Not a single friend or family member gives two shits about privacy. When I tell them about what companies know about them and what they do with that information, it’s kind of like a vegan telling a meat eater where their meat comes from. Like “wow that sounds bad but I’m not willing to make any changes”. The only difference is that instead of animals being a product, this time they are the product.
The effective way to combat this is to pull their information from data brokers and tell them everything you know. Then they feel violated, as they should.
They’ll blame you and never put two and two together though.
yup. if you’re running untrusted apps on your phone, make sure to turn off background refresh AND notifications. apps can run arbitrary code when they receive a push message. usually its so they can provide a better notification for the user, but they can collect data and phone back to the mothership too.
I will say that Apple is 100 percent collecting your data. Health, financial, biometric, anything you put in an Apple Device is subject. Like most large companies, the are probably also purchasing profile data from Acxiom and Experian.
I don’t know if they are doing it with this service but Apple is definitely not respecting your privacy. If you are concerned about privacy, you’re better off trying to use more specialized tools for a job than any singular ecosystem. Apple wants everybody to be in their single ecosystem to better build profiles in their systems.
It’s pretty clear that it’s Apps, not iPhone. But also… iPhone is responsible for holding application developers to their terms of service. It’s absolutely appropriate to criticize them for failing to deliver what they’re selling in terms of claims to a more private ecosystem.
So why call out iphone? Because they’re supposed to manage every telemetric aspect of the 2.24 million apps on the app store?
Sure, ok. This connectivity is allowed, This connectivity isn’t. Sounds great, how do they find that information out? Super magical quantum computers probably.
Privacy isn’t a concrete object. Like you can buy a six pack of freedom and a bag of privacy. Pretending Apple’s responsible for all apps’ behavior is bullshit.
If they make an example of the big rule breakers, the rest will fall into line, making it easier to spot the little trouble makers…think of it like form mods. Sure they can’t catch everything, but by constantly allowing garbage through, that’s all they’ll get. If they enforce the rules then less will attempt to break them.
I use Linode but I’m sure there are better options. Be mindful of smaller companies and keep in mind data stored in the cloud or transfered though the cloud is not private.
That’s not a solution. It’s a way for you to avoid the problem. It does nothing to help the millions of people who are already deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem.
Not sure if it’s a fallacy if it’s about addressing people who have spent a ton on an ecosystem and can’t just devote more money to buy the alternative and time to figure out the parts that aren’t compatible
What parts aren’t compatible? And you can load Linux and Windows on all Mac’s. You can also sell your iPhone and buy an android phone with money left over… getting out of the apple closed ecosystem is cheaper than sticking with it.
You asked what parts aren’t compatible, and one answer is everything bought for Apple computers, iPhones, iPads, etc. Apps, media, anything that isn’t subscription based.
Ok? And Photoshop license isn’t for just osx… you’re literally proving the point that you can migrate but you don’t want to because of some stupid allegiance to apple
I… Don’t like Apple at all. I’m engaging in a thing called a thought experiment, which is required to rationally assess why somebody might not want to throw away things they have purchased and devote both more time and more money to something that doesn’t work as well as it.
So I don’t know what all the cool killer Mac apps. Replace Photoshop with the name of a bunch of cool killer Mac apps, and repeat the question.
I (and other people) have already said that re-buying the same products and learning alternative ones is expensive in both time and money. That’s the point.
And I don’t know a ton of iOS killer apps but you would probably have to convince people with a ton of effort that Procreate is replaced by something on Android, let alone any other app I don’t know about
And I’ve already pointed out that almost all products you buy are not OS specific…the license is for the software not the OS. So you don’t have to rebuy, but that seems to be something the fanboys are missing.
For most people, time is not regarded to be free (i.e. not a cost). As a devoted Linux user, the adage that “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time” is absolutely true.
I’m not the parent commenter, but Apple Silicon has much wider app support than ARM on Windows. There’s also Rosetta Stone, which works alright, I suppose. Not spectacularly and usually not anywhere near native performance but it’s at least okay.
You’re incorrect. Tons of apps are native ARM on Mac now, also rosetta2 emulation is really fast. Obviously not as fast as native ARM but it surprised me.
Exclusivity isn’t the point. A healthy app ecosystem is what we’re discussing, which ARM on Mac has. It wasn’t great for 6 months or so, but it’s quite good now.
??? No the whole discussion on this has been how people can’t get out of the ecosystem. Which I’ve provided multiple ways to get out of it. There is really zero point to even bring up ARM MacBooks, because as you have said the ecosystem isn’t exclusive.
Learning Windows is still a time cost. You’re also losing your library of Mac software and quite a few interoperability features between your other Apple products.
