Erm, WhatsApp would suggest otherwise.

WhatsApp was the vector for zero click access to a target’s phone from Israel’s weapons grade hacking Pegasus toolkit. They would send a video call, typically in the middle of the night, and with no input from the used they’d get full access. My personal belief is that they used functionality WhatsApp itself uses to access user data.

There was also an encrypted phone called ANOM, which had this trick calculator app with a hidden encrypted messager. “Made for criminals, by criminals”. Except, when the guy started his business he got investment from the FBI and Australian Federal Police to pay for the servers and some of the phones themselves. Basically every time it sent an encrypted message it sent a separate encrypted message to the ANOM servers. It’s entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that WhatsApp would do this also.

As for Google, they’re truly insidious. Lots of banks now require you to connect to Google captcha servers - they don’t give you the pictures, it’s just the back end, basically the tracking parts. Then there’s the controversy about them collecting location data when users have said no. They absolutely do collect data they shouldn’t.

All software from torrent sites should be treated with a wary eye.

I dunno, if a car kicks up a rock from the road and smashes a windscreen, that’s considered no one’s fault. Even though the car in front kicked it up.

In this case, NASA have assumed that things would burn up in re-entry, based on past experience and modelling. For some reason that didn’t happen here. However, that might not be enough to prove liability - if NASA is considered to already make reasonable efforts to prevent this.

The Netherlands is also a monarchy, and Denmark.

The more I hear that they won’t announce the Switch 2 the more I think they will.

If you want lemmy to work well, speak with /u/sunaurus@lemm.ee, he’ll sort you out. Dude is a legend and runs the best instance, IMO, but is always willing to help other instances.

I’m in Europe, and I don’t use banking apps. For the most part anyway, one of my credit cards pissed me off by switching to app only, then eventually I relented with one bank because I wanted a 2nd account that required the app.

Banks either verify by SMS (lol) or provide a passkey fob.

GrapheneOS should provide some measure of protection. You can also perhaps disable some tracking features using something like Warden (requires root) - although this hasn’t been updated in years and probably misses stuff now.

Yeah ditto :( but Jenny Nicholson released a 4 hour video on the Star Wars Hotel just recently.

https://youtu.be/T0CpOYZZZW4

I mean, a jellyfin server is typically full of copyright protected material. I also wouldn’t expect them to notify you in advance, however they should still send some notice when they stop providing the service you’ve paid for.

Run Magisk in Zygisk mode with the deny list hiding itself from banking apps.

However I would advise not using the banking app if you can help it, they’re not clean. Hell, even accessing online banking via a website seems to require connections to google.com and gstatic.com to perform hidden captcha (you don’t have to do the picture thing but it still does the server side tracking).

Lol I do run Android without Google Play Services.

That’s the crux of it here. Microsoft wanted to get into the data game they saw Facebook and Google reaping. However, Microsoft still charge you for the software they use to harvest your data.

Microsoft is pivoting its company culture to make security a top priority

Didn’t they already do that a decade or two ago??

Ty, but I think I’m just gonna switch from my dodgy Chinese Xiaomi phone to the refurbished Pixel 7 Pro I have. I mean, I’ve had it for like e months now, one of these days I will. Although, I really will miss my IR blaster, even though I hardly ever use it it’s nice to be able to change the TV in the pub lol

Edit: lmfao I just changed the TV 10m away, had Tour de France on, but now it’s basketball.

You’re still putting a measure of trust into Google with that, rather than just trusting F-Droid.

Ah wait, I should’ve read the article lol:

The law allows local authorities to name “designated providers” of a certain scale – currently only achieved by Apple and Google – and require those providers to do three things:

• Allow third-party app stores on their devices;
• Allow application developers to use third-party billing services;
• Enable users to change default settings with simple procedures, and offer choice screens for tools like browsers;

And it forbids them doing three more:

• Engage in any form of preferential treatment of their services over those of competitors in the display of search results without justifiable reason;
• Use acquired data about competing applications for their own applications;
• Prevent application developers from using features controlled by the OS with the same level of performance as the one used by Designated Providers.

So Google already allows 3rd party app stores and lots of settings (although these are always hit and miss, even in the custom ROM scene - I can’t get pocket detection right now and my phone keeps doing things in my pocket), but the 3rd party billing and choice screens applies to them.

Downloading F-Droid from Google Play kind of defeats the purpose of F-Droid.

Doesn’t Google already let you do this?? My Android phone doesn’t even have Google Play Services, I just only use 3rd party stores. If I want an app from Google Play I get it through Aurora.

Nah, the reason MS products are such a mess is that they gave up on desinging software for the user and instead focused on what they could get out of it (stealing user data).

FYI Win+D sucks ass, because when you open something on your desktop it resets. Instead, if you use Win+M you will minimise all windows, then Win+Shift+M will restore them, regardless of any other windows you’ve opened.