You must log in or # to comment.
“Create a FREE account to continue reading…”
Nope.
“Please turn off your adblocker…”
Nuh-uh.
“This site uses cookies. Please review…”
Also nope.
Scan this qr code to…
In the trash with you.
In the modern age so many things that should just be websites are apps and many things that should be apps/programs are websites
Can track you and see more invasive details from your device that way, more than just cookies.
Things generally want to keep you engaged - and a native mobile app, even if otherwise functionally the same as a webpage, has somewhat more of a chance to get you to accept push notifications to spam you.
That, plus I think its to get you more invested. Like if you have the app on your phone you might want to use it again, or youll forget about it and then see it later and think about their product/service/whatever.
I got into this with a coffee shop recently. Apparently they were “online order and pickup only.” And i went in trying to get coffee. One person was trying to help me, and what i assume was her manager was being a dick.
“Just download the app and put your order in.”
“Nah im not going to do that. I just want a black coffee. Nothing fancy.”
“We’re online only”
other employee rings me up, pours me a cup, and is seemingly just trying to help me gtfo
She hands it to this dude… To hand to me
“Next time, use the app.”
“Bro there wont be a next time.”
I agree with it being terrible practice to be online only. But nothing is forcing you to use their services they are providing. Just go elsewhere, instead of making the employees lives harder. They are just trying to do their job. They probably have to put up with that sort of thing every day. (I’m not having a go at you personally, I never said you did anything wrong, just a rant to other readers who might be a dick to their local customer-facing workers lol).
When i walked in, the one employee actively tried to help me before her manager got in the way. They certainly do have to put up with that every day. There were 3 of us there at the same time who made the same mistake. If it really was such a problem, they wouldn’t have set up a stand PoS and a counter and made it look like a regular shop
Yeah, sounds like the place was designed to catch people unaware, and convince them to install their spyware.
It’d be great if they had a non data-harvesting subsidized pricing tier.
Pretty nice of them to change business practices for you in that moment.
The one employee was doing it for everyone who walked in. There were 3 of us at the time i was there, so im assuming it happens all the time for them. But im sure I’m not the only one they were rude to. Had they been nice and reminded others that they should use the app, im sure theyd have more people switch to the app instead of finding a new shop.
I blast that shit in their reviews.
Not only is it a privacy and security issue, it’s also an accessibility issue. Maybe I’m using my desktop to access your website where I can ctrl+ to increase font size, but your shitty unreadable phone app has made zero effort to support accessibility.
It’s particularly annoying for services like DoorDash, instacart, or uber, where some users are specifically using those services due to accessibility issues.
Those companies are literally only the man in the middle, in every sense
Most accessibility options are already baked into the OS. There should be no need to configure anything related inside the App. You’d have to implement responsive design though, which is not only an accessibility problem but should be common sense by now.
Yeah I tried increasing the font size in my phone settings, the result is that in most app half of the words just disappear. They still only get the space allotted to them in the app and if they exceed those dimensions, that’s just too fucking bad.
Many apps do not respect the text size settings set in the OS. And if they do, they render poorly. And using full screen zoom from the OS is not a good option.
I guess, you didn’t necessarily say otherwise, but there’s still a high chance that the app offers worse accessibility, even if you’ve configured everything correctly. Being able to freely manipulate the rendering in your browser, rather than having to live with what the app/OS devs allow you to configure, is crucially important for many accessibility needs.
This was meant more as an utopian wish statement of well standardized and interconnected ecosystems instead of trying to teach anyone how to use their phone lol. I’m well aware that we’re moving into the other direction sadly and I also hate that I have to use apps for what should have been a website in the first place.
I’m not really affected by this and can’t say much about the existing needs beyond what iOS and Android are offering on the OS level though. I totally understand that a website is a much better starting point for this if you’re starting from scratch, given a responsive implementation approach and no DRM and obfuscation measures applied.
The only reason they went from websites to apps is because with apps they can push notifications.
And they can request location info and other things, and most people just click Allow.
on android apps can also request a list of other apps installed, for example the mcdonalds app can check whether the kfc app is installed. it doesn’t give apps broad permission to check for every single app on your device (before android 11 that was actually the case), but apps can definitely spy on their competitors that way.
They can also request location info and other things on a website, and people also just need to click Allow.
And the apps can report your phone’s sensor info back to their servers so they can build a profile on you to sell to data brokers.
