There are Bluetooth FIDO security keys out there for 2FA, like: thetis.io/products/fido2-ble-security-key. Some implementations can also use a phone, running an app via BLE. Not sure if they use it, but that could be one reason it’s asking for that permission.
Camera permission may be needed for scanning QRCodes to set up 2FA.
I don’t get why the entire world isn’t on Mullvad.
I don’t trust these guys at all. I trialed them and despite their full money back guarantee, they locked me into a support loop, always switching support staff with boiler plate responses and links that dealt with account issues or whatever. It wasn’t until I left a stern reply demanding the refund or I would escalate the matter with the proper regulatory bodies.
It took 4 support tickets. To me, they came across hella shady.
There’s proof they allowed Microsoft to use trackers though…I dig DDG as they were one of the first functional alternative search engines to Google with an emphasis on privacy, yet there are much better options today. I’m going to have to peep kagi based on this thread, but I’ll need to be strongly convinced to switch from SearXNG.
Reminder that Facebook hates you and pays people to develop ways to manipulate and control your behavior. Request to download your account data, delete your account, and go outside. It’s less scary than you’re making it and you’ll feel better in the end.
Nothing new, but it’s still a privacy centred search engine, but, same as Google search, whose engine does it use, puts advertisings, related to the search at the beginning of the results. It’s annoying but not put in risk your privacy. You can check it by yourself, with Webkoll, UrlVoid, Blacklight, etc. There are no cookies, trackers, logs or other profiling crap in Startpage. Anyway there are a lot of other search engines out there which you can use, Whoogle, Andisearch, AstianGo (default search engine from the Midori browser, a FF fork, but better, FOSS), Mojeek, Qwant, MetaGer, DDG, if you have little children, the 100% family save Swisscows, if you want planting trees or support social projects, use Ecosia or Good search. All of these protect your privacy and don’t log your searches, nor track you. Sponsor ads, or context based, like Startpage has, instead on surveilling or profiling, to create incommings, are not a privacy or security issue, server costs money. If you want to avoid it, you must use a selfhosted solucion or trust a public instance (Whoogle, SearX) or use a search engine which recieve a commision when you buy something online (Andisearch) or similar methodes that do not compromise your data.
To avoid are Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc, which make money with surveillance advertising, logging your search and profiling you to sell your data to advertising companies, this is a risk and lack of privacy, not the other
They don’t even try to claim they’ll stop collecting your data. No one actually cares about seeing a targeted vs non-targeted advertisement; the targeting technology is the issue.
Paying Facebook $14 a month and still being tracked, just invisibly, solves nobody’s problem.
Best practices would not require camera permissions to scan qr codes.
Scan barcodes
Android includes support for the Google Code Scanner API, powered by Google Play services, which allows you to decode barcodes without declaring any camera permissions. This API helps preserve user privacy and makes it less likely that you need to create a custom UI for your barcode-scanning use case.
The API scans the barcode and only returns the scan results to your app. Images are processed on-device, and Google doesn’t store any data or scan results.
I’m going to assume they didn’t implement this because money. Their app runs on everything, from iOS to Android to Windows. Cost savings they likely just flipped camera permissions and didn’t care about small edge cases like these.
With that said, Mullvad is a million times better, cheaper and doesn’t require even an email or account creation to use. They created a system that effectively anonymizes the user before they even subscribe.
Bills aren’t being passed by lawmakers because like many of us who care about privacy, they have not heard about the abilities of data brokers and have no visibility into how rampant and disgusting and invasive their behavior is.
Friends and family I talk to don’t care. “Oh well, what are they going to do, find me personally?”
I feel if people were able to look themselves up in these databases, they would fear it as well
Personally, I’m just waiting for a massive data broker leak to happen that involves politicians and other useless wanks like that. That’ll really jump their bones.
This is cool but it would have to be like a third that price before anyone could take the leap. If anything someone should find some way to hack and replace the spyware in a Roomba or something
Some/Many robot vacuums can be flashed with custom firmware and then only communicate locally.
Unfortunately it seems the software isnt as polished or well as cleaning, but i guess some less efficient cleaning vs phone-home crap is a good counter.
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