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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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How come I can natively log into my Lemmy apps on iPhone / iOS, but with every single Mastodon app, it opens a Safari window to try log in?
(Reason: I blocked the browser, and just want to use the apps I specifically chose as daily drivers, still testing out Lemmy + Mastodon apps.)
That's called OAuth2, it's a security feature. By logging into the official UI and that UI returning a login token, potentially malicious mobile apps are prevented from stealing your login credentials. For Lemmy the majority if not all of the current mobile clients are safe, but if a malicious one sprouts up it could use native login to steal your credentials and store them on a malicious server.
Thanks so much for explaining. But why is it that Mastodon has that 0auth on every app, and Lemmy doesn't? They both apps from the fediverse, just strange for them to be acting so differently.
Even though they are both fediverse they still are quite different and one of the important differences is that lemmy does not support oauth so apps don’t have that option, as for why all mastodon apps use it: it’s because of the security benefits to the user and (as a lemmy app developer) implementing auth is hard lol
Oh okay, so does that mean that Lemmy is less secure and more prone to outsiders stealing login info, than with Mastodon? I ask as 0auth seems to be quite important based on some of the comments.
It does not mean that lemmy is less secure, but yes, it means that malicious app developers will have a much easier time stealing login credentials because entering them inside the app is already the norm. However this is definitely a feature that can be added so it does not mean anything bad long term
Thank you for explaining. :-)
So that would mean that there are no 100% secure Lemmy apps, that do have 0auth or something to ensure that bad developers don't steal login information?
EDIT: Added second part
There's no rules for the Fediverse, all it means is that they utilise the ActivityPub protocols to be able to federate with other websites that also use it (there's others, but basically irrelevant now).
Mastodon requires OAuth2 for apps to get access to your account because it was designed that way, and Lemmy wasn't, it's as simple as that. Any platform can be part of the Fediverse (including Reddit, Twitter, Facebook etc if they really wanted to), which also means that platforms can also do anything they want.
Ah, write it off to my ignorance, still new to the Fediverse. Thanks for explaining, I just assumed that they would work the same, but also was wondering if it was an iOS thing, or a newer version of developing apps. As all the Lemmy apps are newer than the Mastodon apps, with the Rexxit influx. :-)