Contribute to primalbeing/Whatsapp-Contacts-Chats development by creating an account on GitHub.
Whatsapp is privacy invasive, and we likely know that even when using E2EE, this is possible due to metadata tracking.
An easy way to avoid one creepy thing, contact scanning and the creation of “who knows whom” social nets, is to not grant apps permission to your contacts!
But this is not easy, as apps often enforce this, just as they do with
embedded cameras instead of using the system camera
embedded galleries instead of the 2 available portals (but Google will soon forbid that)
asking for unneeded permissions
Only GrapheneOS also allows blocking these permissions
sensors
internet
loading code from memory i.e. from the internet (why would they do that? Is there something they want to hide?)
debugging their own code to spy on the system behavior
But this app can help everyone on any Android to at least fix this :)
There’s also “Open in Whatsapp” which has been around for 5 years, I’ve used it for all this time actually, I stopped giving Whatsapp access to my contacts around the time I was degoogling, plus I keep it installed in the work profile (Shelter), where I purposefully don’t sync my personal addressbook. So this type of apps is very handy for a couple different scenarios:
you need to contact someone you have no interest in saving the contact of forever (plumber, guy on craigslist, etc)
you want to contact a person you haven’t talked to in a long while (otherwise you could just search their name within whatsapp) of which you have the number somewhere else
All in all you save time mostly, and potentially give a little less to Meta.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !privacyguides@lemmy.one
In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.
This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.
You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:
Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We’ve tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!
Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!
This community is the “official” Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other “Privacy Guides” communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.
Moderation Rules:
We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
No soliciting engagement: Don’t ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
Don’t repost topics which have already been covered here.
News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don’t abuse our community’s willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.
I’d rather just use the contact scope feature in GrapheneOS.
Well not everyone has GrapheneOS ;) but of course that is also good, but not the same use case at all
You can also text yourself a number on WhatsApp and click on the phone number to text them.
There’s also “Open in Whatsapp” which has been around for 5 years, I’ve used it for all this time actually, I stopped giving Whatsapp access to my contacts around the time I was degoogling, plus I keep it installed in the work profile (Shelter), where I purposefully don’t sync my personal addressbook. So this type of apps is very handy for a couple different scenarios:
All in all you save time mostly, and potentially give a little less to Meta.
Is it not using the portal? I thought it was since I’m able to choose every picture without granting media access to WhatsApp
Interesting, wasnt in the past, that means they are faster than Signal LOL
Ah so it is! And yeah, Signal not having it is such a pain
Highly recommended to just not use this app vs. trying to bypass malicious features.
What is that suppose to mean?
It means by using this app you’re bypassing malicious features but still using malicious software.
Well thats life lol
That’s not life. You can choose to use software that isn’t malicious.
No not if you arent in a position where people you need to contact dont use it lol
Inform those people that you don’t use it, and inform them of the alternatives. Boom, problem solved.
it is really not solved if it’s not about people wanting to reach OP, but OP needing to reach other people, like those at work
Magic