I live in Canada. My girlfriend is Chinese (also living in Canada), and while we are able to communicate via SMS, her mobile carrier isn’t the best, and so there have often been issues for us with regular texting. She expressed a strong preference to use WeChat, at least as a backup option for when texting fails us. While I have some pretty significant reservations, it’s not the hill I want to die on. So my question is: what can be done to use WeChat without compromising my whole phone? I’m okay with it if our conversations aren’t private, but I’d like to know that I’m not giving unfettered access to all of my phone’s systems and data to the CCP. What can be done to limit the reach of this ubiquitous app on my device?

  • Guadin@k.fe.derate.me
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    6 months ago

    You can put it in a work profile and trust that Android is protective enough to keep your data safe and access limited. Otherwise buy a second phone just to put WeChat on it. Don’t know how WeChat works, but if it’s like Whatsapp then you don’t need to bother with a secondary number.

    • rmuk@feddit.uk
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      6 months ago

      To add to this: you can install an open-source app called Shelter which will let you quickly set up a Work Profile for apps you want to keep isolated.

          • Guadin@k.fe.derate.me
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            6 months ago

            Indeed. The front ends could be less or more “secure”/private. And by that I mean that I don’t know how the app themselves are with access and your data. So I don’t know if they collect and share any data and how reliable the developers are.

      • StitchIsABitch@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If you own a Samsung phone, I’d also recommend their Secure Folder, which is apparently pretty damn secure and isolated from the rest of the device.

  • archchan@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Maybe meet in the middle? If she’s willing to put up with SMS for you, I think she’ll be fine with Signal.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.caOP
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      6 months ago

      Yup, that’s what I’ve ended up doing. It wasn’t on my radar before making this post, so I’m thankful for everyone who suggested it.

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    Basically 2 options: A work profile or a separate Android user profile. I’d definitely recommend the latter, as it has much stronger isolation. Some vendors like Samsung disable user profile support though. A work profile is still better than nothing.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.caOP
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      6 months ago

      Signal can even be used in China

      I had no idea! I’ll definitely talk to her about this.

      • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        This feature only exists, because the people behind Signal actually care about freedom and want to help their users. Unlike WeChat, Signal is not built by any government to spy on people, and unlike commercial messengers like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, it’s not built by a corporation that wants to extract money from their users by selling their data. It’s a non-profit organization, created by people who are dedicated to make the world more private and secure. Just keep that in mind when choosing a messaging app.

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.caOP
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          6 months ago

          I’m well aware of what Signal is. I just didn’t realize it could go through the Great Firewall.

  • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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    6 months ago

    Phone apps are already fairly sandboxed.

    Use your phone’s permission system, look at the app’s permissions, and set them as strict as the app will allow you to while continuing to function. I don’t see any particularly scary permissions that aren’t optional (looking in Google Play/the Android permissions set).

    Pretty much anything beyond that you’re wasting your time unless you want to carry two phones.

    Edit: I see you went with Shelter; hadn’t heard of that either. Probably overkill, but as long as it doesn’t cause problems/the app works for you, go for it.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.caOP
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      6 months ago

      Well it means that if I do grant a permission to the app like for example file storage access to send my gf a funny meme I downloaded, it doesn’t get access to all of the pictures and files on my device.

      • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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        6 months ago

        Not sure how wechat works. I vaguely recall being able to restrict apps to pick photos only through the gallery app on recent versions of Android.

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.caOP
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          6 months ago

          It doesn’t seem to use that interface weirdly. It just asks for file storage permission and then has its own explorer to select files.

            • bionicjoey@lemmy.caOP
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              6 months ago

              Yeah exactly. I’ve had to take photos of various ID documents at different points for various reasons and so there are things like photos of my driver’s license stored in my phone’s filesystem. I’m glad Shelter gives a bit of insulation there. It lets me copy files in and out of the sandbox, but by default the sandbox has no files in it.

              • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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                6 months ago

                I’d recommend deleting those when you get the chance … no real reason to tempt fate regardless of what apps are on your phone 😉

  • philpo@feddit.de
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    6 months ago

    If you are into self-hosting: You can use Matrix on your phone with a self hosted Matrix server and a WeChat Bridge.

    Afaik there are two different bridges and both are in Alpha, though, so you might need to try what works for you.

    For getting the account you might be able to use an Android VM so your main phone stays clean.