I've gotten to a point in my privacy journey where it's less about moving towards private options, and more about relaxing and having some fun with what I can do.

I put off messing around with RSS for a while. I simply didn't have a significant need for it. However, after finding no good options to monitor various Lemmy communities without logging in, I decided to try out an RSS reader.

I settled on Feeder as my RSS reader, despite a few missing features I would like. I added my first Lemmy community as a feed, to try it out. I was immediately surprised how well it worked.

I also added other feeds, such as Tails News, and I was happy with that. I could monitor all the communities I needed to.

Then, I noticed one day, there was an RSS button for my Lemmy inbox. This is where I was really pleased: I can view my notifications without the need to log in, all in the same place.

Lemmy and RSS are both incredible, and I truly believe RSS is the hidden backbone of the internet. I love it, and maybe you should give it a try too!

(Ahem P.S. if anyone has an RSS reader as good as Feeder for Android that fixes this issue, please let me know)

Nobody on my post asking for controversial privacy topics asked this question, but I feel I should cover it anyways. People sometimes assume that software is safe simply because it is open source. That is a misconception, and I would like to cover that in this post.

What does "open source" mean?

When software is "open source," it means that the developers have made the source code for the software public and allows anyone to help contribute to the code, or create their own versions of the software based on the source code. By contrast, proprietary software is software that has not made the source code visible to the public. There are similar terms to open source, such as "source-available," "open-core," and "libre," which I won't cover in this post. For the sake of simplicity, any source-available software will be called "open source," since the specifics don't quite matter for the majority of this post.

What are the benefits open source software?

Open source software provides many benefits over proprietary software:

Code auditing: Because anyone can inspect the code, anybody can look for vulnerabilities or invasive code to make sure that the software is safe. With proprietary software, the developers would have to hire a third party auditor to inspect the code. That means you have to trust the auditor, and you have no way to verify first-hand that the code is safe.

Bug reporting: While both open source and proprietary software have bug reporting systems, open source software tends to have more thorough and transparent bug reporting. Bug reports are generally on a public issue tracker such as GitHub, which can also help prevent duplicate bugs from being reported. Having these reports public also makes the next benefit easier:

Bug fixing: Anyone can contribute to open source software, which means the workload is distributed. Instead of a small team of developers being the only ones working on the software, anyone can look at the public issues and code their own fixes for the software.

Resurrecting projects: Both open source and proprietary software can one day stop being developed. Even big companies such as Spotify can retire software, which can lead to hardware devices becoming unusable or insecure. (The code for Car Thing has been reconstructed, by the way.) Open source projects that fall out of development can easily be forked and maintained by a new developer. It's rare to see proprietary software handed off to a new owner.

Accountability: Open source projects hold the developers directly accountable for any vulnerabilities or invasive code, meaning the developer's interests are aligned with its users and not malicious purposes. This also incentivizes creating code without paywalls, since anyone could release a version of the code with the paid features "unlocked".

However, even with all these benefits, open source software isn't perfect.

Why has proprietary software become so popular?

Since ads and paywalls can generally be removed from open source software, it doesn't make it a very appealing choice to for-profit organizations. Generally, these organizations want to monetize and control their software, which means injecting ads, paywalls, and other invasive elements. This is done most easily if the software is proprietary.

It's also rare to see open source software becoming so popular, because generally open source software receives its funding from donations and doesn't have the budget to advertise the software. There are exceptions, such as OBS Studio or Blender, which have mostly become the most popular software in their categories.

Is open source software safe?

There is another downside to open source software that many people don't talk about: it is much easier to exploit than proprietary software. Because all the source code is visible to the public, it makes it easy for malicious parties to craft vulnerabilities. Proprietary software is generally a stab in the dark until a vulnerability is found, since you can't see exactly how it was coded.

Software being open source does mean that it becomes more likely to find and fix vulnerabilities, but being open source doesn't automatically make software safe. Which device do you think would be more likely to obtain a virus, a device running (stock) Android or a device running iOS? You're most likely more inclined to say the device running (stock) Android is more likely. Android at its core is open source. While correlation is not causation, and there are other factors at play, it's much easier for someone to try to craft a malicious app for Android than for iOS because of its open nature.

Proprietary software isn't automatically safe, either. It can be just as vulnerable as any other software. However, open source software has the potential to become much more secure than proprietary software, simply because more people can find and fix vulnerabilities. That's probably why Apple open sourced their Private Cloud Compute code before launching a bounty program for it.

Anyone can code malicious open source software. It's riskier, since it's more likely to be noticed, but it's still possible. Microsoft could open source Windows one day, and it wouldn't make it any more safe until somebody identified and fixed the issues. Open source software doesn't automatically make something private or secure, but it does provide integrity, because the developer is showing that they will be accountable for any malicious or vulnerable code, and that anyone is free to look through the code.

