Is Tinfoil "Safe"?

[OmegaPikachu]

So I had a very knowledgeable person help me set up my oled switchs homebrew things, and they were telling me that Tinfoil is really bad to use because it records things like saved wifi networks, usage telemetry, info about your nintendo account, information about switch usage and even people on your friends list and sends it back to the developer. All of this data was apparently gathered by recording the network traffic of a few hundred switches I was told.

This seems like a pretty big deal, but I've literally never heard about any of this until I was told by this one person. With Tinfoil being closed source, you cant really see what its doing. So I just wanted to know what other people thought about this, if other people even know about this. There isnt any alternatives to tinfoil if you want certain functions, So I just thought this was the best place to get some opinions and thoughts on the app in general pertaining to all this.

 

[Hayato213]

So I had a very knowledgeable person help me set up my oled switchs homebrew things, and they were telling me that Tinfoil is really bad to use because it records things like saved wifi networks, usage telemetry, info about your nintendo account, information about switch usage and even people on your friends list and sends it back to the developer. All of this data was apparently gathered by recording the network traffic of a few hundred switches I was told.

This seems like a pretty big deal, but I've literally never heard about any of this until I was told by this one person. With Tinfoil being closed source, you cant really see what its doing. So I just wanted to know what other people thought about this, if other people even know about this. There isnt any alternatives to tinfoil if you want certain functions, So I just thought this was the best place to get some opinions and thoughts on the app in general pertaining to all this.

People doesn't like the developer behind the tinfoil app, Blawar, if you are scared just install games manually.

 

[impeeza]

That's always a concern with closed code. there are lots of open source alternatives, you should think if you are willing to sacrifice privacy by the convenience of tinfoil.

 

[linuxares]

if you wanna use shops, you need Tinfoil.
Else go with DBI.

 

[OmegaPikachu]

That's always a concern with closed code. there are lots of open source alternatives, you should think if you are willing to sacrifice privacy by the convenience of tinfoil.

Yeah, It just seems like something that would be a big deal to more people, yet I've never heard about it!

if you wanna use shops, you need Tinfoil.
Else go with DBI.

Is there some reason no other app has shop functionality?

 

[linuxares]

Yeah, It just seems like something that would be a big deal to more people, yet I've never heard about it!

Is there some reason no other app has shop functionality?

Probably, I don't know.
I know Blawar works closley with the shops (atleast in the beginning) so might be why?

 

[mister_smang_n_watch]

So I had a very knowledgeable person help me set up my oled switchs homebrew things, and they were telling me that Tinfoil is really bad to use because it records things like saved wifi networks, usage telemetry, info about your nintendo account, information about switch usage and even people on your friends list and sends it back to the developer. All of this data was apparently gathered by recording the network traffic of a few hundred switches I was told.

This seems like a pretty big deal, but I've literally never heard about any of this until I was told by this one person. With Tinfoil being closed source, you cant really see what its doing. So I just wanted to know what other people thought about this, if other people even know about this. There isnt any alternatives to tinfoil if you want certain functions, So I just thought this was the best place to get some opinions and thoughts on the app in general pertaining to all this.

That's so ghetto... thanks for the heads up. wtf does blawar need this info for

 

[impeeza]

Yeah, It just seems like something that would be a big deal to more people, yet I've never heard about it!

Is there some reason no other app has shop functionality?

because the exposure and risk the operators of stores will face to Ninty.

 

[OmegaPikachu]

Probably, I don't know.
I know Blawar works closley with the shops (atleast in the beginning) so might be why?

Yeah I dont know much about them, But I've heard a lot of bad things.

That's so ghetto... thanks for the heads up. wtf does blawar need this info for

The tinfoil website has a bunch of lists like "most downloaded games" "hot new games" So I would assume some of the information goes toward those, but there is still a lot of information collected for lord knows why.

 

[mathew77]

I don't trust anyone who beats its own wife.

 

[meha]

if you are worried don't pirate and play legit games. simple story. there's always risk with piracy
even if you were to not use tinfoil and download from some website, that site could contain malware, malicious ads, or tempered files, etc

 

[Tomato123]

So I had a very knowledgeable person help me set up my oled switchs homebrew things, and they were telling me that Tinfoil is really bad to use because it records things like saved wifi networks, usage telemetry, info about your nintendo account, information about switch usage and even people on your friends list and sends it back to the developer. All of this data was apparently gathered by recording the network traffic of a few hundred switches I was told.

This seems like a pretty big deal, but I've literally never heard about any of this until I was told by this one person. With Tinfoil being closed source, you cant really see what its doing. So I just wanted to know what other people thought about this, if other people even know about this. There isnt any alternatives to tinfoil if you want certain functions, So I just thought this was the best place to get some opinions and thoughts on the app in general pertaining to all this.

If this is true then it really shouldn't matter (mostly). You shouldn't be mixing homebrew/piracy and online stuff like a Nintendo Account on the same nand (Enunand exists for this reason). It's a fast way to get your console online banned. And if there's no account linked, then there shouldn't be anything majorly identifiable.
(I am against tracking of any sort, but just playing devil's advocate here since it makes no sense to track those things on 99% of hacked consoles.)

 

[l7777]

Tinfoil is/was popular because of the shops. People with no knowledge of where to find things could just open tinfoil and search for whatever they wanted to install. You can imagine this being very popular. A lot of the shops were hosted on G-Suite for education accounts as they had unlimited storage. Google pulled the plug on the unlimited storage and asked educational institutions to pay for the storage used. This caused most places to implement a storage quota and indirectly shut down most of the shops.

Is it safe? Probably just as safe as acquiring things from other locations. You have to evaluate for yourself if what you were told is true and second if it is true, is it really that big of a deal for you.

 

[mister_smang_n_watch]

I don't trust anyone who beats its own wife.

wait what

 

[linkinworm]

I found that as the app was updated and shops became paid subscriptions, it was easier to just install games my self with DBI, never fails unless you have hardware issues (usb cable/ harddrive) tinfoil just failed too much for me and caused headaches, better off just dumping your own games and installing with dbi

 

[rcpd]

wait what

It’s against the Temp’s doxxing rules to post the info, but it is out there if you connect the dots. However this isn’t the reason I won’t use Tinfoil. To my knowledge, blawar’s version of Tinfoil has never had the sources provided. As such, it cannot really be vetted for what it does in the background.

 

[sombrerosonic]

There's an open source version of tinfoil i found but heh

https://github.com/ln93/Tinfoil

 

[OmegaPikachu]

If this is true then it really shouldn't matter (mostly). You shouldn't be mixing homebrew/piracy and online stuff like a Nintendo Account on the same nand (Enunand exists for this reason). It's a fast way to get your console online banned. And if there's no account linked, then there shouldn't be anything majorly identifiable.
(I am against tracking of any sort, but just playing devil's advocate here since it makes no sense to track those things on 99% of hacked consoles.)

Out of curiosity what do you use?

 

[Tomato123]

Out of curiosity what do you use?

I used to use Tinfoil, but all the shops have either closed or become donator only (a few aren't but they not great) so just switched back to Awoo. Should really switch to DBI but rarely install games now.