Security

Google and Apple Play the Privacy Card: What the DMA Fight Means for You For the past few years, Google and Apple have been locked in a regulatory tug-of-war with the European Union over the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Their latest lobbying push leans heavily on a familiar argument: that complying with the DMA would weaken security and privacy for everyday users. This justification sounds reasonable on the surface, but it’s worth unpacking what the companies are actually saying—and what it means for your phone. ...

Why Google and Apple Are Using Privacy to Fight New App Store Rules If you follow tech policy news, you might have noticed a recurring argument from Google and Apple whenever regulators push them to open up their app stores: it will weaken security and privacy. That argument is at the center of their lobbying strategy against the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA requires companies like Apple and Google to allow third-party app stores and give users more default browser options. Both companies have publicly warned that such changes could expose users to malware, data theft, and weaker privacy controls. ...

Google and Apple Say DMA Will Hurt Your Privacy: What to Know If you’ve followed tech news lately, you’ve seen Google and Apple warning that new European regulations could weaken your privacy and security. Their argument is simple: The Digital Markets Act (DMA) would force us to open up our platforms, and that could expose your data and device to more risk. ...

How to Use AI Chatbots Without Sacrificing Your Privacy: Tips After Signal’s Warning In June 2026, Signal’s president made headlines by publicly warning about the privacy risks tied to AI chatbot use. The exact details of his statement are still being parsed, but the core message was clear: the same data‑collection habits that have long plagued social media and messaging apps are now embedded in the tools millions of people talk to every day. ...

Your Browser Knows Too Much: 5 Privacy Settings to Change Now Every time you open a browser, a quiet collection effort begins. Websites, advertisers, and analytics scripts log your searches, page visits, clicks, and even how long you linger on a paragraph. Most of this data flows to third parties you’ve never heard of, used to target ads and build profiles. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone. The good news: you can turn most of it off with a handful of setting changes. ...

A Practical Guide to Auditing Android App Permissions: What I Found in Apps I Trusted I spent a weekend systematically reviewing the permissions granted to every app on my Android phone. The results were not particularly alarming in a security-breach sense, but they were eye-opening. Several apps I had been using for years—some from well-known developers—were requesting access to my camera, microphone, or contacts without any obvious need. One utility app wanted to read my call log. Another, a simple note-taking tool, asked for precise location. None of these requests were malicious in the traditional sense; they were simply overreaching. And because I had never bothered to audit my permissions, they had been silently collecting data I never intended to share. ...

I Audited My Android App Permissions and Deleted 5 Apps I Trusted – Here’s How You Can Too A few weekends ago, I sat down with the intention of finally cleaning up my phone. I had read about Google winding down the Play Security Reward Program for popular Android apps, a move that effectively reduces the financial incentive for researchers to find vulnerabilities in many third-party apps. That, combined with ongoing reports of apps misusing location data, microphone access, and contact lists, made me wonder just how much permission bloat I had accumulated over the years. ...

5 Android Apps I Deleted After Checking Their Permissions (And Why You Should Too) Last weekend, I sat down and went through every app installed on my Android phone to see what permissions they had actually been granted. I had read some recent reports about hidden data access—articles like the June 2026 piece from Android Police that documented a similar audit—and figured it was time to do my own check. What I found was more revealing than I expected. Several apps I had trusted for years were holding onto permissions they had no business having. ...

How a Weekend Audit of Android Permissions Made Me Delete 5 Apps I Trusted Intro A few weekends ago, I sat down with my phone and did something I had been putting off for months: I opened the Android Permission Manager and reviewed every app that had access to my location, camera, microphone, contacts, and storage. It took about half an hour. When I finished, I had deleted five apps I had been using regularly — apps I assumed were safe because they were popular and had good ratings. ...

New Malware Hides Inside Signed Productivity Apps: What You Need to Know If you download productivity apps from anywhere other than official app stores, you might want to reconsider that habit. A recently reported malware strain called TamperedChef is making the rounds by hiding inside signed versions of popular productivity software. Once installed, it delivers stealers and remote access trojans (RATs) that can give attackers control of your machine. ...