??? So you’re plan is to just say fuck it, and continue to be fucked over by apple? The fuck logic is that? Almost all software has a replacement in windows/Linux. I work in all 3 ecosystems, there is very little that lacks an alternative in each os. Sticking to osx/iOS is just a cop out.
No. My argument is that if Apple isn’t going to open up their ecosystem to genuine competition and genuine interoperability then they need to have their hand forced through regulation.
Telling people to just stop buying Apple products is a lazy, knee-jerk self-righteous response that ignores the realities of platform lock-in.
You seem to think that regulation doesn’t work. Luckily, we have a test case set up for us in real-life.
In the United States, consumers relied on voting with their wallets. In the European Union, regulatory agencies forced Apple to take pro-consumer moves through regulation.
Now take a look at which approach produced results and which approach left consumers continuing to complain about the lack of interoperability and the lack of competition in Apple’s walled garden.
If you already have a bunch of Apple stuff, it makes more sense to continue using Apple stuff, because switching would cost money and effort. You’d also lose access to the software library that you paid for.
Having a bunch of Apple stuff also makes buying more Apple stuff in the future a better value proposition because you gain access to features that you wouldn’t otherwise have. Platform lock-in is not a sunk-cost fallacy. You’re just uninformed and being smug about it.
The sunk cost fallacy only applies when stopping is free or the cost is low enough (in money or effort) that it makes more sense to quit than continue.
voting with your wallet doesn’t work when most people would buy anyway (whether it’s because they’re ignorant, trapped to do so, etc)
The minority of people that actually care and know about privacy and software freedom is just a tiny statistic in Apple’s perspective, so voting with your wallet doesn’t work.
I’m already taking actions, but I do it with the understanding that it won’t make much of a difference.
I’m sorry to break your bubble but most people just don’t care. They want their computer to play a video off the internet, and don’t care how long that takes as long as it works. Maybe they’ll care about things in the specific interests they have, but they won’t care about computers, software, and libre software.
We, people that care about software freedom are a minority and we need to accept that. And the only way to get things done when you’re in the minority is to borrow power from the majority, e.g. by passing legislation.
Most people not caring isn’t a concern of mine. Apple being wealthy isn’t a concern of mine. What concerns me is that the products I use flourish and develop in ways that I like. I don’t use Apple, so I don’t particularly care about them - I just watch the drama from the sidelines.
You’re not bursting my bubble in any way, but you are being a little pretentious.
The solution is to realise that Apple aren’t the company for you and move away from them. Support products that fit your ethos. Don’t worry about the ones that don’t and leave them behind.
Yeah, let’s ignore the entire history of labor, environmental, safety, and product regulations, and believe everything is the way it is because of our dogmatic free market feefees.
Lol for a moment there I thought I was going off the rails with my puffa jacket rant above, but your segway into “free market feefees” is far more unhinged.
Lol that’s basically the Brave attitude, drown out the controversy with a marketing campaign and pull in more new unsuspecting users than the ones you lose.
You cannot root out the evil from within such massive companies. Nvidia still has a stranglehold on the market with CUDA. Literally the only thing one can do is to employ their wallet towards more fruitful endeavours, like donating and purchasing Android in this case. People who are invested into Apple are going to have to face that they made a choice moving away from freedom, even though I understand that staying the odd one out socially isn’t a lot of fun. There’s nothing to be done here unless someone with a lot of money and lawyers sues Apple. Know anyone willing to do that?
People should fully own the computers they buy, regardless of which company they buy from.
This means root access and a replacable primary bootloader, let alone just being able to install apps not on a curated market (what Apple calls sideloading). macOS and Windows both manage to allow root access, and so do certain Android devices (and obviously other OSs as well). Replacable primary bootloaders are more rare, though, especially in ARM devices due to efuse-based secure boot in the CPU that is impossible to turn off. There’s only one phone I can think of that allows for replacing the primary bootloader (Shift 6mq).
We shouldn’t allow for artificial restrictions placed by corporations on devices they sell, because as we have seen time and time again, companies copy each others’ restrictions, especially Apple. Same goes with game consoles, IoT devices, Smart TVs, etc. And before you mention the potential for piracy, DRM is an artificial restriction placed by corporations, and should also be removed from devices.
Anything less means that you don’t own the device that you paid for.
Apple is clearly attempting to comply with the EU DMA in bad faith so that they can maintain as much control over their users and app developers as possible.
Honestly, I don’t know how many normies this will upset. Pretty much only techies follow this and the people being annoyed by it might just blame the app developer and not Apple. Time will tell
The only way we can regulate any of these big assholes is to start making our own companies. And since there is no separation of big business and government… We need to build big companies ran by the people for the people who can also make policies.
