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Dolphin, a 3rd Party Android Browser, Relayed URL Data
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from AndroidPolice.com:
"As it turns out, Dolphin HD, one of the top browsers the Android platform has to offer, sends pretty much every web page URL you visit, including those that start with https, to a remote server en.mywebzines.com, which belongs to the company. In fact, the WebZines feature was introduced only recently back in June with version 6.0, so it's safe to say this tracking started around the same time.'"
The Dolphin team quickly responded with a blog post saying they did not store any of the data, and no browsing information was captured about users. They also rolled out a new version of the browser, 7.0.2, which fixed the issue.
When they say "fix", does that mean it doesn't send the info, or their sending of info is harder to trace?
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
...over at xda-developers.com.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1319529
That was their good deed for the week. Now for the bad deed of the week, they refuse to remove an ARP poisoning app so people can kill individual users on public wifi networks: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1282900
Probably worthy of it's own /. article.
Dolphin is available for iOS and offers the same WebZines "feature" ;-)
is bad?
How is that? Chrome already sends any URLs visited and anything you typed in the address bar to Google. The former is done to make a lookup in the database of malicious URLs (where other browsers such as Iceweasel store the database locally), the latter is done for the uses of Google Suggest.
"They also rolled out a new version of the browser, 7.0.2, which fixed the issue."
The word "fix" makes it sound like it was an unintentional error. The problem wasn't that the browser "accidentally" sent the data. The problem was that the company thought this would be okay in the first place. The real "fix" needed is ridding the company of the people who thought this was a good idea.
Android users signed up to be spied on by Google, not some random third party!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
about tracking. Seriously. You're tracked EVERYWHERE you go. You know all those free email accounts? How about Facebook? Your Newegg account? Amazon.com? Yep. All Tracked. Moreover, are people so easily manipulated to their detriment that a little web tracking matters. I guess there's the big scary gov't. But seriously. If a modern gov't is tracking you it's more for the hell of it then any real need to use it to oppress. A modern military does all that by itself. I'm ten times more worried about the Unions disintegrating then I am over some twit advertiser knowing what I googled last week.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
But Google IS NOT upfront about that, and it doesn't even ask if they are allowed to do so. It's enabled by default and without telling the user about it.
It's a browser, so it's kinda hard to doubt it needs Internet access. How exactly are users supposed to know?
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Are you seriously suggesting that Slashdot has a pro-Apple, anti-Android bias? Do we visit the same Slashdot?
To ignore the malware problem on Android is to deny a genuine negative aspect of the platform that needs to be talked about, regardless of how you feel about Apple products.