Final notes

I hope this gives you a better idea of what it actually means if something is open source. Even unsafe proprietary software can be run safely under the right conditions. If your threat model requires you to use as much open source software as possible, I made my own list of open source software called Open Source Everything that you can look through. I hope you enjoyed reading this!

- The 8232 Project

In my post on why mass surveillance is not normal, I referenced how the Wikipedia page for the Nothing to hide argument labels the argument as a "logical fallacy." On October 19th, user Gratecznik edited the Wikipedia page to remove the "logical fallacy" text. I am here to prove that the "Nothing to hide" argument is indeed a logical fallacy and go through some arguments against it.

The "Nothing to hide" argument is an intuitive but misleading argument, stating that if a person has done nothing unethical, unlawful, immoral, etc., then there is no reason to hide any of their actions or information. However, this argument has been well covered already and debunked many times (here is one example).

Besides the cost of what it takes for someone to never hide anything, there are many reasons why a person may not want to share information about themselves, even if no misconduct has taken place. The "Nothing to hide" argument intuitively (but not explicitly) assumes that those whom you share your information with will handle it with care and not falsely use it against you. Unfortunately, that is not how it currently works in the real world.

You don't get to make the rules on what is and is not deemed unlawful. Something you do may be ethical or moral, but unlawful and could cost you if you aren't able to hide those actions. For example, whistleblowers try to expose government misconduct. That is an ethical and moral goal, but it does not align with government interests. Therefor, if the whistleblower is not able to hide their actions, they will have reason to fear the government or other parties. The whistleblower has something to hide, even though it is not unethical or immoral.

You are likely not a whistleblower, so you have nothing to hide, right? As stated before, you don't get to make the rules on what is and is not deemed unlawful. Anything you say or do could be used against you. Having a certain religion or viewpoint may be legal now, but if one day those become outlawed, you will have wished you hid it.

Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean it is justified to share everything. Privacy is a basic human right (at least until someone edits Wikipedia to say otherwise), so you shouldn't be forced to trust whoever just because you have nothing to hide.

For completeness, here is a proof that the "Nothing to hide" argument is a logical fallacy by using propositional calculus:

Let p be the proposition "I have nothing to hide"

Let q be the proposition "I should not be concerned about surveillance"

You can represent the "Nothing to hide" argument as follows:

p → q

I will be providing a proof by counterexample. Suppose p is true, but q is false (i.e. "I have nothing to hide" and "I am concerned about surveillance"):

p ∧ ¬q

Someone may have nothing to hide, but still be concerned about the state of surveillance. Since that is a viable scenario, we can conclude that the "Nothing to hide" argument is invalid (a logical fallacy).

I know someone is going to try to rip that proof apart. If anyone is an editor on Wikipedia, please revert the edit that removed the "logical fallacy" text, as it provides a very easy and direct way for people to cite that the "Nothing to hide" argument is false.

Thanks for reading!

- The 8232 Project

Introduction

8 days ago I made this post asking for the most controversial privacy topics. My first post answering a controversial question got so few upvotes that it was almost my worst post to date. I don't do these for upvotes, though. I do them for fun :)

So, with that, here is the second post demystifying some controversial privacy topics. @TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip asked "VPN: essential or snake oil?"

I try to avoid topics that have been thoroughly answered multiple times, or has such a direct answer that it would be too short to make a post about. This topic is a bit of both, but worth writing anyway, because I do have my own insights.

Some people didn't like that I break the main question down into multiple sub questions. It is valid criticism, but it's my style of writing, so I will stick to what I'm good at.

What does a VPN do?

A Virtual Private Network (abbreviated "VPN") is a way of proxying your internet traffic through a third party. There are many reasons why you would want this:

Hiding your IP address: VPNs will replace your IP address with a random IP address assigned by the VPN provider. IP addresses are unique to your router, meaning you can be uniquely identified. IP addresses are usually static, meaning it never changes, but sometimes your ISP may assign you a dynamic IP address, which will change every few months or so. If you open up ports on your router (for various purposes), it can leave your network vulnerable to certain attacks as long as the attackers know your public IP address.

Hiding your location: Your IP address can narrow your location down to the city you live in. In some cases, such as shared Wi-Fi (like on a college campus) or public Wi-Fi, the IP address can be more easily identified to the specific block or building you are in. Any internet connection made can see your IP address, and can automatically use that to attempt to locate you.

Encrypting your traffic: VPNs can allow your traffic to be encrypted, so that your ISP or other people connected to the same network can't see which sites you visit or (in some cases) what data is sent. The reasons why this is important are too long to list, but you can work it out on your own.

Network based ad blocking: Some VPN providers allow you to block ads before they even reach your device, which can increase your loading times and save you data on metered connections. This can be achieved without a VPN through your own DNS filters, but it is a feature of VPNs too.

