this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
22 points (92.3% liked)

Android

27333 readers
176 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules


1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.


2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.


3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.


4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.


5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.


6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.


7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.


8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.


Community Resources:


We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.


Our Partner Communities:

[email protected]


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I live in Canada. My girlfriend is Chinese (also living in Canada), and while we are able to communicate via SMS, her mobile carrier isn't the best, and so there have often been issues for us with regular texting. She expressed a strong preference to use WeChat, at least as a backup option for when texting fails us. While I have some pretty significant reservations, it's not the hill I want to die on. So my question is: what can be done to use WeChat without compromising my whole phone? I'm okay with it if our conversations aren't private, but I'd like to know that I'm not giving unfettered access to all of my phone's systems and data to the CCP. What can be done to limit the reach of this ubiquitous app on my device?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You can put it in a work profile and trust that Android is protective enough to keep your data safe and access limited. Otherwise buy a second phone just to put WeChat on it. Don't know how WeChat works, but if it's like Whatsapp then you don't need to bother with a secondary number.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

To add to this: you can install an open-source app called Shelter which will let you quickly set up a Work Profile for apps you want to keep isolated.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Indeed. Or otherwise Island as an alternative. Don't know how those two compare on the security and privacy front.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's basically the same, the isolation is done by Android's work profile. Shelter and Island are just frontends for this native Android API.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Indeed. The front ends could be less or more "secure"/private. And by that I mean that I don't know how the app themselves are with access and your data. So I don't know if they collect and share any data and how reliable the developers are.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Both are open-source and there's a fork of Island on F-Droid called Insular. These shouldn't collect any data, in fact, they can't include any proprietary tracking SDKs because these aren't allowed on F-Droid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

If you own a Samsung phone, I'd also recommend their Secure Folder, which is apparently pretty damn secure and isolated from the rest of the device.