Last week I posted a story that talked about Chinese phone maker Xiaomi and their apparent spying activities on users of their products. It now seems that after saying there’s nothing to see here, or that security researchers were misunderstanding what they had discovered, the company has decided to release updates to their browser to address this issue. This popped up in a blog post:
By 01:30, May 4, GMT+8 in Beijing, the software updates had been available for our browser products including, preloaded Mi Browser, Mi Browser Pro on Google Play, and Mint Browser on Google Play.
The latest versions are: Mi Browser/Mi Browser Pro (v12.1.4), and Mint Browser (v3.4.3).
These software updates include an option in incognito mode for all users of both browsers to switch on/off the aggregated data collection.
We thank you all for your attention, suggestions and dedication during the past few days to further improving the overall user experience of our products and services.
Sorry Xiaomi, this isn’t good enough.
If Xiaomi really wants this to go away, they need to open themselves up to third party auditing. Just like Zoom did when they went through their security issues not too long ago. By doing so they would regain the trust of their users, and it would shut people like me up as I would have very little to criticize. But I don’t see Xiaomi taking the Zoom approach to deal with this. Thus I would suggest that if you need a new Android phone, you should Xiaomi phones until they prove beyond any doubt that they can be trusted.
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This entry was posted on May 5, 2020 at 11:14 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Xiaomi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Xiaomi Releases Browser Update To Address Spying Claims…. But I Say That It’s Not Enough
Last week I posted a story that talked about Chinese phone maker Xiaomi and their apparent spying activities on users of their products. It now seems that after saying there’s nothing to see here, or that security researchers were misunderstanding what they had discovered, the company has decided to release updates to their browser to address this issue. This popped up in a blog post:
By 01:30, May 4, GMT+8 in Beijing, the software updates had been available for our browser products including, preloaded Mi Browser, Mi Browser Pro on Google Play, and Mint Browser on Google Play.
The latest versions are: Mi Browser/Mi Browser Pro (v12.1.4), and Mint Browser (v3.4.3).
These software updates include an option in incognito mode for all users of both browsers to switch on/off the aggregated data collection.
We thank you all for your attention, suggestions and dedication during the past few days to further improving the overall user experience of our products and services.
Sorry Xiaomi, this isn’t good enough.
If Xiaomi really wants this to go away, they need to open themselves up to third party auditing. Just like Zoom did when they went through their security issues not too long ago. By doing so they would regain the trust of their users, and it would shut people like me up as I would have very little to criticize. But I don’t see Xiaomi taking the Zoom approach to deal with this. Thus I would suggest that if you need a new Android phone, you should Xiaomi phones until they prove beyond any doubt that they can be trusted.
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This entry was posted on May 5, 2020 at 11:14 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Xiaomi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.