Access blocked content: VPNs can be used as a way to bypass censorship if your network regulates your traffic (such as at an office or school). A VPN can bypass these restrictions, allowing you to access content freely.

Accessing region-specific content: Content on streaming services such as Netflix, video sharing sites such as YouTube, or many other services may restrict what content is available to you based on your country. A VPN can allow you to bypass these restrictions in some cases.

Those can all be ways to enhance your privacy, security, anonymity, and freedom while browsing the internet. VPNs do come with some downsides, though.

What are the downsides of using a VPN?

When you browse the internet without a VPN, you are placing your trust in your ISP or cellular provider to uphold your privacy, and placing trust in the network devices such as your router to uphold your security. In practice, that is almost never the case. Using a VPN doesn't automatically make it more trustworthy, but it does place that trust in the hands of your VPN provider instead. Some VPN providers are more trustworthy than others, but there are good options to choose from. You still have to trust an entity to uphold your privacy and security, but VPNs can be a much better place to keep that trust.

Not everyone may want to use a VPN though. Besides distrust, VPNs have other downsides. VPNs will slow down your internet speeds, may block certain functions such as torrenting, and may incriminate you in some countries. Ultimately, the choice to use a VPN is yours.

If you believe the upsides outweigh the downsides, then a VPN is a good tool to have. If your threat model requires anything a VPN provides, it's an essential tool. Some functions of a VPN can be achieved through careful setup of a DNS and elite anonymity proxy, but VPNs will always be the easiest option.

Which VPN providers are the best?

There are currently 3 top VPN providers for privacy. All of them are open source, and all of them have their pros and cons. I haven't listed every feature for each, but here are the notable differences:

Proton VPN

Proton VPN provides a free tier VPN with some functionality limited, as well as a premium tier if you have a Proton subscription. If you already have a Proton subscription already, and don't mind putting all your eggs in one basket, Proton VPN is a good option.

Mullvad VPN

Mullvad VPN is probably the most private VPN available. It is only paid, but it allows you to pay any way you want, including cash and cryptocurrencies. No signup is required, because you are given a randomly generated account number for payment. You can regenerate the number at any time.

IVPN

IVPN is unique and relatively unknown. The main benefit I see is that it is the only VPN of these three that is available on Accrescent for Android, allowing you to have extra confidence in the integrity of the app. Eventually Mullvad VPN and Proton VPN will be available on Accrescent.

These VPNs will uphold your privacy and security, and won't log your internet traffic. VPNs in the past have been used to aide law enforcement by handing over those logs, so it is good that these don't.

Conclusion

VPNs can be an essential tool if you need them, and there are options that respect your privacy. Always be aware of the risks, no matter how trustworthy a VPN provider may be. Thank you for reading!

- The 8232 Project

@Zagorath@aussie.zone wanted to know, should you expect privacy in public places?

Before I answer that, I would like to give my genuine thanks to everyone who responded in my previous post where I asked you for some controversial privacy topics. You did not disappoint, and I'm glad I will be able to cover them!

This question is a bit complex, depending on how you ask it. The answer also largely depends on what you believe. If you believe that privacy is a fundamental right, then privacy should be expected no matter where you go. If the question is "Can you expect privacy..." versus "Should there be privacy...", the answer changes dramatically.

Is there currently privacy in public spaces?

In many places, there is little to no privacy when you walk out the door. With Ring doorbells latching on to every home like a parasite, or security cameras clinging to the ceiling of every store you walk inside, surveillance is everywhere. This section won't cover whether or not surveillance is moral/ethical/justified, but either way surveillance infringes on privacy. Even with no surveillance cameras, Sarah-from-down-the-street is always on a video call with her bestie.

Saying "privacy in public" is a bit of an oxymoron, since no matter what you will always give up a little privacy the moment you walk out the door. Things you do privately in the bathroom are simply not allowed in public places.

Should there be more privacy in public spaces?

Now may be a good time to clear up a common misconception. What is privacy? Privacy does not mean obscuring every detail of your life. Privacy is the ability or choice to share or hide information about yourself. That is why surveillance cameras infringe on privacy: You have no control over what they record, who has access to those recordings, and what those recordings will be used for.

That sort of answers the question, too. If you believe privacy is a fundamental right, then there should be an expectation of privacy in public spaces, and so a reform needs to happen.

What are the real effects of privacy in public spaces?

People act differently when they know they are being surveilled. See the Panopticon for an experiment about that. It has negative effects, whether people realize or not.

@Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de told a story that I particularly love:

"Just last week, my partner and I were on a long hike. No one was around us so to loosen our muscles we started dancing like goofballs on the trail only to look up and find a drone hovering in the shadows recording us. I was embarrassed, but my partner is a very private person and was really upset. [...]"

