Your post is a great example of the conditioned expectation that American technology-companies have created. I don’t use this app. I don’t see any ads.

You are correct.

These programs are a waste of your time and resources. It is useless network spam who’s only outcome is to accelerate web-admins to move towards stricter filters to protect their computer resources from such spam.

The concept is wildly broken, because its perception of surveillance is incorrect. It puts too large an emphasis on web-traffic. This isn’t the 90s anymore.

I genuinely want to know what is going on in the author’s head. This is a program for Google’s Android–Google’s Android. It is their operating-system and where a lot of signals are captured. Google sees that you’ve downloaded Fauxx, even if you install it from a third-party (i.e. not from Google’s PlayStore™). They know what time your alarms are set for. They intercept every text message, every phone-call, every e-mail, every notification. If you have Bluetooth™ or other wireless protocols enabled they know what other wireless-signals are around you. They know when you’re driving, when you’re idle, when you’re at work and when you’re asleep.

Clicking on random links isn’t fooling anybody. Sophisticated algorithms look for trends, not one offs ‘hey, this user clicked on an ad for a product sold by Y’. Regardless of how much you think you’re spamming the network Google has access to millions of controls: people the same age, gender, ethnicity and whatever else, to compare against. People who are diligently populating databases with correct data.

I read the f-droid page–before anyone points to the spoofing of location data as some kind of protection–let me put real emphasis on: this isn’t the 90s. This is sophisticated mass-surveillance in 2026 that only increases in sophistication as time goes on. Users purchase increasingly sophisticated mobile-computers that are awake 24/7/365 scanning for an increasing list of wireless protocols which means more data for Google. More sophisticated patterns and algorithms to work alongside and with their national-defense contractors.

Google thinks you’re in the population that might commit political-violence. The NSA, CIA, FBI et al have been notified and now there’s human-eyes on you too, not just the surveillance of unthinking machines. Good fun.

Google doesn’t need a GPS signal to know where you are, where you live and where you work. They have access to a live map of global wifi-access points, cell-towers, Bluetooth™ beacons and a host of other signals. That map is updated daily by all the drones who go though life using their Google Android mobile-computer. Try as one might, this is a collective problem. On one hand it is Google’s mass-surveillance program, but they can only do what they do because everyone else is a snitch for them. A willing snitch. A snitch that believes there is no other way, but to be a snitch. Just try and convince someone not to use Google’s products.

Regardless, for privacy this is a pointless piece of software. You’ll just make Google richer. Those websites and ads clicked on were already paid for. Whether they represent your actual interests or not is besides the point. The transaction already happened and you just made Google minusculely richer. The correct thing to do is to block ad-networks from your network so they never even get loaded.

If you want to protect yourself from Google’s mass-surveillance systems don’t use Google. Use a GNU/Linux mobile-computer or GrapheneOS. To combat the effects of mass-surveillance (that is, the surveillance of you by the masses who do use Google’s products) get political. It seems absurd and a threat to national security that the domestic economy is held ransom by Google and Apple.

I’ll preempt the criticism of GrapheneOS by juveniles who barely have two brain-cells. GrapheneOS only works on Google branded mobile-computers. Ergo buying a Google product would make Google even richer than randomly clicking on Google’s ads, which go for what? $0.0006c USD?

Google’s product isn’t the hardware. It’s subsidized and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sold near cost (anyone who actually has information about this I’d be genuinely interested in reading). It’s not even made by Google. It’s made by the same factories that makes Apple’s mobile-computers and a host of other retailers’ devices. Don’t get hung up on the branding. Turning off a spigot for Google’s mass-surveillance system is infinitely more powerful than continuing to contribute to it, but with additional ‘noise’ that doesn’t even register.

Outside the domain of privacy I don’t like this idea of spamming networks or loading completely random garbage. At the most benign-end of the spectrum you’re just wasting whatever data-allowance you’re paying for. At the malicious-end you could be contacting malicious-servers (ad-networks are obtusely not in this category, but should be).

It’s all nonsense anyway. They’re documents that veil and distract from material-reality. Like privacy-policies. Software-companies all have privacy-policies that detail their pursuit to strip you of privacy, but because they have a privacy-policy they point to it incessantly to claim: a) they care about [their] privacy; b) they have a privacy-policy. It’s even in the name: privacy-policy. Ergo privacy.

Users should be quoting their privacy-policies to mock how they abuse their software to surveil users. Same for terms-of-use documents.

I had the displeasure of reading one of Facebook’s documents. It’s juvenile how they rename terms to sound less insidious. The tracking-pixel is no longer a tracking-pixel: it’s just pixel technology and Facebook wants to highlight their use of pixel-technology to improve your “experience” without ever defining what a user’s experience is supposed to be anyway.

Useless noise to hide and distract with. It’s documentation that attempts to retroactively legitimize their abuses.

Good to have you back in the corpo., kid. Stay blind as we shunt you into a new era of authoritarianism. You’re absolutely right. Freedom is inconsequential compared to framedrops. Framedrops should never happen. Linux is far too buggy to be used. It’s little more than a toy at this stage. Check back in ten years. Until then your trusty Windoz3 eleben with enhancements from Givbidia will distract you! No, don’t look there! Ad!

one common runtime

The year is 2XXX. The one common runtime to run them all is within reach… we all just need to use XXXXXXXXXXXX. Scratch that, we’ve just built XXXXXXXXXX. Hang on, scratch that… we’re now all doing something different.

Just a throw away comment, but as a user I do avoid flatpaks. It takes forever to install anything and it’s just absurdly ugly in design. The benefit is… ? I genuinely don’t know.

The people who want software to just run, whilst having no understanding of a computer are actively being herded towards entirely different ecosystems by capital. They’re already patrons of businesses. Capital spends a portion to ensure they stay patrons. No one is paying advertisers to advertise GNU+linux. No one is paying OEMs to ship GNU+linux. No one is lobbying governments to entrench GNU+linux into organisations.

Those that want it to ‘just run’ on a unix derivative are probably a very queer minority.

I am absolutely acrid towards computer users. Look, it’s just like the app store! Just press this button and it will work! That’s all software: press the correct button and it will work. Users don’t give a fuck. Libre software will never entice users like commercial software does because only commercial software can pay for users.

Capitalism & software on a comment about flatpak’s removed design and the common runtime to rule them all. I’m getting lost; what’s new. Does flatpak actually have any momentum? AppImage? I genuinely don’t know.