If any Mac users among you who like I use the popular utilities Dr Cleaner, Dr Antivirus, and App Uninstall owned by Micro Trend please be advised that Apple has booted these anti-malware tools from its App Store after it was discovered that browser data was siphoned off to outside servers.
States The Register, UK, today: “Mac security guru Patrick Wardle noted last week that in addition to the advertised functions of removing adware and malware from Macs, the software also collected people’s personal data including their browsing history, then transmitted that data as a password-protected archive to a server on the internet,” https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/10/trend_micro_apple_m….
Mac Security guru Patrick Wardle noted on September 7th that Trend Micro stole user data, https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x37.html and Privacy first tweeted the same concerns the following day https://twitter.com/privacyis1st/status/1038391377938341894.
Apple supposedly vets all apps appearing in the App Store. Obviously, Trend Micro, a Japanese multinational cyber security and defense company founded in Los Angeles, California with global headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, a R&D center in Taipei, Taiwan, was not properly vetted and was able to circumvent Apple’s own security protections.
I uninstalled Dr. Cleaners immediately after reading the above.
If you use any Apple devices, s.a. iPhone, Tablet, be aware that the GuardianApp “has discovered that a growing number of iOS apps have been used to covertly collect precise location histories from tens of millions of mobile devices, using packaged code provided by data monetization firms,” https://guardianapp.com/ios-app-location-report-sep2018.html….
I usually turn off location services GPS, Blue-tooth, and WiFi on my iPhone since I resent this type of predatory capitalism where everyone makes money off my name, data, etc. without my knowledge or consent. Since buying my house, I get swamped by unwanted mail and the email address I gave to the Escrow company gets up to 60 pieces of spam a day. Everyone involved in the home purchase has assured me they did not pass it on. I suspect the predatory locusts scoured public records. After living in Germany for a decade, a country with privacy laws almost as strict as Switzerland’s, I have trouble adjusting to this type of capitalism that violates my rights.
I will switch to ProtonMail, incorporated in Switzerland, a country with very strict privacy laws where all servers are located. Proton Mail was founded in 2013 by scientists working for the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. According to ProtonMail “All emails are secured automatically with end-to-end encryption. This means even we cannot decrypt and read your emails. As a result, your encrypted emails cannot be shared with third parties,” https://protonmail.com. I have studied a good number of reviews and believe this is one of the best email options. Google Mail is one of the worst data miners and privacy gurus recommend not using it if you value your privacy. The same goes for Google Chrome.
Stay safe,
im