Hi, everybody, I had an interesting experience yesterday. We were at a restaurant and my son asked me what the difference was between shrimp and prawns. I had my phone (Sailfish) in my pocket, I don’t have the Facebook app, I use UC Browser, which was turned off, where I also browse social networks via the web. In the evening, while browsing Facebook, an article about the difference between shrimp and prawns came up. So I assume the phone was listening. So is Sailfish safe?
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Could it be that your son did look that up in his phone and because you’re connected via Facebook you got this because of his activity?
This would make sense.
Well I don’t know if SailfishOS listens, I would say no. But if. … this would be terrible.
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I found this long time ago regarding that question:https://www.reddit.com/r/sailfishos/comments/lhcn62/is_sailfish_os_secure/
My guess is it could be through an android app or other os / device. There are tools to sniff what sailfish send and receive, you can install wireshark for example and try to find out. If you need to run android apps make sure you don’t give permissions unless is completely necessary.
Not necessarily. It’s sufficient anyone at the restaraunt or anyone in your party searching for something like this.
Sailfish is reasobably ‘safe’ . The Android apps you are using, the web sites you are using, the devices and apps people around you have and use are likely not.
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It’s just “Don’t use UC Browser”.
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No one use his mobile in the restaurant. Only my wife has mobile present, but we don’t have the same account on Fb and minimum interactivity. UC browser was off, and UC browser doesn’t have allowed access to microphone in Android settings (and it still sandboxed I think)
What is UC browser, please?
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Android app like Edge. But it was off
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Thanks! (20 characters)
As long as the devices are in the same location (Cell towers, Wifi and Bluetooth beacons, GPS), at least Google can connect you.
And of course, if your wife and you both connect to the web via the same Wifi network at home, you will likely share IP address and it’s trivial to associate the two accounts. Same for the son of course.
Also, Android permissions don’t mean squat when apps are doing this:
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How to block this and similar on Sailfish phone when using it as a Mobile Access Point, for all devices connected to Sailfish OS’s mobile access point? Also for the phone when using home or outside WLAN and/or cellular data? Is this possible?
The fact that an app is off, does not necessarily mean services installed by it, were also off. Also Android apps exploit their own permissions by using other apps with higher permissions, if both use the same advertising SDKs ie.
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The only solution is to stop using Meta (and Yandex) products, and make everyone else stop using them too.
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Full agree @nephros and I do so and therefore don’t have any social media account and use only e-mail and Delta Chat. So no social media app is installed on the phone, neither SFOS nor Android.
But I assume, if I give my phone number to e.g. a craftsman or some shop, who all use WhatsApp, Meta will know my number.
edit: Delta Chat works fine on SFOS + Appsupport, and the Delta Chat app is directly downloadable from
Available for all platforms.
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FB or better it’s owner Meta has connected you looong ago anyway. You must know they’re connected with most of the websitees thrue the cookies there. Data is gold today. They sell and interchange data with thousands of companies not only Google’s owner Alphabet. The same second that happen. So even if SFOS would leak data which I believe they don’t internet knows where you are, what you eat, how much you paid and what did you discuss. If you want better digital privacy it’s way more efective if there are NO Android phones around. Similar goes for Apple but they don’t share easily.
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No one should use UC Browser.
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Delta Chat is a quite good alternative messenger app. But little things you need to know and think about, you can find at kuketz blog. It’s in german.
Look at the part for meta data.
But still it’s a good and decentralized messenger.
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May I suggest you a Vivaldi browser? You will be far better of.
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I would suggest a combination of Fennec and Brave. The latter has the best fingerprint blocker of all known to myself.
edit: beware: Fennec without add-ons is nothing.
Well, Brave adds it’s own affeliate sufixes to some URLs of websites.
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