When they expected to be in a secluded, private space, they freely expressed themselves. The moment they realized that someone had been watching, they became embarrassed or upset, like a switch had flipped. That is the real affect surveillance has on us. We express ourselves less freely, we conform to rules without question out of fear. Surveillance becomes a form of oppression on a wide scale.

I even have my own anecdote. I once took a trip to a small town. When I got there, I subconsciously looked around for security cameras. I do that to gauge how much privacy I currently have. I then noticed that I couldn't see any obvious security cameras. I stopped and looked around harder. The town had not a single security camera in sight. I have almost no way to describe the sense of calm and relaxation that washed over me. It felt like someone giving you a massage after being stressed all week, or finally being honest with everyone about a secret you've been keeping. It was such a nice feeling to walk around a town privately.

Why do we have surveillance?

The main justification for these surveillance measures is to prevent crime. It makes sense intuitively, if you have an eye on every corner you can catch any criminal easily. However, it ignores one massive flaw: criminals will always find a way to do things privately. If you make privacy illegal, it doesn't change anything, because criminals won't follow the law anyways.

I have my own quote about this, that I love very much: “Unjust laws only burden the just, as the lawless will not heed them.” Removing privacy only hurts the people who will follow and abide by the rules. You're removing the privacy of the good people, while the criminals will program "illegal" software to achieve privacy. Giving privacy to everyone means that, yes, it makes criminals' jobs easier, but it means we can shift to actually solving the problems that cause the crimes in the first place. "The best way to conquer bad ideas is with better ideas, not by suppressing ideas." - Naomi Brockwell

"The optimal crime rate is not zero. We can't burn down the entire world just to stop somebody from stealing a pack of gum. The cost is too high. There is a percentage of crime that is going to exist. It's not ideal, but it is optimal." - Nick We need privacy for a free society. Surveillance is not the answer for fighting crime. There are ways to combat crime without infringing on privacy.

Is blurring your house on the map unreasonable?

This question is another one brought up by @Zagorath@aussie.zone. Blurring your house is a way to achieve some privacy, and in that scope, it is good to do. However, as @RiderExMachina@lemmy.ml points out, it could cause someone to do the opposite and start looking closer into why your house is blurred. That's called the Streisand effect.

Site note: I find it hilarious why the Streisand effect is named how it is. The story goes that Barbra Streisand tried to hide her place of residence by suppressing a photograph that had made it to the public. That, of course, had the opposite effect, drawing more attention to the photograph and her residence. Then, even more attention was drawn, because the Streisand effect got named after her and the very same image is now plastered on Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, blurring your house on the map doesn't provide much privacy, since the organization who photographed it still has a clear picture of it. It doesn't stop the surveillance. It's not unreasonable to blur it, though. You should still want privacy against the Streisand effect. The best solution would be a quiet legal take down of the images altogether.

I have another story to go along with this. I got a job, and it was later revealed in conversation to me and my coworkers that our boss likes to look up everybody's address on Google Street View. Everyone was uncomfortable with that, but our boss saw no issue with it. This is a legitimate case where blurring your house is a good idea. Sure, people may try to ask you why it's blurred, or try to look up pictures on other sites like housing retail, but it still prevents (frankly, creepy) bosses from snooping at your home.

Conclusion

Privacy is a fundamental part of our lives, and surveillance infringes on that. We should all do our part to gain what privacy we can, because every bit of privacy you gain now is freedom you will have in the future. This was a lot of fun to write, and I thank @Zagorath@aussie.zone and all of you for your suggestions. I will continue to tackle each of the topics asked in the previous post one by one.

Thank you for reading!

- The 8232 Project

If you don't know me, I make frequent write ups about privacy and security. I've covered some controversial topics in the past, such as whether or not Chromium is more secure than Firefox. Well, I will try my hand again at taking a look at some controversial topics.

I need ideas, though. So far, I would like to cover the controversy about Brave, controversy around Monero and other cryptocurrencies, and controversy around AI. These will be far easier to research and manage than Chromium vs. Firefox, for example. I'd like to know which ideas you have!

Which controversial privacy topics do you know of that you would like to see covered?

PLEASE DO NOT ARGUE ABOUT THEM IN THE COMMENTS!

Please save any debate for if/when I make a write up about the topic. Keep the comments clean, and simply upvote ideas you would like to see covered. I won't be able to cover everything, so it helps bring attention!

Above all else, be kind, even if you don't agree with an idea or topic :)

If you're just here for the results, the best ones are listed in my list of software, Open Source Everything under the "Sports & Health" section.

For the rest of you, thanks for staying! 2 days ago I made this post asking you all about which health apps for Android you recommend. I appreciate everyone who took the time to give their recommendations, however, I didn't get as many responses as I had hoped for. So I took inspiration from Thanos and tested out 81 different health apps for Android.

