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    • alaphic@lemmy.world
      4·
      25 days ago

      “Coming up at eleven: The politician is just lying for your vote; The stripper doesn’t really like you; Corporations are NOT your friend; If you’re receiving a service you aren’t paying for, YOU are the product; and, finally, we conclude our three-part series: Water - It’s Wet As Fuck Tho”

      • Lazycog@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        25 days ago

        It’s a for profit public company. I’ve been playing around with the idea of possibly creating a FOSS app that would run its servers via donations and (same as duolingo in the beginning at least) community created courses. Would need support from proper linguists though.

        There are other apps like that but they lack the sleek UI and gamifying aspect or simply have only one language.

        I pay for duolingo so I hate that they are tracking me but it’s the only actually fun casual language learning app out there and honestly I don’t mind paying for such a good app, but their monetization schemes are getting more aggressive: e.g. time limit games which are nearly impossible without paying for “extra time potions” which you don’t get even if you have the paid version.

        Edit: just to add to the time-limit games: you can just not participate in them, but fuck me for paying to the app and still having that bullshit in my UI.

  • Otter@lemmy.caMEnglish
    2·
    24 days ago

    Thankfully a lot of these are accessible by the web browser if you really need to use them. I should switch to doing that for more of them

    • trolololol@lemmy.world
      0·
      23 days ago

      How does that help?

      I didn’t read the article, I came here for the jokes but then you got me curious

      • Otter@lemmy.caMEnglish
        3·
        23 days ago

        So my understanding is that

        • apps can let them collect a lot more data than the website version. Apps have access to a bunch of device APIs, they might be running all the time vs a website tab that you close afterwards, etc.
        • you just open a link vs. logging in through the play store

        On top of that if you want to lock down further, it’s easier to use a privacy respecting browser than it is to sandbox the apps to. For the average person it’s easier to go from using the app to opening the website in a browser, than it is to swap their OS to GrapheneOS and set up sandboxing

        That’s also why a lot of websites mess with the mobile site, they want you to use the app

        • trolololol@lemmy.world
          2·
          20 days ago

          I can tell you exactly what data an app can connect since I’m an android developer, but not web since I can’t dev JavaScript. My understanding is that the gap is quite small.

          About “always running” that’s a complicated scenario and that’s not the best way to put into layman terms. And it has improved heaps in the last 5 years, gradually.

          Marketers love these apps because they could send you notifications, " reminding" you that you’ve not being using the app enough and driving “engagement”. There’s heaps of companies whose main or only product is give marketers a dashboard to send push with pre sets targeting user profiles.

  • Kekzkrieger@feddit.orgEnglish
    1·
    25 days ago

    Only apps i have are Google Maps, which i try to replace with Organic Maps.

    And Duolingo cause i like to “learn” a language, while having the gamification motivate me.

    • JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      25 days ago

      I currently use Waze because the features are awesome but how has your experience been with organic maps? I want to use it but worried about it not being great. I haven’t actually tried it.

      • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        25 days ago

        magic earth will be a little closer to waze, but unfortunately the israeli app is just kinda the best at commute routing…

  • whalebiologist@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    Any idea how to find this kind of info on Discord? They seem extremely tight-lipped about how it’s harvested and used, I’m sure it’s more horrible than I can even imagine.

    • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
      1·
      24 days ago

      You can still Duolingo and dodge (most of) the bullshit.

      Use GrapheneOS.

      Install Duolingo from the Aurora store, no Google account attached.

      Sandbox the app and set its permissions to disallow location, disallow pulling contacts etc.

      Make your Duolingo acct with a fake name and burner email (sucks for you if you already made one with your primary email and real info).

      Manually add “friends” via their Duolingo usernames.

      Note that, like Facebook, your contact info could be getting shared by other users who have your real info listed in their contacts. Not much you can do about that. (In fact, you could use none of the apps on this list but your contact info is probably still getting leaked by your normie friends and acquaintances.)

    • fxomt@lemm.ee
      0·
      23 days ago

      imo duolingo isnt really the best for learning languages anyway. You should check out anki