I was looking forward to trying Sync today now that it’s live, but my enthusiasm was immediately dampened after seeing the “Data Safety” section on the Google Play store.
Liftoff has been great, and want to say thanks for making an awesome app. This will continue to be my daily driver.
Edit: for clarity, because the post got way bigger than I expected.
Sync looks like a fantastic app, and the dev/s should charge whatever they feel is fair for their efforts, even if that’s through the usual ads + ad tracking.
My intent was just to post here in /c/Liftoff to thank the Liftoff devs for managing to somehow offer an awesome app without any of that.
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I, for one would rather actively work to de-normalize it!
There, is that written accurately enough for you?
I should clarify. I don’t want to normalize it… In the FOSS sphere (Lemmy).
But also you really shouldn’t flout how frequently your data is pillaged and sold out. Its an embarrassing look.
I for one use exclusively FOSS software outside of my banking app.
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Do you know yourself for a fact that no data is being taken by Sync itself?
And its a fact that Google and Firebase are taking your data. Even if Sync itself doesn’t collect any data, it uses Google products (as stated in their Privacy Policy which I’m 1000% you did read), and any and all google products will take your data.
That’s the point of using a FOSS client, if it collected data people would know, the code is public. And the data collection can be removed, since the code is public.
Even outside of data collection or privacy, which clearly you don’t care about, we should avoid giving Google more power. Look at manifest v3 or the web integrity API. That affects not only your privacy, but your security and ability to use the internet. And not only yours, but the whole world
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Well, you are just one of the (majority of) people who apparently don’t care about being tracked by google. Me personally, others in the comments and maybe OP don’t use anything google related, have custom ROMs without gapps and avoid Google like the plague. So it is a concern for us, using Sync would open the door to google tracking.
Others have pointed out that even if you pay for pro, Sync still requires Play Services.
You seem to happily Google products, so my point wouldn’t apply to you. I just thought that most people would be concerned about google and tracking and fingerprinting and all that stuff, since we are in Lemmy and the Liftoff sub.
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Firebase is typically a dependency for key app features. If the app still works 100%, you’re probably not even blocking the traffic.
Using Google Drive/Photos is just another problem. Amazing to me people keep bringing that up like a “you’re a hypocrite” trump card.
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What API isn’t loaded for subscribers? Firebase?
“It’s not a problem because I choose to ignore the downsides”
Morals have nothing to do with it. Im, quite plainly, saying that is is pretty stupid to put your data into closed source apps.
Only ignorant people do that.
The only reason I use my bank app is because its literally required to exist in America. If it were up to me, it wouldn’t be.
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Most of the world is by definition ignorant of data privacy.
Absolutely.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand it, just someone who is not ignorant.
But, by all means, continue to give your data to whoever you want to.
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If you aren’t ignorant, than you are stupid.
You know the stove is hot and are showing your palm into it. That isn’t ignorance.
Most mankind is ignorant to data privacy, and that says nothing to their intellect.
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But you don’t actually know what code is running on a given lemmy server. Just because the source is open, doesn’t mean that any given server is using the reference implementation, admins could be running whatever they want on their backend.
That’s why it’s imperative that the app which communicates with the server via Lemmy’s api, IS open and auditable. That’s how we prevent maligned actors from using data they shouldn’t have. You can audit what is being sent from an open source app.