Flo period tracker sells user data to Meta and Google
What the actual fuck. How can we trust any third party app ever? I guess we can’t.
Your period tracking app has been yapping about your flow to Meta
What does this vagueness by-design mean for how we choose to self monitor our biological markers?Emily Flynn (The Femtech Design Desk)
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iByteABit
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •Luke
in reply to iByteABit • • •There are a few:
I'm not a user of any of those, but from descriptions and screenshots alone they look decent.
Bluemoon | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
f-droid.orgother_cat
in reply to Luke • • •Vanth
in reply to iByteABit • • •I use Drip for basic cycle tracking. I don't use it for fertile phase tracking so no comment there.
For cycle tracking, it does what it needs to do. It's easy enough to setup and completely forget what tracker/spyware I used to use. Heck, I think it was Flo I used to use.
And f-droid or another alternative app stores not mandatory, Drip is on the Google Play store at least. Not sure about Apple.
airikr
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •Use softwares that are open sourced and be happy. There's plenty of period tracking apps on F-Droid.
Open sourced softwares can't hide trackers from users since the source code must be up-to-date. If not, people will be suspicious. And if a open sourced software do use trackers, the community will complain... a lot!
pomegranatefern
in reply to airikr • • •Just checked out both drip and Bluemoon, both FOSS from F-Droid with local only data
Bluemoon lets you import data from Flo, but to export data from Flo, you need to make an account with Flo, it seems. (It also let's you import data from Clue, but I don't use Clue.)
drip lets you import data just from a CSV file, nothing that seems specific to any app format. So far I like drip a lot better, TBH; the UI is more intuitive to me, and it seems more featureful. Its prediction also lines up with Flo after putting in data since January.
However, I have just downloaded both apps. My plan is to keep Flo around for one more cycle while I compare it to the others, then kick Flo to the curb for becoming enshittified spyware, with sad nostalgia for the life-changing product it originally was to me.
Right now, I am not seeing luteal vs. follicular phase estimated with just period data on either, though, which is annoying. I want a rough sense for the purposes of some tailored nutritional stuff, but I'm not looking to get pregnant or anything and really do not w
... Show more...Just checked out both drip and Bluemoon, both FOSS from F-Droid with local only data
Bluemoon lets you import data from Flo, but to export data from Flo, you need to make an account with Flo, it seems. (It also let's you import data from Clue, but I don't use Clue.)
drip lets you import data just from a CSV file, nothing that seems specific to any app format. So far I like drip a lot better, TBH; the UI is more intuitive to me, and it seems more featureful. Its prediction also lines up with Flo after putting in data since January.
However, I have just downloaded both apps. My plan is to keep Flo around for one more cycle while I compare it to the others, then kick Flo to the curb for becoming enshittified spyware, with sad nostalgia for the life-changing product it originally was to me.
Right now, I am not seeing luteal vs. follicular phase estimated with just period data on either, though, which is annoying. I want a rough sense for the purposes of some tailored nutritional stuff, but I'm not looking to get pregnant or anything and really do not wish to bother with the trouble of taking daily temperatures. Flo currently gives me that. I know it's basically just adding 15 days but I still like having the at a glance feature.
EDIT: Adding Mensinator, another FOSS one on F-Droid, to the trial. Looks like this one offers an import feature, but I have no idea what format it's expecting, because it couldn't find my export from Bluemoon. Mensinator does provide the option to just mark a day as ovulation, which neither Bluemoon nor drip offer. It does at least seem like drip tells you if you're in the first or second half of your cycle on the individual day profile for the day of, but I want something I can use for meal planning. Mensinator may be the best suited for me so far, but I will give them all time.
Also, bafflingly, when I attempted to export my data from drip, it provided me a "share file" option to share the .csv file without a simple option to just...download it.
sem
in reply to pomegranatefern • • •zealouscurmedgeon
in reply to airikr • • •Anna
in reply to zealouscurmedgeon • • •FineCoatMummy
in reply to Anna • • •Ayup, hopefully. But there's a cultural aspect to that IMO. For that to work, we need enough people invested in doing that. Which can be hard and ongoing work! Say I fork an app. Unless I want to "hostile take over" the whole devel, now I've got to keep rolling in updates. Sometimes those can interact with the changes I made in my fork and automated merges don't handle it. It can be thankless work.
We're lucky at the mo, with OSS. It's a tech heavy crowd. That helps a LOT to keep the culture from enshittifying. There's a lot of good faith volunteering around. But that's a fragile thing.
zealouscurmedgeon
in reply to Anna • • •ParlimentOfDoom
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •like this
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Eat_Your_Paisley
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •64bithero
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •CultLeader4Hire
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •kevincox
in reply to CultLeader4Hire • • •The idea that putting this on your phone is bonkers is bonkers to me. Why would you want to carry around a journal or paper when you have everything on your phone? It can also be more easily backed up and synced.
It shouldn't be normal that this data is stolen and sold. That is 100% the problem, not the fact that people track things on computers.
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WhyJiffie
in reply to kevincox • • •it shouldn't be, but that's the world we live in. we can't change it anymore.
kevincox
in reply to WhyJiffie • • •WhyJiffie
in reply to kevincox • • •racoon
in reply to kevincox • • •Courtney (she/her/they)
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •I love fucking up their data.
Haha, bitches I had no ovaries to begin with, and now you think I'm ovulating soon!
Mwahahaha :3
Malyca
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •FineCoatMummy
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •The lying the app did in their priv policy is shitty behavior. But not unusual behavior.
The phone app ecosystem is a hot mess of treachery.
flactwin
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •boogiebored
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •pomegranatefern
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •Just checked out both drip and Bluemoon, both FOSS from F-Droid with local only data
Bluemoon lets you import data from Flo, but to export data from Flo, you need to make an account with Flo, it seems. (It also let's you import data from Clue, but I don't use Clue.)
drip lets you import data just from a CSV file, nothing that seems specific to any app format. So far I like drip a lot better, TBH; the UI is more intuitive to me, and it seems more featureful. Its prediction also lines up with Flo after putting in data since January.
However, I have just downloaded both apps. My plan is to keep Flo around for one more cycle while I compare it to the others, then kick Flo to the curb for becoming enshittified spyware, with sad nostalgia for the life-changing product it originally was to me.
spicy pancake
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •"What are you feeling today?"
"egg white"
"c r e a m y"
dasrael
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •ScoffingLizard
in reply to damnthefilibuster • • •