Psylo, which bills itself as a new kind of private web browser, debuted last Tuesday in Apple’s App Store, one day ahead of a report warning about the widespread use of browser fingerprinting for ad tracking and targeting.
It was a fortuitous coincidence.
Psylo for iOS and iPadOS was created by Mysk, a Canada-based app biz run by software developers and security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk.
“Psylo stands out as it is the only WebKit-based iOS browser that truly isolates tabs,” Tommy Mysk told The Register. "It’s not only about separate storage and cookies. Psylo goes beyond that.
“This is why we call tabs ‘silos.’ It applies unique anti-fingerprinting measures per silo, such as canvas randomization. This way two Psylo tabs opening the same website would appear as though they originated on two different devices to the opened website.”
Be my guest, uninstall GPServices and see. It’s known that all mainstream apps require it. Things like youtube obviously, and all google apps, uber, lyft, reddit, bank apps, discord (unsure), mcdonalds, burger king, yuka… many smaller apps and many games as well. If they work by luck, then you likely won’t have notifications. There’s no easy database for this and you probably know it
Then, for the privacy points, then you also know google’s privacy policy. Google play services is closed source, so yea, good luck finding proof for this, just like for apple
where? Criticizing something specific inherently implies there is a better alternative, or you wouldn’t be focused specifically on apple. I’m saying android is not and AOSP is not viable due to being an outdated user experience and supporting much much less apps and features, as well as not really being used without play services
Never had it installed in the first place.
no bank apps? no google maps? no fast food or taxi app? no ‘mainstream’ social media? that’s your only phone?
You’re one of rare people then. I couldn’t do it.
Your whole comment is hinging pretty hard on the AOSP point, as that’s almost definitely the alternative the user was referring to.
The only ones there that are anywhere close to essential are banking and Google Maps. Maps has alternatives that I’ve seen people use as well, such as Organic Maps. More importantly is most of these can be done in a single app, a web browser.
I’ve done both app and phone browser banking, and they’re pretty interchangeable, just set up site shortcuts on your home screen instead. Similar to fast food, I don’t use taxis. Social media is the main offender here but most mainstream social media sucks dick.
Why do you need these things as apps?
Won’t work for things like neobanks (revolut, n26, trade republic, sumeria)
Also many banks have a disastrous web interface in my country, and card 2FA is sometimes only done on the app for internet payments
I know not having the app makes me unable to get Burger King offers, or use the Yuka app, both of which I really need
Ya know, fair enough there ngl, I forgot about those and it definitely makes a difference if you’re reliant on an app.
Yeah, not much can be done about bad web design. I found that me during a period abroad, it was a worthwhile compromise, but sometimes it can be brutal to deal with.
Gotcha, but in that case, it’s effectively them bribing privacy concessions from you. That’s part of the payment trade-off there.
I don’t really disagree with your points here; it highlights the importance of threat modelling. On a country-by-country basis, things may be far easier or harder. For example, when I was in Japan, I used fewer privacy-questionable apps due to less cultural and technological impetus than I have in the States. The differences you’re having issues with are likely heavily based on both infrastructure and value differences between much of the comm and you. I frankly make many privacy compromises compared to others here myself, but that is less do to the alternative being backwards but more so due to it being ever so slightly more inconvenient.