I am considering installing TikTok. Any suggestion on how to make it less privacy-invasive?
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6214098
I want to follow some people on tiktok, for the content they put out. I am, however, a somewhat privacy-minded person. Any suggestion on how to make TikTok less privacy-invasive? Some DNS app?
I am on Android, not rooted.
You can choose only one
Don't install an app you don't trust. There's no private way to do it.
TikTok lets you view people via the web browser, just bookmark them, and check up on them periodically. I don't know if you could get an RSS feed for them, might be possible.
I saw this project https://github.com/pablouser1/ProxiTok
Haven't been able to selfhost it (not sure what I'm doing wrong yet), but the public instances are working fine.
Also it looks like you can get an RSS feed
https://rss.app/blog/how-to-create-tiktok-rss-feeds-VEdZNt
So to the original posters question, there's no need to install the app, just an RSS reader.
I just checked, TikTok has a progressive web app! You can just install the progressive web app, and keep all of the privacy provisions of your browser. So I think that's the good middle ground here
Blocked at the firewall at my place.
Just don’t. If you want TikTok content then look for YouTube compilations or reposts (do shorts work on Piped?)
TikTok is one of the most privacy-invasive apps ever created, and that’s before even considering the data they get from watching what videos you watch/like. They harvest literally everything they can from your phone.
I guess if you run it in a VM on an Android emulator with a VPN and strict vlan/firewall rules using an email address you created specifically for it, but even then it doesn’t seem worth it.
Yeah good luck with that. Personally, no content is worth that trade off to me.
I use ProxiTok to view tiktoks
I mean just use YT shorts, 99% of TikTok creators post on YouTube anyways because you get paid way more.
Use a private DNS and patch the app with revanced. Don't use your primary email or phone and never give it permission to access your contacts.
That's only if you really want to install it.
I'd recommend the Revanced version (is a fork that removed ads and blatant trackers). But it doesn't stop Tik Tok from tracking what you see. For example, Facebook, technically it doesn't have third party tracker, because the app itself is a tracker.
I don't know if this is dumb or not but I have it installed on an old phone with nothing else installed on it and just use it on the home WiFi sometimes.
Another plus being that I have to intentionally get the phone and intentionally turn it on to use the awful-but-intriguing-app.
Use insular to install it on your work profile
Shelter + Shizuku + App Ops
Shelter will put it in a work profile.
Shizuku and App Ops work together to give you more control over app permissions. You can restrict a lot this way.
Granted, that won't stop the normal data collection via your IP address that occurs as a result of browsing their content.