I have to use Whatsapp, unfortunately. Are there any good alternatives to the default app on Android?
I’m worried about all the data it shares with Meta. I denied all permissions but this makes it less convenient, and the app probably still sends over the data that available without them.
Meta primarily wants info on you who talk to, when, how long, etc. Basically your social graph. No mod is going to help with that.
I only know you can use it via Matix with a bridge, but the setup is quite involved, not just an App on your phone. Plus the metadata is still shared with Meta, like who you talked to and when, which they can build a profile and a social graph.
I used a setup like that, but there were 2 things that I didn’t like
- I had to keep Whatsapp on my phone and open it every 2 weeks, because without it the bridge would just die (so why not just use it anyway?).
- The app I had used a lot off battery, which was a dealbreaker for bike/backpacking trips.
The solution is to not be available in the first place… can I have your number? nope don’t have one … So how can we keep in touch we can’t … There’s this thing called simpleX I once in a blue moon check if you want to try … Convinced one friend till now … He doesn’t answer on it :( Hope to meet you in person one day would be a nice to knew someone privacy aware
Afaik there were some custom clients for it in the past but WhatsApp broke them at some point. They even randomly ban phone numbers of those who try to use the official app on a custom Android ROM. Unfortunately the most you can do is get a separate physical device just for it.
Really? Romming since they day it existed, never had a problem with it
Not everyone gets banned but some people do. I’ve seen a lot of cases in my phone’s support group on Telegram.
Auto reply with Watomatic and always real reply late on WhatsApp:
🤖 Automated Reply 💬 I reply faster on example.org ⁉️ WhatsApp is anti-libre software. We do NOT control it. It withholds a libre software license text file, like GPL.WhatsApp bridge on a matrix server self hosted is prolly as good as it gets. Run Android on a VM for the WhatsApp Android app on it
Let’s say there was a perfect API present and WA allowed you to use a completely FOSS app witch didn’t share any data with FB. But still FB will know everything they can still access all the metadata like earlier. The only thing they can’t access is analytics data but that can be easily blocked by DNS. And as far as Add ID goes use graphene OS it protects against that by giving each app different ID. So even if FB collaborated with other services to collect data as they do they won’t be able tie all back to you.
I guess the stuff I was worried about was contact list sharing, Google Advertising ID, installed app list, and who knows what else a native app can access. Good to know that Graphene has that protection, I guess I’ll worry less about using WA.
