Privacy

49063 readers

1293 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

Android Fediverse client that does not send user agent to servers (programming.dev)

submitted 3 weeks ago by hardful9856@programming.dev to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/50677034

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for recommendations for an Android Fediverse client that does not send user-agent information (device or client details) to servers. Ideally, it should support both Mastodon and Lemmy, or other Fediverse platforms as well.

top 11 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

why not just use your web browser?

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Did they not ask for something that wouldn't send UA info?

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

you can't do http communication with an empty UA string iirc. i assumed they were asking for something generic/non-unique that lets them blend into other users

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago

Fair enough. I'm embarrassed that I don't know a protocol as ubiquitous and important as http. Thanks for letting me know. I'm mainly just mad that big corporate web browsers are literally adtech

[–] hardful9856@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

I just checked, they do send user agent to lemmy server.

For example

    final appVersion = getCurrentVersion(removeInternalBuildNumber: true, trimV: true);
    return {
      'User-Agent': 'Thunder/$appVersion',
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'Accept': 'application/json',
      if (account.jwt != null) 'Authorization': 'Bearer ${account.jwt}',

[–] voxel@feddit.uk 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Also: https://dontasktoask.com/

[–] hardful9856@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago

I'm sorry if my question is inappropriate

[–] voxel@feddit.uk 0 points 3 weeks ago

Your best option is to use a browser with fingerprinting protections like Brave. Not sending a user agent at all is realistically speaking not feasible.

[–] guymontag@lemmy.ml -5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Im not sure how difficult this would be, but couldn't you modify an existing client or make your own? Especially with ai(if you so choose to use) it shouldn't be too difficult(probably).

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 1 points 3 weeks ago

it shouldn’t be too difficult(probably).

Lol

[–] hardful9856@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks for the suggestion but though it might not be difficult, it is still inconvinient