Wait, 81? Doesn't the title say 49? Yes, I tested 81 apps, but a good bit of them were either unavailable, required an account to use, not open source, or not a health app at all. So, those have been omitted from this list.

I should also mention that I didn't try every app, so you may have one I didn't try! I tried to test the major ones I could find from a massive list, but obviously we are all human and make mistakes. With that, here are my opinions for each software I tried.

Beauty Product Information

The only one that fits in this category is Open Beauty Facts. It requires the Network permission to function, and it's used to look up information about different beauty products. You can add these products to a list, scan barcodes (if you grant it camera permissions), and more. It's fully featured, still active, and the best app for this so far. However, the UI is fairly basic and it contains optional telemetry.

Breathing Exercises

Inner Breeze

Inner Breeze is a somewhat basic app to help you with breathing exercises. The app has a nice UI, and a few settings. It allows you to also keep a history of your breathing sessions which can be viewed in a graph. It requires no permissions at all.

Breathly

Breathly actually would have been the top app in this category, but unfortunately there hasn't been a commit in over a year. It has a better UX than Inner Breeze, and includes calming(?) voice instructions to guide your breathing. It does require DCL via memory permissions, which is unfortunate. It also does not have a graph functionality, but it does have different types of breathing exercises.

Brethap

Brethap (which I keep accidentally calling "Brethrap") has a basic UI, but it includes plotting your breathing sessions on a calendar. It also includes a web interface. It requires no permissions. It has decent customization, and includes support for Text to Speech.

Diabetic Trackers

Glucosio

Glucosio is an app for tracking different things within the body, such as glucose level, cholesterol, etc. It allows you to add custom data, graph it, import and export data, etc. Unfortunately, there aren't many settings and the app has been abandoned. The UI is very basic, but it's functional. It requires no permissions.

Diaguard

Diaguard is a German diabetic tracker that also has full English support. It is similar to Glucosio in functionality, but it has many more settings and a better UX. The UI is still basic, but it requires no permissions to function. It can plot graphs and pie charts, as well as many more functions. It is the best in this category.

xDrip+

xDrip+ has a horrible UI, confusing elements, I'm not even sure which permissions it needs, but it (supposedly) can connect directly to physical glucose meters. I don't recommend this app, but this isn't as bad as it gets.

Juggluco

Juggluco has the absolute worst UI I have ever seen, not just on this list. It forces you to use it in landscape, the clock does not hide itself, it seems to be badly translated, it has no settings, it barely has controls, but for some reason the app is still being updated.

Diet Creation Tools

The only app for this that I could find is Daily Dozen. By default it uses a scientifically recommended diet for your day, with no customization. It has a very basic UI with no settings, but it allows you to check off which foods you ate that day. It requires no permissions to run. If anyone is willing to make health software, this would be a good section to make it for.

Fitness Trackers

This section is weirdly named. Gadgetbridge is a replacement software for proprietary apps for your wearable gadgets. I've never used it, but it seems to have good support. It asked for so many permissions it might as well have the root permission itself, and the themes are slightly broken. The UI is fairly basic, but there are plenty of settings.

Gym Exercise Trackers

This section was really difficult to pick a best for.

Massive

Massive is a material exercise tracker. It requires no permissions. You can view your data on graphs, import and export, create custom exercises, and more. However, the experience is a bit confusing, there's little customization for which exercises you do, and there are a few bugs. Overall, it's the best in this category, but not by much.

Fast N Fitness

Fast N Fitness has a really bad UI. It requires no permissions to run, you can customize the exercise types, graph your data, create profiles, and more. It isn't really special, but it does have a worse UI than the alternatives.

GymRoutines

Also a material fitness tracker, GymRoutines requires no permissions to run. You can create custom workouts, graph them, backup and restore, and... That's it. That is about all the app can do. It has only 3 settings. It's very basic, and the last commit was 9 months ago.

Verifit

Verifit was someone's passion project, with a surprising number of features. It has pretty much every exercise you can imagine, as well as custom exercises. You can view the data on pie charts, import and export data, log workouts, and more. Sadly, the project was abandoned. It has a basic UI and few settings. It requires no permissions.

Lift

Lift was abandoned 4 years ago. It allows you to put workouts on the calendar. The (two) settings don't work, it has a basic UI, and does not have custom workouts. It requires no permissions.

Habit Trackers

Table Habit

Table Habit is a material habit tracker. It has a setting for "positive" and "negative" habits, however the goal of the app is to enforce habits and not break them, so... if you have a negative habit of murder, and need some encouragement, Table Habit is the app for you! It's essentially fully featured, so it has way to many functions for me to list. It requires no permissions to run.