They can also use push notification on websites, and for both websites and apps you have to agree to a system prompt first to allow it to happen.
So that’s not the reason.
Invalid since 2023: https://caniuse.com/push-api
I was concerned when my kid started soccer and they wanted parents to get an app to get updates on cancellations and to see the game and practice schedule. Fortunately there is a browser version and the app is not necessary. They just don’t advertise this.
Whereas my child’s doctor appointments and records are only available via app and don’t have a website. And the app is no longer supported on my phone OS so I have to run the previous version. I hate this.
That’s the worst. Have you spoken up about it? I think they try to be the most convenient and to be “with the times” without realizing that one way does not fit for everyone.
The problem is that it isn’t their own in house app - they contract it out. I should say something, but they aren’t going to change providers. With HIPAA, it’s probably a huge pain without many options. Complaining to the app company makes more sense, but I’m sure I’d get even less far. I suspect I’m in the far minority that care and run non-stock android.
I went to a dentist’s office that promoted how easy it was to schedule a appointment and manage your records on their app.
I usually am much more polite but I flipped and said, “I don’t want a app for that!” And scared the front desk staff.
I walked into Walmart for the first time in years to return the shitty thing I bought.
The cashier at returns mentioned thier app makes returns easy as I flip through photos of receipts on my phone.
“I’m sure it does but I don’t install non critical apps. I don’t need Walmart looking at my phone, tracking me or pushing notifications”
She just shrugged.
I must generate a qr code. I search for sites to do this. The first result lets me do this but requires an email to download the thing. The second result lets me do this but requires an email to download the thing. The third result lets me do this but requires an email to download the thing. Each of them display the generated qr code on screen but then refuse to let me download it. Technology sure is amazing.
Probably not useful in your case, but:
apt install qrencode qrencode -t svg -o example.svg https://example.com/Unfortunately there’s way too much of these leeches who charge for stuff that is otherwise free, then use spammy SEO techniques to bury the free options.
As for QR code generation, DuckDuckGo has a built-in generator that’s always worked for me. For example: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=qr+Visit+Lemmy.World±%3E+https%3A%2F%2Flemmy.world
Duckduckgo is pretty convenient for quickly generating qr codes. You just type qr followed by its contents into the search box and you get a qr as result.
Can also be self-hosted:
https://github.com/CorentinTh/it-toolsCan you use a snipping tool or screenshot that shit? Otherwise, throwaway email lol.
Free and downloadable https://www.nayuki.io/page/qr-code-generator-library#live-demo-javascript
I love when you download it and you have to enter credit card information for a trial. Take a walk!
Theres a dark pattern where a service makes you fill out a form, choose your actions, get to 95% done and then hits you with a Credit card request, assuming you already made it this far.
Who are they fooling?
Feels like a Turk request I didn’t get paid for.
One of the best things about iOS is they can’t do this.
I got one of those “safe driver” transceivers to save money on insurance. It required an app, which I figured would be like a simple bridge that uploads the data from the device to the server.
Holy mackerel, was it full of additional spyware. I was already a little uneasy sending driving data to a private company, but this would potentially be sending constant phone tracking. No thanks!
Yeah, I tried the same many years ago. Problem was that I had a super tiny car in a big city where everyone speeds all the time, so it never gave me a discount because I was always speeding and breaking harshly.
How can I be a smooth driver when no one else is? It also dinged me for driving at night when I was doing a volunteer job in the evening while my day job was WFH. Such BS.
I mean it uses location and acceleration info for driving habits. What did you expect?
Oh it gets worse than just that. I did the same for a while, and when we first started the permissions that app wanted were reasonable considering what it does.
We dropped it and took the higher rate earlier this year once the app started asking for a lot more permissions, like biometric and health data to “verify if we’re walking or driving”.
“nah I broke the speed limit on foot”
In a parking lot that’s entirely possible
Not OP, but I would want it to be just a black box with GPS, accelerometer, mobile data and everything else it needs for its function to be built right in.
There’s no need for such a device to pair with your phone, unless they are trying to be greedy and slurp extra data.
In some ways I agree, but on the other hand, a “box with GPS, accelerometer, mobile data, and everything else it needs to function … built right in” is just a phone, minus a touchscreen and some extra computing power. And unless you know the hardware inside the black box, just blindly passing its data through could be even worse than an app pulling stuff off your phone.
It’s not JUST an app on your phone though, what OP was talking about is an app in your phone AND a black box. Both of them. What I’m saying is that I want just the box, with no app and no other connectivity.
