Meta devised an ingenious system (“localhost tracking”) that bypassed Android’s sandbox protections to identify you while browsing on your mobile phone — even if you used a VPN, the browser’s incognito mode, and refused or deleted cookies in every session.
This is the process through which Meta (Facebook/Instagram) managed to link what you do in your browser (for example, visiting a news site or an online store) with your real identity (your Facebook or Instagram account), even if you never logged into your account through the browser or anything like that.
Meta accomplishes this through two invisible channels that exchange information:
(i) The Facebook or Instagram app running in the background on your phone, even when you’re not using it.
(ii) Meta’s tracking scripts (the now-pulled illegal brainchild uncovered last week), which operate inside your mobile web browser.
I haven’t deleted it because there are a couple of people I might theoretically need to get in touch with at some point that I don’t have contact with otherwise.
Fair enough.
I held on to this possibility for similar reasons for years, but after some honest self reflection I cannot say there would be anyone from my past life who is still important and I have no other means to contact, my Facebook bubble from 10 years ago and more is long dead, i.e. similarly inactive.
Maybe giving people an email address, phone number or username somewhere else via Facebook message before leaving for good could also be a solution.
You can still use a browser for that occasion. Meanwhile the app is doing things in the background.
I haven’t had the app installed since I got my phone. I don’t believe it was installed by default, or if it was I removed it immediately.