reader Posted 18 hours ago Posted 18 hours ago From Washington Post By Shira Ovide A Tech Friend reader asked that deceptively tricky question. While experts I spoke to weren’t unanimous on whether websites or apps are the better choice for your security and privacy, most of them picked the web — with caveats. That shouldn’t discourage you from using apps. But if you’re doing something on your phone only occasionally — buying from an unfamiliar shopping site or browsing for home insurance — it’s probably smarter and safer to use the company’s website rather than its app. Why websites generally beat apps The mobile app stores from Apple and Google inspect apps for safety. Their vetting is good but not foolproof. Once you’ve downloaded an app, though, app makers have latitude to collect information that websites generally cannot easily obtain, including your approximate location, your battery level and what other devices, like an Xbox, are connected to your WiFi. Apps might pass on the information to advertising companies and data brokers. Apple and Google require apps to ask your permission for some location collection and information sharing. (In 2021, my colleagues investigated iPhone apps that found ways to track you even if you said no.) Well-designed apps generally do a great job protecting your security and privacy, but you can’t always tell the good apps from the ick ones. Compared with apps, websites “cannot spy or track you as easily nor access confidential information without permission,” said Chester Wisniewski, a digital security specialist with Sophos. He also said the top web browsers — including Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge — have “some of the best security engineers in the world.” Their security measures apply to any website you visit. Each app might be responsible for its own security updates. Websites definitely aren’t perfect. They have security flaws and tricky ways to follow your activity. You can also be fooled by websites pretending to be your bank or favorite retailer. An experienced web browser technologist said browsers are “paranoid by default.” Compared with phone apps, he said, browsers give you more options to dial up privacy, including by blocking targeted advertisements. Outsiders can also verify websites’ security and information-sharing activities in ways apps don’t permit. Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute, said “it depends” on whether a website or app is safer. If you’re using Firefox or Safari, he said, a website is probably better than an app because those browsers automatically block many technologies used to build dossiers of your interests and activities. Weaver said a website is probably worse if you’re using Chrome because Google’s browser generally allows those tracking technologies. Continues at https://getpocket.com/explore/item/is-it-safer-to-use-an-app-or-a-website-on-your-phone?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us bkkmfj2648 and fedssocr 1 1 Quote