The point of a single purpose device like a driving GPS black box is that it does what it does, and has no capability to do more.
If I have a black box in the car, I know that my insurance company is getting my GPS location, speed, acceleration, where I go, and when and how. And that’s fine, because that’s the data I explicitly consented for them to have when I signed up.
But what I also get is certainty they have no aceess to anything else. With no app on my phone I don’t need to be concerned with what they are slurping up on the sly above and beyond what I consented to - which with apps on a smartphone is quite a lot of data, even if you manage your permissions carefully.
For argument, lets go ahead and assume the black box has “other sensors”(e.g. microphone) and is trying to do something nefarious on the sly like record you talking all the time without consent. That would be easy to prove by tearing down and analysing the device, and much more likely to land them in legal hot water for not disclosing it, given it’s their device which they built for a purpose and in which they included this undisclosed functionality.
Yeah, you’re right, you can open up a black box in a way you can’t really for a typical phone app/OS stackup. Maybe I argue it’s no longer a black box then, but no matter. I had originally started in on another section about better permissions and data handling and such, so I probably had a more optimistic view of permissions in general when writing, but one of the points was about being able to sniff your own (app’s) packets to be able to monitor what’s collected and sent at any given moment. That’s the sort of thing that I think makes the most sense, to directly interrogate the issue of what data they are sending back about you, rather than making logical connections from other observations.
Counterpoint: It might be normal for that device to have a WiFi radio or something to communicate wirelessly, but if the software is actually using the antenna to detect and track your heart rate, it might require an extremely (or even impossibly) talented hardware engineer to notice anything fishy from the device’s hardware itself. The WiFi and heart-rate thing specifically might not be a viable vector, dunno, but it can be a lot harder to check for stuff than just seeing if there’s an “ACME Spy Microphone” module plugged into the board somewhere. Though I agree they would probably get a worse reaction from illicitly including a hardware feature vs an app scraping the same data from your phone, even if they’d send back the same info; also that you could at least know a separate device was only tracking your car’s location, and only when you brought it with, not relying on it’s own software to decide when and where to collect data.
Ultimately, the solution might have to involve not using an OS developed by a company that also wants to slop up as much data as it can, but only so much one can do. At the very least, it’d be nice to get more separation between a “personal space” that you live your life in, e.g. socialize and consume content, and a “functional space” for other stuff that will run on your phone or you access occasionally but isn’t part of you being you, like apps for random companies or services, phone lights/sensors, a driver-insurance-safety app that should just get data pipes in from a specific list of sources and isn’t supposed to be sending data home 24/7, etc.
Some companies have an accelerometer in the device itself. This one is just a BT chip that pulls the location and acceleration data on your phone itself, as well as a ton of other permissions and invasive data trackers, as well as an agreement that the insurance co can share collected data with third party partners. Unfortunately these days it’s pretty boilerplate stuff.
One of the best meme templates I’ve seen in a while lmao
I love it because he reminds me of an old friend I had who was a very pragmatic person and often just threw his hands up and moved on when shit got dramatic.
Love them type of people. No nonsense.
I’m finding it funny because around here most cars are manual, and when I got my driver’s licence I was strongly warned that looking back instead of using the mirrors would be immediate failure.
Based on your username in guessing you’re German? (Apologies if I’m wrong). Here in the USA when I first got my license in the state of Oregon it was the opposite. If you weren’t looking backwards while reversing and using only your mirrors, you’d be docked points on your exam.
I’m from a Germanic colony in south Brazil. I don’t know how they do in Germany.
Smaller cars I would definitely look back, because you get a wider view, but it’s also situational. If you need to quickly alternate between left and right side I would use mirrors, especially if squeezing in somewhere.
Especially with an SUV like we have now, looking back does nothing. Small rear window, all I see is back seats. Now I use mirrors and top-view mode + rear view on reversing cameras that surround the vehicle.
Probably just a shoulder check used for photo. Probably an unrelated stock image for the transmission. Still a funny meme template
For any tourists in Finland, here is also some advice:
Noted. Context?
Turku on Suomen persereikä
I would also like to know, this is the main city I was interested in seeing
This but for survey, with umbrella as a gift.
No thanks, ain’t gonna download no app for an umbrella.
Don’t forget about the data they can mine from your phone!
deleted by creator
I Like apps If the app is good, and they give you the option to keep using the website
