14 replies to this topic

[arthurbikemad]

So you have a smart phone, so you probably have Facebook and messenger installed, so you think ah but that's ok I don't use Facebook or messenger! Did you know messenger can access (by installing or having on your phone you give them permission) all of the features of your phone with out you knowing? That's cameras, microphone, text messages, contacts, GPS and any other features of YOUR phone, if you open the apps tab and look at permissions for messenger you will see all those options are enable, you can NOT turn them off! I've removed mine, I have nothing to hide but I don't want some twat reading my personal messages.

so much for data protection..

Edited by arthurbikemad, 19 August 2014 - 07:39 am.

[CaptainSlow]

I'm a FB user but I was deeply annoyed with the Messenger thing.  I refuse to install an app that big and bloaty and that you can't switch off.  As I see it there are two options (for me anyway) - either remove all the updates to the FB app which reinstates the messaging function (although you do get constantly nagged to update), or keep FB updated and just use the web browser to get your messages.

 

Either way it's a faff.  If it wasn't for its usefulness as a marketing tool for my band I'd seriously consider binning it entirely.

[arthurbikemad]

I agree, FB sadly is the place to be for many reasons, like eBay and the marketplace, shame that in the end we will have no choice if you wish to message with FB it will be with messenger as I am sue they will pull the plug on the internal messaging service.  I am not too fussed about that I guess as tbh I don't use it a great deal, but the access to other features of a phone and pc is that necessary? I have no doubt they want it for "market research" but I for one do not wish to share my personal data!  And I feel I should have a say in what data I wish to share! For that reason I have decided to remove messenger for now, if they push me back over to it then its the end of FB for me.  BUT later on I would not be surprised if its embedded into the Android OS and can not be removed or disabled.

[Studley Ramrod]

FB and Messenger aren't installed on my phone

[CaptainSlow]

  BUT later on I would not be surprised if its embedded into the Android OS and can not be removed or disabled.

I don't doubt that for a second!  While it's not possible to remove factory-installed apps you can disable them in Settings.  There's a load of crap on my HTC One which I'll never use and have disabled - 7 digital and Dropbox spring to mind.

[Favs]

Rooted & custom ROM on mine - all bloatware removed. XDA Developers are your friends - the choices are many.

FB - had it once when it was new - gave it up (deleted), cos some of the student's mothers wanted to be my friend.

[butcher650]

Now I know you'll disagree with me Daniel, but I've had FB messenger for a while now, and I quite like it. It doesn't seem to slow my phone down, and the only things I chat about in there wouldn't matter if anybody else saw it, but I don't see how they can?? You have be logged in to see the messages surely, so it must be as secure as FB itself?? 

 

I hear what you're saying about apps that you can't remove. I've got one particular one that starts up by itself and I have to manually shut down in the task manager. (Daily) (Daniel you might have to help me with the disable thingy in settings). 

 

Although our world is so revolved around social media and yes it has it's positives, If I could, I would bin it completely. 

[RogerD]

Removed FB Messenger and have been using WhatsApp......just bought by FB...Doh.

[ChrisG]

The messenger app can access loads of your phones features because YOU can can use those features through the app, eg you can take a photo and send it as a message. Mark Zuckerberg can't decide he wants to know what your house looks like and remotely access your camera.

That said I've not installed it on my phone and on the rare occasions someone sends me a message on it I just look at it on the website.

[butcher650]

Thanks Chris, that's what I was trying to say! 

[arthurbikemad]

Very true, think what hits home is this week it has been revealed that FB can and does access those features as market research, if as you say it was so the app could attach an image etc then fair do, but when they say they want to copy contacts lists etc as part of improving the app you start thinking....hmmmm....

Edited by arthurbikemad, 19 August 2014 - 12:16 pm.

[muddy]

Rooted & custom ROM on mine - all bloatware removed. XDA Developers are your friends - the choices are many.

FB - had it once when it was new - gave it up (deleted), cos some of the student's mothers wanted to be my friend.

Same here. Rooted and booted with a custom KitKat rom courtesy of the whizz kids @ XDA. Consequently I can manage permissions on all my apps. Don't use FB messenger and only started using FB again because of a reunion I was involved in. 

 

As for privacy, that's a whole debate on it's own. The trend is for the general public to be increasingly transparent and minutely scrutinised and governments, bankers and multinationals to be above scrutiny should be a concern to everyone. The 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear' mantra just doesn't hold up. There are many reasons to fear government and other agencies, corporate and otherwise, collecting data, often of an intimate nature, on us. 

[harvey krumpet]

I don't own a smart phone but had a Samsung Galaxy briefly in my last job. Ugh. Mucking about with it I noticed that a lot of the pre installed apps & others I was interested in installing were equally big brotherish. My only issue personally, should I get one, is the cost of the data they may send & receive. It would rip my nightie paying for stuff I did not want. Android, Google etc are money magnets.

[butcher650]

 It would rip my nightie paying for stuff I did not want. 

 

Never heard this saying before. I like this!! 

[harvey krumpet]

 

Never heard this saying before. I like this!! 

If your not a kinky cross dresser like me it merely shreds the undies.

 

Anyhoo, enough of my personal habits. A techy mate turned up this morning & bullied me into ordering a smart phone clone from China.

I got caught in a flash flood last night & marooned the van on slabs of tar seal which had been swept into the road. Couldn't get the bloody door open against the water it was that bad.

Ah, the jist. My trusty old nokia which has been slowly deteriorating kept cutting out and doing strange things when I called for help. Time to get something else I thought.

Will let ewes all no my impressions of the new thing when (if) it arrives.

To good to be true? We shall see.