Oddly effectively because I end up using it less in general
  - grvdrm 11mo ago
    Exactly - me too. But infuriating when I try.
- wffurr 11mo ago
  When someone sends me an Instagram link I edit to imginn.com instead.
- 6c696e7578 11mo ago
  I would say use flickr, but that's shitified now.
- PaulHoule 11mo ago
  By the stopwatch it takes 3x longer for me to upload a photo to the Instagram web app than it does to Mastodon. Facebook's blue website works pretty well but the Instagram site comes across like something that was vibe coded in a weekend or maybe a straw man that was made to prove SPAs are bad. Contrast that to the Mastodon application produced by a basically unfunded application that's fast and reliable.
hdjrudni 11mo 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_lishin 11mo 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.
- petepete 11mo ago
  They've gone an admirably long way to fuck up a text input.
- tim333 11mo ago
  Puzzled because I use Messenger web version all the time on the laptop. Works pretty normally. I don't use Facebook usually. Maybe if they detect a phone they refuse?
  - georgefrowny 11mo ago
    Usually they only break the mobile websites. They know they won't get people to install programs on their computers for "online things". Not least lots of people don't have admin rights in their computers, but also people are used to accessing "online things" via browsers on computers rather than an app per website. But, they've managed to make "phones use apps, not browsers" a social norm that enough people accept tacitly, perhaps because near enough everyone has the ability to install apps on their own phones.
  - pavel_lishin 11mo ago
    Right, exactly - the mobile version just shows a page prompting you to download and install the Messenger app.
m463 11mo 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#Greyball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber...

jsheard 11mo 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.

raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
Exactly what access do you think they have that you don’t specifically allow that they don’t have from a web browser - running on the same device?
- chasing0entropy 11mo ago
  That's an easy one, hold my beer: Pwa with permissions granted gives access to: Location, create notification, phone state, phone #, IMEI, motion data Mobile app with permissions gives access to EVERYTHING a pwa gets PLUS, Contacts, sms, notification content, biometrics data, web browsing data, phone activity history, location history, camera access, microphone access, NFC access, near device history, nearby wifi listing, saved wifi networks, Bluetooth device ID, Bluetooth beacons nearby, some device settings, personal data access(photos/music)
  - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
    So you mean if I give an app permission to do something it has permissions to do that thing? How is that a security issue to be worried about? And iOS doesn’t allow third party apps to intercept SMS messages.
    - dwedge 11mo ago
      It's rare for me to see this sarcastic attitude in replies on Hacker News. It's common on Reddit, but not here.
      - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        I mean it wasn’t a great argument that apps can do stuff after you give it permission to do stuff.
  - senordevnyc 11mo ago
    Maybe on Android. Literally half of that shit isn’t accessible by iOS apps even with full permissions. This feels like you’re just throwing shit against the wall.
- vachina 11mo ago
  Apps can leverage system APIs, gain always-on persistence. Not long ago Facebook (Meta) was caught spinning up localhost server on Android devices to gather activities outside of the app.
  - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
    On iOS devices you can turn off the ability to allow apps to wake up on a one by one basis “background refresh”. And if you are concerned with your privacy, it’s nonsensical to buy a phone run by an adtech company that only made the operating system in the first place to sell ads and collect your data

grvdrm 11mo ago

Instagram - major offender.

tifik 11mo ago
I was wondering if it's just me. I am using Brave on iOS with all the possible blockers enabled, so I'm not surprised when some website doesn't work well. Instagram literally freezes solid after 5-15s of being on the website, so I usually only quickly scan the top 2-3 posts in the feed. I only follow people I know personally, so this is usually enough to do once or twice a day and stay up to date. If I see a close friend posted a story I kinda want to see then it usually takes two or three hard closes of the browser to actually see it. Sucks, but sucks less than being mental gamed into doomscrolling every time I get an app notification.
chipheat 11mo ago
Oddly effectively because I end up using it less in general
- grvdrm 11mo ago
  Exactly - me too. But infuriating when I try.
wffurr 11mo ago
When someone sends me an Instagram link I edit to imginn.com instead.
6c696e7578 11mo ago
I would say use flickr, but that's shitified now.
PaulHoule 11mo ago
By the stopwatch it takes 3x longer for me to upload a photo to the Instagram web app than it does to Mastodon. Facebook's blue website works pretty well but the Instagram site comes across like something that was vibe coded in a weekend or maybe a straw man that was made to prove SPAs are bad. Contrast that to the Mastodon application produced by a basically unfunded application that's fast and reliable.

hdjrudni 11mo 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_lishin 11mo 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.

petepete 11mo ago
They've gone an admirably long way to fuck up a text input.
tim333 11mo ago
Puzzled because I use Messenger web version all the time on the laptop. Works pretty normally. I don't use Facebook usually. Maybe if they detect a phone they refuse?
- georgefrowny 11mo ago
  Usually they only break the mobile websites. They know they won't get people to install programs on their computers for "online things". Not least lots of people don't have admin rights in their computers, but also people are used to accessing "online things" via browsers on computers rather than an app per website. But, they've managed to make "phones use apps, not browsers" a social norm that enough people accept tacitly, perhaps because near enough everyone has the ability to install apps on their own phones.
- pavel_lishin 11mo ago
  Right, exactly - the mobile version just shows a page prompting you to download and install the Messenger app.

m463 11mo 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#Greyball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber...