I’m using using a Revanced patched version of RIF is Fun to access Reddit. I have a VPN with ad blockers running. The app doesn’t have location permissions. I am getting ads for my city in it. The odd thing is that before the banning of 3rd party Reddit apps, I never got ads on RIF. I’m not only curious how they’re finding my location, but if anyone is getting paid for these ads since RIF has officially shut down and it’s only usable because of the Revanced patch.
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Possible guess:
Reddit has turned on add personalisation. The localisation could be coming from your activity
Are you subscribed (or commented in or upvote in etc) to your local city sub or any that are local? (sports teams etc)
Ever made a comment that mentions your location?
That would make sense. I only participate in 2 subs now that haven’t migrated. They aren’t local, but I am still subscribed to my city sub, although I haven’t participated in it in about a year. I didn’t even think about that. I guess it’s too late to anything now.
I guess it’s too late to anything now.
Is your current account important for those subs you still visit?
No? Then:
Stop using the current account.
Create a new one and only interact with the 2 subs that haven’t migrated.
Or poison the well. Leave your city sub and join a few different ones. Add and participate in several subs that don’t actually pertain to you.
You can leak location data through many was.
Time zone on phone, ip address of your phone, latency of your connection through a VPN (can guess your metro area based on VPN end point and your overall latency), language localization settings (if you have Malay and English then your more likely in Malaysia), advertiser ID, phone ID. If one app has location services (like tinder) and they sell your phones location and phone identifiers to third party services, like advertisement networks, then they know roughly where you are.
If a APP has your phone number, for identity verification, or two factor authentication, they can use data brokers to get your location from cell phone providers… Which is why giving ANYONE your real phone number is dangerous.
Location services are notoriously hard to fully shut down… Can’t let ANY apps see wifi networks, bluetooth networks, GPS, or raw IP information, cellular data.
Even if your doing everything right, ALWAYS on VPN, GrapheneOS, no extra permissions for any apps… it takes just one mistake, to get associated with location… Turned off always on VPN to login to a captive portal, and some app (like tinder) got a few packets through outside the VPN…
Better question: Why are you still on Reddit?
Serious reply.
There are some subs that have content you still cannot get elsewhere.
r/askhistorians is one great example, along with a lot of hobby subs.
I still check these out occasionally via RSS, then open in old.reddit.com to see the comments.
If I could see the comments via RSS, I would.
That’s fair. I hope those subs survive whatever happens next over there.
There are 2 subs that I participate in that haven’t migrated. One is for an app, and one is for a device. They are very niche and people need a lot of help with them. As of now, Reddit is the only place to get or offer help.
Fair point. Good luck to those subs surviving Spaz’s next attack on the users. (Not sarcasm. I genuinely hope they continue to serve a purpose.)
I think the main thing holding them back is that people won’t be able to find them if they move to Lemmy or something similar. Posts here don’t come up in searches like Reddit posts do. The search function in Lemmy also needs a lot of tweaking to be useful for finding help in a community. I’m sure it will get there eventually, but for now they are stuck with Reddit.