Loop Habit Tracker

Loop Habit Tracker is tied with Table Habit on which one is better. LHT has a more basic UI, but it has a lot more streamlined experience with habits. It does not allow for negative habits. It is simple but powerful. It also hasn't had a commit in 6 months, but it is still great software. It requires no permissions to run. If I had to pick though, I would probably choose Table Habit.

Medicine Reminder Tools

I only tested Simpill, but people did suggest others to me. Simpill has probably the best UI out of all of these apps. It requires notification and background usage permissions. It has few settings, but it doesn't really need many. It is a bit buggy with 24 hour time disabled, and you need to make sure you enable background usage, but it works well. I may eventually try out other apps in this category.

Meditation Tools

Medito

Medito requires a network connection initially, but you can download meditation audio offline. The purpose is to play audio to guide you through meditation for different purposes (sleep, relaxation, etc.). It has a lovely UI. However, there are no settings, and it does not allow importing meditation audio.

Om

Om was abandoned 5 years ago. You open the app, and you either have a voice guided meditation, or a self-guided meditation (an annoying bell). That is the entire functionality. It requires no permissions, and has absolutely no other features.

Meditation

Meditation, also known as Essential Meditation, is a weirdly popular meditation app. It requires notification and background permissions to function, except it shouldn't need those. You can change some settings for the sound you hear, etc. It has a basic UI. It also gives me a headache. Maybe I should log that in the...

Menstrual Cycle Trackers

Something something disclaimer about "mature topics" so this post doesn't get nuked by lemmy.ml.

drip.

drip. allows you to track menstrual cycles and symptoms. It has plenty of default symptoms, allows you to encrypt the app with a password, import and export data, and more. You can view this data on a calendar or a graph. It has a basic UI, few settings besides the ones listed previously. The UI is also slightly laggy.

log28

log28 would have made it alongside drip., but unfortunately the app was abandoned 2 years ago. It has a basic UI, some bugs, but requires no permissions. It has plenty of default symptoms. You can view data on a calendar, but not a graph.

Mensinator

Finally a material design app, Mensinator allows you to track menstrual data and symptoms. It does not come with many default symptoms, but you can add your own. It offers some customization, statistics, import and export, and more. It allows you to view data on a calendar, but not a graph. It requires no permissions, but does have a few minor bugs.

Mood Trackers

I've been writing for an hour straight, so let me log my fatigue in Pixy. Pixy has a lovely UI, although slightly laggy, and allows you to log your mood for each day. You can view the data on a calendar, graph, bar chart, and lots more. You can also log what you did that day, import and export data, change colors, etc. It is probably fully featured. However, it is sadly abandoned, requires DCL via memory permissions, and tracks your data if you give it network permissions.

Nutrition Information Tools

Let me speedrun this one: Open Food Facts, which also has a web interface, lets you scan bar codes or search products to view information such as ingredients or how humane it is. It has opt-in telemetry, requires network permissions, also requires DCL via memory, does not have a local database, and has a mediocre UI. It has plenty of customization, and you can add products to a list.

Pedometers

Pedometer (PFA)

This app is abandoned, which is unfortunate since the team behind it also makes so many other fantastic apps. It allows you to track your steps, view it on a graph, and more. It has a basic UI, few settings, and requires the physical activity permission.

Paseo

Paseo has many more features than the previous app. It has a basic UI, and requires the physical activity permission. It shows much more data in graph and circle form, such as current steps and expected steps. It has lots of customization, you can set step goals, it's overall great. It is, unfortunately, abandoned as well.

If you want to make a health app, this is another good section for it.

Physical Activity Trackers

This section was extremely difficult to decide best software for. Let me break my default style and tell you a little story. The first app I tried was OpenTracks (actually that's a lie). It is unique because you can use it fully on its own, but it does not have map capabilities. To get map capabilities, you need to install either "OSM Dashboard" or "OSM Dashboard (Offline)".

OSM Dashboard will allow you to use OpenStreetMaps directly, or download other maps for local storage, etc. OpenTracks will then display your physical activity path on that map (or without, if you really want just the shape). OSM Dashboard (Offline) does not connect to the internet ever, at all, for any reason. You have to download maps yourself and import them yourself. OpenTracks for real made 3 separate apps so you can be as private as you want by installing only what you want, and I applaud that massively.

However, it came between OpenTracks and FitoTrack. FitoTrack essentially packages the map capabilities within the app itself. You can load from OpenStreetMaps directly or import downloaded maps. What made FitoTrack better is the ability to view your data on a graph, bar chart, etc. Also, OpenTracks requires notification and nearby devices permissions, whereas FitoTrack does not. OpenTracks has a slightly broken UI, FitoTrack has a basic UI and fewer settings. While I massively applaud OpenTracks for their work so far, FitoTrack is my current preferred option.

There is also RunnerUp, which just has a bad UI. It allows graphs and connected devices.

Seasonal Food Information Tools

Speedrun time: Seasonal Foods Calendar is an abandoned app that simply tells you which foods are in-season for your location, as well as basic information. The app lacks in data and customization, has a basic UI, but allows you to search for foods. It requires no permissions.

Relaxation Tools

Noice allows you to play relaxing background noise sounds. It requires network permissions, but you can download audio for offline listening. It is material design, has plenty of settings, and I would say it is fully featured. However, it does have optional telemetry.

Weed Trackers

Something something disclaimer don't do drugs please don't nuke this post.

Petals helps you track your weed usage to help you see how much you're using, if it's dangerous, and educate you on everything it can. It requires no permissions, you can import and export data, it has an app lock, and plenty of settings. It has a mediocre UI, but it includes many graphs. For some reason it added icons on the home screen for me, YMMV.

Weight & Diet Trackers

I'm not going to be detailed with this section because it was honestly the worst one to gather info on. trale is as minimal as it gets, but it's available for Accrescent if that's your thing. openScale can connect to Bluetooth scales and track lots of data. Energize has integration with OpenFoodFacts. OpenNutriTracker forces you to agree to a privacy policy and EULA. Waistline is laggy and requires a network connection for some integrations. All these apps basically do the same stuff, except for trale which does very few stuff. You can track what you eat, your weight, and set goals. I couldn't decide on a "best" for this section.

Workout Routine Tools

I've been testing all of these apps for the past 3 days as well as writing for the past 2 hours, so you can start to see my slow descent into insanity. I really need an editor.

Workout Time

This was abandoned, is slightly laggy, and straight up does not work.

Liftosaur

This app requires network permissions because the entire app is just a website. That means it's super laggy, and has no settings.

openWorkout

This app has ads for some reason, but it doesn't need network permissions so it doesn't matter. It has a basic UI, and lacks in settings and features.

Those 3 are pretty terrible, but these last 2 apps were pretty much tied.

Feeel

Feeel is great for creating custom workout routines. It not only lets you pick which exercises to do and for how long, but it also teaches you how to do those exercises, which pictures. The design is great, it has few settings, and has its own polygon style. It requires no permissions.

LiftLog

Liftlog is a material design app to create workout routines. It lets you create your own exercises, view stats, and more. The app is kind of laggy, but it provides plenty of good settings. It does, however, have premium features such as AI. It also requires DCL via memory permissions.

Workout Timers

Finally, the last section, I'm going to break my style again to save my sanity. HIIT was abandoned 3 years ago. OpenHIIT lacks in settings, has a material design, and only allows up to 9 exercises.

Just Another Workout Timer and TimeR Machine almost tied. JAAT is material design, fairly fully featured, but the UI is confusing, button positions are weird, and icons can be unclear. It makes it very difficult to use. However, it has plenty of settings, including import and export.

TimeR is a more basic UI, but it is much more clear what is going on. It even puts you through a tutorial in the beginning. You can view data on graphs, etc. It's my preferred option. It requires no permissions, has plenty of settings, it's great.

Conclusion or something

People get mad at me for not adding summaries or conclusions, so... Hello, I've lost all personality and soul after writing this. I hope this helps someone in the future find some good Android health apps. Please make more health apps, since the open source community really needs it. Please check out Open Source Everything, which is my own curated list of open source software that I've been working on for years.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

- The 8232 Project

Oh yeah, P.S., I didn't actually double check that I listed 49 software here. If it's 48 or something it's because I was going to add Quit Smoking but it's abandoned and the source code no longer exists besides archives.

I maintain my own list of open source software, but one of the biggest struggles has been finding open source health apps to add to the list. It seems like the open source community is lacking in this area, compared to proprietary counterparts.

I'm beginning to flesh out some of the health apps on my list, and I am looking for recommendations on which apps are generally used. This is an extremely rare circumstance in which I am asking for community feedback to add software to the list.

My preferred criteria is as follows:

Available for Android

It can be available for other platforms, but I tend to prioritize open source operating systems such as Android or Linux. In this case, a health app for Linux would rarely be useful. If available, please note whether or not the app works well with strict permissions on GrapheneOS.

Has a clear, distinct purpose

I prefer not to categorize the same app in multiple places. I am a believer of software being the best at one thing, rather than trying to be the best at everything. So, I would like to categorize different apps for each purpose (calorie tracking, nutritional information, fitness tracking, etc.)

Works entirely offline

Ideally, apps should work without ever requiring an internet connection. Having the ability to download data for offline use later is fine, if the data is large enough to warrant not being packaged with the app itself.

Still actively maintained

It's rare that I add outdated or abandoned apps to my list, but there will always be exceptions. The apps should be actively maintained, and have modern usability and appearance.

Those are best case-scenario criteria, your recommended app may not follow that. All apps should, of course, be open source. I am leaving the definition of "health apps" without elaboration on purpose, because I am looking for all health-related and physical wellbeing apps.

Thank you for your suggestions! :)

StreetComplete makes contributing to OpenStreetMap easy and fun by turning contributions into "quests" on a map for you to complete. No personal information is required, just create an OpenStreetMap account, and start contributing directly in your area!

I tried this out myself, and it is truly fantastic! I had never heard of it, and I'm sure many of you haven't either, so spread the word!

Tip: When entering buildings to ask questions (opening hours, etc.) be ready to explain what OpenStreetMap is :)

I made this post, outlining my verdict about whether or not Chromium is more secure than Firefox. At the very end of the post, I noted "GrapheneOS did not respond to my requests for a comment."

Well, after weeks with no reply, they finally responded. I don't plan to do any more research about this topic, but this information is still incredibly valuable. Keep in mind the questions I asked the GrapheneOS team were created before I had done much research about the topic. Here are the questions and GrapheneOS's replies:

Does Firefox have isolation between tabs?

incomplete

Is Firefox's implementation of tab isolation as secure as Chromium's?

no, it's incomplete and their sandbox is significantly weaker across all platforms, but it varies based on platform

Firefox uses Fission to isolate embedded content from the main website. Is Fission used for tab isolation as well?

it's incomplete

Is Fission the main cause of concern about Firefox's security?

there are many ways in which it's less secure than Chromium, but the weak sandbox particularly that's entirely not implemented on Android is one of the main issues

Are there other reasons why Chromium is more secure than Firefox, besides Fission?

Chromium uses full garbage collection for a lot of the C++ objects, has much more hardened memory allocators for native allocation, has the V8 sandbox as another layer of security missing in Firefox before the OS sandbox, has much more fuzzing, auditing, etc. and much more modern exploit mitigations implemented too

Firefox is far behind in nearly every way and laid off a lot of their security people

Isolation of embedded content is important to prevent Spectre and Meltdown exploits, but is this actually something that an everyday user will be majorly affected by? It seems that, unless you are logging in through embedded content, there is far less risk associated with this from an everyday standpoint. Again, more security is obviously better, but is this as big of an issue as it's made out to be?

yes it impacts users because browser vulnerabilities are widely exploited in the wild and the OS sandbox is one of the main defenses against it, as is the V8 sandbox feature entirely missing in Firefox

Google heavily monitors for browser exploits and catches a lot of it happening in the wild

Mozilla / Firefox has little visibility into it

therefore, it's much more widely reported for Chrome but does not mean it isn't happening with Firefox regularly

Is Firefox less secure on Linux (besides Qubes, Tails, etc.) than other desktop operating systems?

Tails is not a hardened OS at all, that's a misconception about it, and it has nearly all the problems of desktop Linux

Firefox on desktop Linux has weaker sandboxing than elsewhere

on Android they haven't even implemented a content sandbox, although the OS provides an app sandbox around it as a whole but that's not the same thing

In which ways are Fission less secure than Chromium's Site Isolation?

it's not even completed yet, the issue is still open since not everything is isolated yet and there are known ways out

Does Brave provide the same privacy against fingerprinting as the Tor Browser?

Tor Browser's anti-fingerprinting is greatly overestimated and does not really work with JavaScript enabled, which it is for most users

Brave's is not strictly better or worse

neither anti-fingerprinting approach works well

Could you provide good resources for my article about the state of Firefox security on Android?

no, but it is awful, they don't even implement any content sandbox let alone site isolation, and have almost no exploit mitigations or anything implemented

Would it be easy for a developer to create a fork of Firefox for Android that uses isolatedProcess?

no, but it's easy for them to do it relative to doing it elsewhere

Would using isolatedProcess in Firefox fix isolation issues? If not, what would still need done?

no, but it would allow them to provide a content sandbox on Android and partial site isolation to the extent they implement it overall

Is there tab isolation for Firefox on Android? Is this as secure as Chromium's?

there's an incomplete implementation, and no, it's not nearly as secure aside from being incomplete

Loops is a federated alternative to TikTok created by Pixelfed. Once it first came out, users were able to sign up for early access. Confirmation emails weren't sent right away, but today they announced that emails were being sent out, and registration is now closed.

I got a confirmation email today, attached in the image. I will be loosely documenting my experience, and may (no promises) make a writeup about it.

Wiz Khalifa would be proud

Happy Halloween! Tails released a small update, but it's nice to see that the software in Tails is getting updated more frequently!

Here are the major changes:

• Update Tor Browser to 14.0.1.
• Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.13.
• Update Thunderbird to 115.16.0.
• Fix automatic upgrades aborting with the error message "The upgrade could not be downloaded" even after a successful download. (#20593)

Alternative link: https://tails.net/news/version_6.9/