Right now the Gov is for and by the Corperations and not the people… We need to change that ASAP!
I mean, this is basically malicious compliance. They did everything in their power to follow the letter but eschew the spirit of the law. Let’s hope the EU has teeth and keeps applying pressure.
So hear me out. What if we took $6.9M out of the CEO bonus and dropped the Mozilla AI project?
Maybe that would be enough to hire a maintainer or two for Firefox iOS port?
Maybe that could work?
I don’t know, just an idea. Crazy.
Nearly 10k and 400 stars on those respective repos.
A way to run a large language model on any operating system, in any OS, in a simple, local, and privacy respecting manner?
For linux we have docker, but Windows users were starving for a good way to do this, and even on linux, removing the step of configuring docker (or other container runtimes) to work with nvidia, is nice.
And it’s still FOSS stuff they aren’t being paid for, currently. But there are plenty of ways to monetize this.
Here’s an easy one: tie in the the vpn service they have to allow you to access the web ui of the computer running the llamafile remotely. Configure something like end to end encryption or or nat traversal (so not even mozilla can sniff the traffic), and you end up with a private LLM you can access remotely.
With this, maybe they can afford some actual development on firefox, without having to rely on google money.
A lot of money, but not enough to actually to actually do a lot. They keep cutting features their “customers” like. Why?
Because development is expensive.
Google props mozilla up to pretend they don’t have a monopoly on the internet. Just enough money to barely keep up, not enough to truly stay competitive.
Mozilla wants to not rely on google money, so they are trying to expand their products. AI is overhyped, but still useful, and something worth investing in.
I know that, but why did you bring it up in order to contrast it with Mozilla’s consumer base? Do you mean to say that Google is the actual paying customer?
It seems like such a bizarre thing to bring up at all.
And it comes down to a fundamental question: Will the European Commission follow through with its intent to right-size Apple’s abuse of power? Or will the DMA be nice in theory, but in practice, have no substantive meaning for most developers?
They already do that, they can say whatever, they will be isolated with their shitty Apple products and if they want decent browsers then they will need to use decent systems. Apple can’t abuse of their power and force us to follow their abusive rules, they can’t even have a decent UI desktop. They are so bad programmers.
Android was a victim of the NSO’s Pegasus because of WhatsApp, and possibly that only worked because Facebook negotiated with phone manufacturers to bundle dodgy pre-installed system apps outside the Google Play Store.
Apple’s iOS was a victim of the NSO’s Pegasus because of iMessages.
For me, that’s enough to completely steer clear of iOS altogether. I mean, the lack of customisation and control over my device was already enough, but that kind of vindicated it for me.
Yeah, my Android doesn’t have WhatsApp, I neither have Google apps. It’s a degoogled OS. I feel free and things works, even my default web browser on my Android has NoScript (JavaScript blocker), to make it safer. With Apple… you are sold.
Ditto! No Google needed, and Facebook apps are prohibited on my phone. I can even get banking apps working with a bit of Magisk, working in Zygisk domain with a deny list hiding it from the apps. Apparently proper SafetyNet checks aren’t that common anymore.
For browsers, I’d recommend Mull and Mulch. Mull is a privacy fork of Firefox, Mulch is a hardened version of Android System Webview (the backend browser that lots of apps use). Both come pre-installed with DivestOS.
Mozilla doesn’t have the sort of leverage to make an impact by abandoning apple devices. Firefox has an incredibly low market share and this could push people to other browsers. People tend to use the same browser for stuff like bookmark and password syncing, so abandoning ios could have larger consequences.
Yeah I understand, but if Apple is fucking up with our development, not only for Firefox, for any developer that makes apps for phones… why keep following their abusive rules? When I say “stopping developing apps for Apple” I mean, any developer that dislikes the abusive rules of Apple and fees. If we abandon the system, the iOS users will need to move to Android or other systems that are more friendly for developers.
Oh yeah generally I’d agree, with firefox I just think it’d be better to do what will push the fewest people away as long as it’s possible to maintain development.
Honestly, Mozilla doesn’t even have the resources to maintain a proper WebKit-based version of Firefox on iPadOS, when a large amount of the work is handled for them by Apple. (See, for example, the fact that it still does not support multiple windows, a feature that has been available since 2019.) It would seem a mistake for them to try taking on a much larger load of work when they can’t handle what they’ve already taken on.
The really powerful thing about Facebook ads is in your ability to layer targeting options on top of one another, gradually making your audience more and more specific. An extreme (and hilarious) example of the power of hypertargeting was featured in AdWeek last year, when a marketing pro targeted his roommate with ads so specific the poor guy thought he was being cyberstalked.
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