Safest way of using WeChat on Android? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 7 months ago by bionicjoey@lemmy.ca to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[-] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 5 points 7 months ago

What about something like Waydroid to avoid spending extra money? Wonder if these are detected on registration.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago

Was considering Waydroid, but ideally I want something that I can take with me on the go. Some folks have suggested the app Shelter on fdroid though and that seems like an ideal solution for the time being.

[-] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

It does work pretty well.

[-] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 2 points 7 months ago

Ah, okay. But given the invasiveness of the app - I now really wonder if it is possible for it to detect and shut down registration from desktops this way.

this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024

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