Sensor Tower’s business model is super interesting. [Ok edit I thought they were secretive about this but they just tell you one link from their home page: https://sensortower.com/responsibly-sourced-data] They basically have a bunch of good and free screentime tracking apps like StayFocusd, ActionDash, StayFree, Phone Guardian, and Astro File Manager[1] with quite advanced features to (correctly) justify getting accessibility access on your phone and reading over every single app (e.g. to block YouTube shorts, check usages per website in your browser app). Then they sell the aggregated data to other businesses.
This quick take is prompted by me seeing the a16z top 50 AI mobile apps by MAU powered by Sensor Tower today (via Zvi). I know this because I am a long time user of StayFree and I actually read their privacy policy, I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time because it seems like very few people know about it.
Ok Astro File Manager isn’t screentime tracking, but it seems like it cleans your phone data, which requires going through the directory tree, so they can then read all they want while actually cleaning it up.
Sounds like good reason to never install any app. 🙁 Everything is just a pretense to collect you data and sell it.
Not sure what could be a solution for this. Some app reviewing service, which would review the source code, and publish what information which app collects about you?
I mean, I am quite happily using StayFree despite them selling my data. As a user you probably can’t do much except try to use FOSS apps in situations where some use cases really do need a lot of permissions. I mean, they do pretty much tell you what information they collect, as long as you read the privacy policy that is. In an ideal world it should be more obvious.
Sensor Tower’s business model is super interesting. [Ok edit I thought they were secretive about this but they just tell you one link from their home page: https://sensortower.com/responsibly-sourced-data] They basically have a bunch of good and free screentime tracking apps like StayFocusd, ActionDash, StayFree, Phone Guardian, and Astro File Manager[1] with quite advanced features to (correctly) justify getting accessibility access on your phone and reading over every single app (e.g. to block YouTube shorts, check usages per website in your browser app). Then they sell the aggregated data to other businesses.
This quick take is prompted by me seeing the a16z top 50 AI mobile apps by MAU powered by Sensor Tower today (via Zvi). I know this because I am a long time user of StayFree and I actually read their privacy policy, I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time because it seems like very few people know about it.
Ok Astro File Manager isn’t screentime tracking, but it seems like it cleans your phone data, which requires going through the directory tree, so they can then read all they want while actually cleaning it up.
Sounds like good reason to never install any app. 🙁 Everything is just a pretense to collect you data and sell it.
Not sure what could be a solution for this. Some app reviewing service, which would review the source code, and publish what information which app collects about you?
I mean, I am quite happily using StayFree despite them selling my data. As a user you probably can’t do much except try to use FOSS apps in situations where some use cases really do need a lot of permissions. I mean, they do pretty much tell you what information they collect, as long as you read the privacy policy that is. In an ideal world it should be more obvious.
If you give a fully informed consent, that’s okay for me.