Tech-savvy choose to use fewer and better-chosen apps to protect their privacy
The alternative
Look for open-source applications or enter browsers or websites that do not save and use data
Much of the population does not consider living without WhatsApp, Chrome, or Facebook. But many IT experts reject these technological tools to protect their data. And they take cover using other applications or programs that they know are safer. “Everything seems very simple, easy, and even neutral. When behind it there is a very complex network of interests”, warns the professor of Computing, Multimedia, and Telecommunications Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Who defends that is why those who know about technology “usually have fewer applications and they are chosen with more care.”
Notable Points
The regulator of the college’s alum degree in Web Site and Application Development agree that specialists will by and large present “less notable” mechanical assemblies since everybody addresses “a presumably wagered to security and protection”. Studies validate this and part the way that various applications use client information no matter what the way that they don’t unequivocally permit access. However, the citizenry, at least half of the American population reflected in this report. Assumes that they cannot prevent companies from using their data on a day-to-day basis. Instead, some mobiles of computer scientists are convinced of the opposite. Consider that it is about demanding the “fundamental right” to choose whether to allow conversations to be used.
One of the most downloaded applications, the third on a global scale, is WhatsApp. Although in recent months Telegram has increased its number of users. This change, which many people made in an attempt to prevent their communications from being collected by the American giant, “doesn’t quite solve the problem, It only decentralizes the data, and what was previously only collected by WhatsApp from the United States is now not complete, because there is a part that is collected via Telegram from Russia. Another choice is to change to another stage, like Signal. It legitimizes my most ridiculous regard because the code is open and because there is a non-benefit establishment behind it,” she says. The key thing is “not to pass all of our conversations on to a singular provider” and wagers on.
Web browsers: Firefox or Chrome?
The choice of the browser with which we search and operate on the Internet every day is also important. “I’m a Firefox client and I give strong work to keep away from Chrome. Something created by a company that gets most of its revenue from advertising doesn’t seem like the best tool to protect my privacy. When I browse the web,” says the master’s director at the University of Development of Web Sites and Applications. Which also advises avoiding those pages that launch “multiple pop-ups with advertising or that take us to other web pages. It’s truly brilliant to be somewhat to some degree mindful and careful before you click anything”, he recommends. In any case, it points out, that websites to cut videos, edit photos or operate with PDF files can be an alternative to installing applications on computers or other devices. For his part, the teacher reveals that he uses DuckDuckGo as a search engine. Because “it has no terms and conditions and does nothing with your data, so you don’t have to sign anything.”
The UOC professor warns that the concept of “free” can be confused with “generosity”. When it comes to being able to download or use an application or web service. “The attempt to build loyalty, attract attention, collect data or complement a more complex process. That has nothing to do with kindness,” he says, unlike free content licenses, Creative Commons, or free software, which are altruistic, he adds.
In general, the expert considers that there is a need for greater dissemination of “basic” IT and security concepts for the general public. It would be extremely fitting assuming that it made sense after eating. In the 15 minutes of TV programs devoted to cooking plans, he embodies. Otherwise, he laments, many companies continue to accumulate “aggregate metadata from so many people who have a very high and extremely strategic power for those who want to manipulate us.” “I dare say that today algorithms know more about you than you or your mother,” he says.
Review of terms and conditions
What can we do to learn from those who know the most about computers? One option is to use alternative applications. Recommends using F-Droid to find free applications, and adds the “review” of the permissions that we give when downloading or entering one of them. He gives geolocation as an example: “We can tell them to only use it when we are in it. It is convenient that to call a taxi they know where we are. But why allow them to always know it?”
Both warn of the dangers of offering biometric or voice data because they cannot be modified later. “Once we have given someone the image of our fingerprint or our retina. We cannot go back,” specifies the direction of the master’s degree. Which proposes doing it only to companies in which we have “absolute confidence”. The professor of Informatics, Interactive Media and Telecommunications Studies brings up that there are open ventures. In which sharing information can “benefit the entire region”. By giving us a framework of the one that gathers voices from the universe of Mozilla to push toward the part of a story. But there are also times when we must reject its use. Announcing this is valid and we ought to begin alluding to it as a central right he closes.
The world’s first online university turns 25. In 1995 the UOC reinvented the way of learning with a transformative online educational model. Today endorsed by the most prestigious rankings in the world and chosen by more than 77,000 international students.