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what is the advantage to an 'app'?

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posted 4 hours ago

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I'm not even sure how to ask the question.

Many times when I am looking at a site that I would like to add to my home screen on this phone it will only offer to 'install an app'.
These aren't sites I am wary of but I don't see what an app would do for me when I can just as easily save the url link and connect without the app.

Will it use less data?
I have the storage space but don't see the need🤔

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Anne Miller

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posted 3 hours ago

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I don't use apps though a few have been installed on phone, etc.

I am sure someone more knowledgeable than me can explain.

I, personally would not install app from websites unless I knew they were trusted apps or website and might be useful to me.

I would be afraid a random website app might install something to scam me.

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Anne Miller

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posted 3 hours ago

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This:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/mobile-payment-apps-how-avoid-scam-when-you-use-one

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Ned Harr

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posted 3 hours ago

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Often the app gives the company more insight into your activity (i.e. it's a corporate surveillance bug). Whereas through the browser they only know what you clicked on, what pages you looked at, and for how long, and maybe other stuff you've navigated to in your browser, with an app they can potentially see everything else you do on your phone and also where you go. (Transmitting all this back to the mothership in realtime definitely doesn't use less data.)

They try to entice you to download the app by giving it more features, or a smoother customer experience, than the website. Most people fall for that.

Pearl Sutton

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posted 3 hours ago

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Judith Browning wrote:I'm not even sure how to ask the question.

Many times when I am looking at a site that I would like to add to my home screen on this phone it will only offer to 'install an app'.
These aren't sites I am wary of but I don't see what an app would do for me when I can just as easily save the url link and connect without the app.

Will it use less data?
I have the storage space but don't see the need🤔

I don't use apps if there is a web page. I save links. I don't feel the need for anything else.
I'm not the best one to explain them to you, but I am a vote for "I don't if I don't HAVE to"
I have installed 3 on mom's phone, and zero on mine. That's it. And lots and lots of bookmarks on them both.
(The three are X, Telegram, and a standalone program that doesn't exist on the net.)

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Mark Reed

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posted 3 hours ago

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My personal opinion is that in the vast majority of cases perhaps all of them there are no advantages to you or me but several disadvantages. The only advantages are to the people who made the app. What they are to me is just another little tendril of data collection for someone else's profit but not just that. They also lock up data storage, hog bandwidth and drain batteries on my devices. I didn't buy these things to host other people's software.

I did enjoy one from Cornel University for a bit that lets you identify birds but ended up uninstalling it too. There are others that I'm sure are useful and I have come across websites and such that I would like to see but that refuse access without installing something or scanning this or that QR. When that happens, I generally just take the loss of not engaging with that site.

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Judith Browning

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posted 3 hours ago

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thanks everyone!!!

That's kind of what I was wondering Ned...that it might be to the company's advantage and even more invasive.

I did uninstall a few apps that came on this phone that I thought I could get away without and would uninstall a few more if I was more confident.

We don't pay bills on line so no apps there.

It just seems more and more often it's offered and I realized I didn't have a clue why.

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

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posted 3 hours ago

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Mark,
It's interesting that you mention apps being data hogs as this phone uses way more data for the same type of use as our last phone and I've tried to find the culprit....it came with many more apps installed than on our other phone so maybe I need to be more ruthless uninstalling.....

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Stephen B. Thomas

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posted 56 minutes ago

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Judith Browning wrote:These aren't sites I am wary of but I don't see what an app would do for me when I can just as easily save the url link and connect without the app.

An app is a program that runs on your smartphone, and "the normal rules don't apply here."

Seriously: companies collect more metadata from your phone through an app when compared to accessing their website. If this is a concern for you, I suggest you do not install the app.

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"Don't wish it were easier. Instead, wish you were better." --Jim Rohn

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Ned Harr

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posted 50 minutes ago

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Judith, I also suggest going through your phone’s settings and turning off background data and background permissions on most apps, though there are a few system apps you usually have to leave those things on for, in order for your phone to work properly. Certainly turn it off for any apps you personally downloaded unless you specifically know why it needs background data.

Carla Burke

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posted 50 minutes ago

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I also find that 90+% of the time, the apps wipe out my battery at about 2x the rate of using the website. In most cases, I see no personal advantage, and loads of disadvantages to the apps.

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