You may think you know which app you should delete right now for a better-working phone (Facebook, of course). But there ARE other apps out there that are not doing your device any favors. The sooner you know about them, the more equipped you are to make decisions that can protect your privacy. Tech expert Carey Parker, author of Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: A Step-by-Step Guide to Computer Security and Privacy for Non-Techies, spoke with SHEFinds.com about the app you need to delete right now.
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The most obvious answer when it comes to the question of which apps you should delete is always Facebook and Facebook Messenger. But there are others that deserve your consideration.
“There are actually a ton of horrible apps for privacy, particularly on Android,” Parker says. “Apps that need your location to do their job are bad about selling your location to others, like the Weather App.”
According to Parker, the list of apps that are bad for privacy doesn’t stop there.
“Here’s a new one I’ll pick: Google VPN,” Parker says. “Basically, Google is an ad company and using them for a VPN is just as bad as using the ill-fated Facebook VPN (they bought Onavo).”
Privacy issues continue to plague popular messenger apps, Parker says, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and even Apple Messages.
While you are deciding which apps to prune, it may be worth your time to consider an alternate messaging app. “Signal is the gold standard for true end-to-end encryption,” Parker says. “It's open source and it's serious about it (unlike others). The guy funding it actually was the original co-founder of WhatsApp [and] he left Facebook.”
With a bit of careful and mindful deleting and adding to your apps, you can find a number of great replacements for apps that are bad news for your privacy.
