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

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

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

[-] 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

72 points (95.0% liked)

Privacy

31978 readers

323 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS