First and foremost, I'll get this out of the way: I abhor all commercial social media. I don't trust them, I know users are the product, and - ultimately, I feel they're nothing but a cancer on society.
But, I also have to acknowledge that, for one or two use cases at least, they seem pretty unavoidable.
For me, that one use case is Facebook Marketplace. Here in Australia, there's simply no better alternative if you want to reach a large number of potentially interested buyers (or even buy some stuff yourself). The supermarket noticeboard is no more; the Trading Post was bought long ago and died on the vine; and Gumtree has devolved into a cesspool of nothing but scammers and fuckwits.
So, I use FB Marketplace. My FB account isn't in my name, uses a throwaway email address, and has no followers or friends. It's only a member of the local buy/sell groups that I'm interested in, and it performs no "social" activities (posts, likes, etc) at all.
Until now, I generally only use FB marketplace with a "clean", dedicated browser on my computer, running in private mode and via a VPN. But, it means I frequently miss messages from interested parties when I'm away from my computer.
I also sometimes use the mbasic.facebook.com site from a private Firefox tab on my iPhone, but FB has just started telling me I need to use Chrome (no. fucking. way.) or Safari (maaaaaybeeeee?) after October 28th.
When I was on Android, there were a few wrapper apps that I was able to use but, so far, my searches for an equivalent on iOS have turned up nothing.
So, knowing full well this may lead to nowhere, I thought I'd ask this community: does anyone have a good, privacy-friendly way to use FB on iOS?
Thanks in advance for any useful tips or suggestions.
Continue what you’re doing on the desktop and set up beeper with only your Facebook account to handle messages from your phone. It’s still not great, but I think it’s the best you’re going to get. You’re really only gaining Facebook, not seeing where you’re connecting from. Also, Beeper is just a pretty front end to a matrix server with a bridge connecting to Facebook Messenger. You could totally run it yourself if you wanted; check out the “self-host” link near the bottom of the page.
Hmmm - I guess that ticks the box for at least getting messages from interested buyers. I was kinda hoping to use FB to browse Marketplace as well, but I'm probably asking for a unicorn here - being able to use FB without FB being able to use me.