34

First and foremost, I'll get this out of the way: I abhor all commercial social media. I don't trust them, I know users are the product, and - ultimately, I feel they're nothing but a cancer on society.

But, I also have to acknowledge that, for one or two use cases at least, they seem pretty unavoidable.

For me, that one use case is Facebook Marketplace. Here in Australia, there's simply no better alternative if you want to reach a large number of potentially interested buyers (or even buy some stuff yourself). The supermarket noticeboard is no more; the Trading Post was bought long ago and died on the vine; and Gumtree has devolved into a cesspool of nothing but scammers and fuckwits.

So, I use FB Marketplace. My FB account isn't in my name, uses a throwaway email address, and has no followers or friends. It's only a member of the local buy/sell groups that I'm interested in, and it performs no "social" activities (posts, likes, etc) at all.

Until now, I generally only use FB marketplace with a "clean", dedicated browser on my computer, running in private mode and via a VPN. But, it means I frequently miss messages from interested parties when I'm away from my computer.

I also sometimes use the mbasic.facebook.com site from a private Firefox tab on my iPhone, but FB has just started telling me I need to use Chrome (no. fucking. way.) or Safari (maaaaaybeeeee?) after October 28th.

When I was on Android, there were a few wrapper apps that I was able to use but, so far, my searches for an equivalent on iOS have turned up nothing.

So, knowing full well this may lead to nowhere, I thought I'd ask this community: does anyone have a good, privacy-friendly way to use FB on iOS?

Thanks in advance for any useful tips or suggestions.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] 0x0@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago
[-] DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 1 points 2 months ago

Great suggestion! Thank you. Have you had any luck accessing it on iOS yourself?

No dramas if not - just that I tried using Orbot and the Tor Browser (the one developed by Mike Tigas, in the App Store), but no joy. I'm reasonably new back on iOS, so I'm not (yet) across the best way to use Tor sites on the platform.

this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
34 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

17000 readers
3 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS