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.
Is there any privacy-friendly way to use Facebook
No
on iOS?
Double no.
You manage to sound somewhat clueless in 3 words! Congratulations
Ehhhh no. GrapheneOS or bust, and facebook?! Really now.
I’m fully aware of the contradictory nature of what I’m trying to achieve but, in the real world, not everyone can go and run alternative Android builds. At least, not practically speaking.
I was about to post something similar to your reply. But OP says this, which is a reasonable explanation why they need (not want mind you) to use Facebook:
[…] 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
As for iOS, OP said they abhorred commercial social media. They said nothing about their feelings towards abusive monopolistic OS platforms, so I assume they’re happy in their Apple prison.
The sad part of this story is that fucking Zuckerberg managed to make himself unavoidable in Australia apparently. That’s the real takeaway from OP’s post.
They said nothing about their feelings towards abusive monopolistic OS platforms, so I assume they’re happy in their Apple prison.
I spent over 10 years on Android, after ditching my iPhone 4S (at the time).
The annoying reality is that I have no choice but to maintain a “mainstream” device for my work. Running alternative Android builds is not an option for me.
I’ve willingly gone back to Apple after so long away for one simple reason: I trust Google a LOT less than I trust Apple. That’s not to say I trust either of them wholeheartedly, though. I just have no choice but to use one of them, and Google is just as an abusive, monopolistic platform as Apple, probably worse.
But, here’s the thing. It wasn’t until I moved back to iOS a few months back that I realised just how many hoops I’d been jumping through to make Android do the things I wanted.
I no longer have to tweak any number of Tasker routines just to make sure my automations do what I want when something in my life changes. I no longer get frustrated at Google’s voice assistant misunderstanding me. My experience when driving (which I do a lot of for work) is far smoother with CarPlay than it ever was with AA.
Also, the rest of my family is in the iOS ecosystem, so there’s en element of no longer being the odd one out, and now being able to benefit from shared features. Have you seen how simple it is to AirDrop a photo to another IOS device? In all my years of using Android phones, not one Android handset maker has gotten that simple thing right. Not one. Sure, you can play around with any number of BT transfer apps to try and transfer files to each other. But it’s a lot of mucking about to do a very simple thing.
What you call a prison, I call a system where I don’t have to fuck around to make shit work. Everything Just Works.
I’ve spent decades working in technology, and I’ve come to realise my time is a lot more valuable to me when I don’t have to expend so much effort on things that should do what’s written on the tin. This isn’t a religious argument. Technology should be about fitness for purpose. iOS is more fit for my purpose than Android.
I trust Google a LOT less than I trust Apple
I have zero trust in both. So if I have to choose a dystopian surveillance device, even a stock one, I’ll choose the one that lets me sideload apps anyday, even if the experience is less polished.
And of course, I run a deGoogled OS so the point is moot. I use it for work stuff and I have no issues. I feel no need for a regular Google or Apple piece of spyware.
What you call a prison, I call a system where I don’t have to fuck around to make shit work. Everything Just Works.
So, just like I said, you’re happy in your prison. It’s cool, to each his own 🙂 It wasn’t a value judgment. Me, I’d rather cut one of my testicles off than give a cent to Apple - or Google too for that matter - or let either decide what I can or cannot run on MY device.
iOS is more fit for my purpose than Android.
As long as it does what you want, then it’s fine.
Facebook Messenger is the default messaging app in Australia too. If you tell any someone that you’ll message them, you mean you’ll find them on Messenger. If you have their number it might mean SMS, but probably not.
That sounds terrible.
Really? That’s not been my experience at all. In fact, the default for most Gen Z kids (I have two of them) is either iMessages on the iOS platform or Snapchat.
Yeah, younger generations use snap a lot more. When they want to interact with older people though, Facebook Messenger is the go. I don’t know any workplaces or community groups that use Snapchat to communicate with everyone, and not everyone has an iPhone, but getting on the work Messenger chat group is almost mandatory at every place I’ve worked at in the last ten years. My kids, who are Gen Z, have the same experience.
Even then though it’s still not privacy friendly, it’s just that unfortunately you “need” the spyware.
That said, fine I guess lol, real answer:
Burner iPhone with no SIM, kept off when not in use, and only used for this singular purpose. Closest you can get, still not privacy friendly though lol.
Dammit, I was going to say exactly that.
“How can I play with a raging fire without being even slightly burned?”
“How can I have unprotected sex with $50 hookers without risking disease or pregnancy?”
“How can I jump off a skyscraper without a parachute or tether without dying?”
“How can I use Facebook and preserve my privacy?”
The answer to all those questions is that you can’t.
Aw man…I wanted to burn a forest down, while having stupid dangerous unprotected sex with whores, while jumping off of the empire state building freestyle!!!
…but even I wouldn’t use facebook.
“How can I use Facebook and preserve my privacy?”
… you can’t.
Yeah, I’m aware of how impossible a task this is. I feel that what I’m doing on my personal computer (dedicated, clean browser, anonymous account, VPN) is the closest I’ll get. Just hoping to achieve the same thing with iOS while on the go.
IMO using facebook is never going to be safe or ethical, period. You are the product and they have a long history of being extremely eager to sell the product.
Good luck, though, I hope you figure something out.
You are the product and they have a long history of being extremely eager to sell the product.
Yeah, exactly what I said in my OP. I’m aware of the reality of what it is I’m asking for. I only recently moved back to iOS after over a decade using Android, so asking around in the vain hope someone has figured this out.
Possibly save Facebook website as a web app.
- open Facebook in Safari
- tap share
- tap save to Home Screen
I’m not sure though if the data is siloed from the rest of Safari on iOS. You could also try downloading a third party browser from the App Store and using it exclusively for Facebook.
I guess one way to test this would be to:
- log out of Facebook in Safari
- open the web app or other browser and log in
- switch back to Safari and see if you are still logged out
If so, then it’s more likely cookies, etc aren’t shared between the two.
Hmmm - that’s an interesting thought. If that works, and I then use my Mullvad VPN whenever I want to check my FB, I might get pretty close to what I’m trying to achieve here. Thanks for the suggestion!
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
WTF.
But really, using a Chromium-based or Safari-based browser in private/incognito mode will not be much different as far as tracking goes.
You might also be able to install a user-agent switcher extension in Firefox. I thiiiiiink Firefox supports extensions on iOS now, right? If not, you can try an alternative browser like Duckduckgo or Orion.
Pretty sure extensions are Android only on mobile.
Hmmm - DDG’s browser might be a good alternative, if I only use it for this one purpose. Thanks for the suggestion.
You could try using it as a PWA. Just add the website to your home screen via Safari. You could also try using Brave to access mbasic.facebook.com. All browsers on iOS are basically just Safari (unless you live in the EU), but at least it comes with a tracker blocker built in.
Someone else mentioned PWA. I think I’ll investigate that angle next. If a PWA doesn’t share any data from my device, it means I can use my Mullvad VPN whenever I choose to access it, and get pretty darn close to what I’m trying to achieve.
Or just use Safari. I use a browser for FB for years on my Android phone. Only problem is that when I try to chat it tries to install messenger unless I am in desktop mode.
On a Windows laptop it is easy to use with a browser, even chatting.
Is there any privacy-friendly way to use Facebook on iOS?
No. Not on any platform.
I recommend checking out Friendly Social Browser.
I hadn’t come across this one yet - thanks! Something for me to try.
Continue what you’re doing on the desktop and set up beeper with only your Facebook account to handle messages from your phone. It’s still not great, but I think it’s the best you’re going to get. You’re really only gaining Facebook, not seeing where you’re connecting from. Also, Beeper is just a pretty front end to a matrix server with a bridge connecting to Facebook Messenger. You could totally run it yourself if you wanted; check out the “self-host” link near the bottom of the page.
Hmmm - I guess that ticks the box for at least getting messages from interested buyers. I was kinda hoping to use FB to browse Marketplace as well, but I’m probably asking for a unicorn here - being able to use FB without FB being able to use me.
No, there is no private way to use Facebook on any platform. The use of Facebook itself completely murders all privacy and should never be considered for use.
Normally, no.
You’d have to set up a completely new account which you only ever access via e.g. Tor, then use Tor Browser on iOS to log into that account and only ever use your account exactly like this or else you’ll leak your current IP address as well as related data about you or your device to Meta. Also you’d have to never give any kind of personally-identifiable info to them. Then you’d have an anonymous account, but the goal of Facebook is to connect to other people you know. Once you add and talk to friends on Facebook, they might already know who’s behind that account, especially if you already had a different account in the past which pretty much had the same set of friends already. Also, remember that many people use WhatsApp (also by Meta), and WhatsApp collects among other things the whole address book or contacts list from the phone of each user. And most normal users don’t use contact scopes or things like that to spoof their contacts to Meta, so they’ll most likely get the real contacts list. That means if let’s say you have 5 friends named A, B, C, D, and E, and those 5 friends all use WhatsApp and have each other and you saved as a contact in their address book, then it’s even easier for Meta to guess with high precision that you are this person that knows those 5 people and/or who is known by those 5 people. So there are even other factors to consider, some of which are outside of your own control, because all the persons you know and want to add to Facebook give a lot of data to Facebook themselves as well, and that data also might be used to identify you in various circumstances. So you’d also have to behave anonymously when using your anonymous account. Which kind of goes against the whole thing of social media like Facebook. Since they monitor every user’s interaction on their website or apps, it’s likely that they’ll be able to eventually identify you once they’ve gathered enough data about your usage patterns, visited links on Facebook, contacts you added or which have added you, messages to contacts or from contacts to you, and so on. Simply using Facebook means you’re actively giving tons of data based on your usage alone to Facebook. It’s even theoretically possible for them to guess who you are based on your usage patterns alone, e.g. what you look at, what you type, how fast you type, and so on.
So yes it’s possible to get an anonymous account on Facebook, but it’s inconvenient, and probably runs contrary to your goals on that platform. Which is why I recommend to not use such platforms at all, and instead keep in touch with your friends via secure and private open source based messengers like Signal or Threema (Libre?) or any Matrix client. After all, services like Facebook are mainly for Meta to sell data about their users, that’s their primary business model (they almost don’t sell any products or services, they almost solely sell data about their users, that is basically the only way they make (a lot of) money. Well, and ads of course, but that’s closely linked together because the ad industry wants personally targetable ads, so it needs user data to better place targeted ads). There also isn’t a real need for such platforms anymore, because you can connect to friends in other ways on various other platforms, the only hard part is getting your friends to stop being lazy and switch to something more secure or private. When Facebook got big, it might have been the only social network of its kind, but these days tons of other, better options exist. So get your friends and contacts to move to something else. Or if they don’t want to move with you, then maybe they aren’t that important to you to keep in contact with.
Using Facebook in any other way, shape or form (e.g., using their app, or using their website with your real IP address) is very likely not going to be anonymous to Meta. They’ll automatically receive your current IP address (which on its own might already be enough for them to establish a link to your person, since they also have trackers in place in lots of other apps and websites), and on top of that various information about your device or browser (which, again, can be a key factor to link your current usage data to your person), if you use their app (which you shouldn’t ever do) they get even more data on you (not just you, also your contact list, nearby devices, and things like that), because those apps require so many permissions and have so much tracking integrated that it’s a whole treasure trove of information that’s being sent about you and your device, and they’ll interconnect all that data with the other data they’ve gathered about you or your device(s) in the past (which, as a rule of thumb, will always be much more than you think they’d have). An app with integrated tracking is always more harmful to your privacy than using their service from within a web browser, because the app can read much more data about your device compared to the web browser. (But be mindful that some web browsers (especially the proprietary ones like Chrome, Edge and Opera) also have quite a lot of tracking capabilities inside them.) So using Facebook in a somewhat normal or convenient way and at the same time wanting to remain anonymous to them is basically impossible.
Also, you’ll never be anonymous to government-based mass surveillance (who are collecting almost all network traffic, constantly) when you use your real IP address online. Anywhere. Your real IP is always connectable to your real person for them (also in retrospect). Even if they can’t look into encrypted communication data, like the contents of chat messages or what you did on a specific website, they can see the metadata, among that is which hosts you contacted, and when, as well as more unencrypted details, and such metadata can already be very revealing. To quote the ex NSA chief “we kill based on metadata”. Protecting yourself against commercial-based surveillance by companies like Meta is more realistic to achive (at least partially), because it’s easier to avoid or evade commercial tracking (by blocking all or most of their tracking methods like app-integrated trackers, tracking Javascripts and cookies on countless of websites, and so on) than it is to evade someone who’s sitting directly at all relevant network cables AND buys additional data from companies. Lots of easy-to-use tools exist to counter or limit commercial surveillance, like ad/content blockers, blocking host lists, PiHole, ad-blocking DNS servers, open source software and operating systems (because they are almost always free of trackers and surveillance tech), and things like that. It all minimizes your exposure to these data hoarding companies. And the less data you transmit overall to such companies, the better. But if you also want to protect yourself against any government-based mass surveillance, you’ll have a much harder time than that. You’d need to always use different IP addresses (again, via Tor or VPN etc.) and avoid having anything leak out that can connect your other IP to your real IP. Which is hard.
Mate, I appreciate the effort you took to write your response, but I get the distinct impression you didn’t go past the title of my post before responding.
As I said, I’m only seeking to use FB marketplace to buy and sell - nothing more. Nothing social. No friends or followers.
I thought I’d made clear the lengths I’ve already gone to, to maintain my privacy when using FB on my personal computer, so I’m just looking to understand if the same is possible with iOS when on the move. That’s all.
In that case, you probably have to:
- Use Tor respectively Tor Browser (without any additional extensions, and set the default security level to “Safer” if possible with Facebook) to create a completely new, anonymous account on Facebook. Don’t enter any data there that could be linked to your person, e.g. no real mail address (use an alias, ideally a completely new one), no real names, no real data, also no real billing or delivery address. Literally nothing that could be linked to your person. Only ever use Facebook’s site within the Tor Browser, to ensure that your real IP address and browser data aren’t leaked. Never use their apps, never use your regular browser for it, also don’t use PWAs because that’s similar to using a regular browser, which reveals your real current IP address to the site. Unless you use a VPN to have a different IP, but you’d have to minimize your VPN usage just for that app interaction. If you continue to use the same VPN IP for other stuff as well, you could de-anonymize yourself later on. Mullvad or Proton are commonly regarded as good choices for trustworthy VPNs which don’t log or sell any user data, or at least there are no known cases for it (yet).
- Don’t add any friends on the site, try to limit your interactions with the site so that it can’t create a big psychological profile from you and try to link that behavioral data to existing persons (the more you use the site the easier this method might become for them). Behave slightly differently than you would normally.
- When you buy something, remember that you’d have to conceal your real delivery and billing data/addresses as well. Which is hard to do when you actually want to buy and receive something. Your payment data and/or address data can EASILY and instantly de-anonymize you, also in front of Facebook. So my suggestion for something still practical would be to have a relative or friend buy it after you arrange that with them, have it delivered to their address, and you pay them for it and gather it from their place. So in essence you need a proxy person to do the receiving and paying for you. If you want to sell something, that’s more inconvenient of course, but you’d also have to do it similarly.
The most problematic de-anonymizing data about you is going to be your real current IP address (which is revealed when you use a regular browser, PWA or their app, all with a non-VPN or non-Tor IP address) as well as billing or address data. In case you’re using their app, they’ll be able to gather even more data to de-anonymize you more easily.
I don’t know anything about iOS, but I use FB on Android for the marketplace. I keep a prepaid sim card for giving a phone number to accounts like this. I throw away the sim every few years and burn the accounts and make new ones. FB is used from a browser in a seperate work profile on the phone to keep it isolated.
This sub obviously has a strong reaction against FB. But if you need to use it then put up what defended you can and go for it.
This sub obviously has a strong reaction against FB
Yeah - I feel like my efforts kinda got missed, where I make it obvious how much I hate having to do this, but really have no choice for my stated purpose.
But if you need to use it then put up what defended you can and go for it
Yep - that’s the idea. I’m realistic about what can and can’t be achieved, but I’ve only been back on iOS for a few months, so was hoping someone here was aware of a way I could get close to achieving what I want, without having carry a second phone with an alternative OS (which would be just ridiculous for this one purpose).
Hey mate, fellow Aussie here in almost identical situation, minus the “anonymous” Facebook account. I have one from decades ago in my real name that I haven’t used except for 2 Marketplace purchases in the last 15 years. I’ve tried creating new accounts in fake names, on public Wi-Fi with no luck. In one case the account was flagged for review and never approved, and in the other I was suspended until I would upload a selfie (how about no?). Do you have any tips on how you established a ghost account in the first place?
Not that it works with Facebook (I haven’t tried), but just want to drop a useful site for fake selfies.
Honestly, I’m using an old gag FB account I created back in 2011. I guess that was well before they started asking people to verify with selfies and phone numbers.
They have an
.onionsite.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.
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