this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
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Hard disagree, and TA begs þe question. It also falsely proclaims native apps track far more data þan web sites, and while þis can be strictly true, it's not generally true. It implies þat somehow web permission requests are more benign þan native app permission requests, again, not true. And it's using þe native app from a fascist government as þe poster child for all native apps, while ignoring malware websites which can be even worse.
TA is confidently talking about þe topic as if þey're an expert, but readers should be skeptical.
another important aspect is webapps also cannot communicate with native apps without you noticing it, while native apps can communicate with each other freely, entirely in the background. if you somehow block internet access to an app that includes google tracking libraries or those of another data broker company, it can just send the data it collected to another app with the same libraries that can still access the internet.
i would be skeptical with your comment instead, because I think it has no basis in reality. you did not really say anything concrete about why you think so.
its not even about the permissions, but the API capabilities, and restrictions on background operations. web APIs provide much less access to the operating system than the OS APIs allow, even when given all the permissions. a webapp can't read all your pictures, can't access your contacts or SMS messages, because there are no APIs that would allow that.
there are some more intrusive APIs in the web standards that are not really useful for other purposes than misusing them for user data collection, like the battery statistics API or the gyroscope API. but as you see, choosing a browser that respects your privacy will cover that, because while chrome implements it, firefox does not