Escaping TikTok's iOS Browser Sandbox (iOS Shortcut)

Update 3 03/19/2023: Over the past few months, TikTok updated their app to include an option to open links in the default browser versus forcing users to stay in the in-app browser. To do this, visit a link in the TikTok app and tap the three dots (…). Choose “default browser” from the list of options and it will launch your phone’s default web browser. As a result, this shortcut now has little practical use. This will be the final update regarding this post.

Update 2 03/19/2022: Added action to restore original functionality. Shortcut link in article has been updated.

Update 1 03/19/2022: The most recent version of iOS (15.4 at the time of this writing) has broken the Shortcut and only extracts the first line of text of the screenshot passed into it. I’m working to update the Shortcut and restore functionality.

I finally got fed up with TikTok’s hostile UX and locking iOS users to using only TikTok’s in-app web browser when visiting creators’ independent websites on their TikTok profiles. I call it hostile behavior because of the difficulty TikTok makes to open a creator’s website in a separate app, be it Safari or 3rd-party app like Chrome, Firefox, or Brave. This is also shady behavior on TikTok by forcing users to stay within the confines of the in-app web browser. If a website does not have appropriate traffic encryption in place, TikTok may be able to capture and siphon any information passing through the in-app browser and tying that browsing history to the user. This means:

• First and last names typed in for online petitions

• Email addresses submitted for newsletters

• Shipping addresses provided for purchases

• Login information to access other online services

• Other private information entered through text

TikTok ensures this web traffic goes through only their in-app browser so that it stays within their sandbox of iOS to stockpile this information and more. TikTok pushes a number of tricks on iOS to accomplish this.

An “Ominous” Message

When a user visits a profile weblink that is properly secured so the Clock App cannot eavesdrop on web traffic, TikTok gives a message of caution to the user through a confirmation screen before displaying the page, stating:

“You’re about to open an external website. Be cautious and keep your personal information safe.”

Ironically, TikTok only presents this “warning” when your personal information is safe from prying eyes, even TikTok’s.

View fullsize

Screenshot of TikTok’s confirmation screen before visiting secure websites.

Making the URL Text Inaccessible

Another method employed by TikTok is making the text of the URL nearly inaccessible to iOS users. When visiting a creator’s profile, we can easily enough copy the creator’s username from the Clock App by tapping on the username itself, but when trying to copy the text of the URL so we can paste it into Safari the task is not so simple. Even when visiting the creator’s profile page through the “Copy Link” feature on their profile page (tapping the three dots in the upper right-hand corner) and pasting this link into Safari, TikTok hides the creator’s website URL in when visiting the profile page in a mobile web view. See below, where @underthedesknews linktr.ee URL is visible on the TikTok app view (left) versus when viewing their same profile page through the mobile web app view in Safari (right):

The Workaround (ios shortcut)

After searching the web for a workaround and finding none, I eventually discovered and developed my own. By taking a screenshot of the TikTok creator’s profile page, I could use the Live Text OCR (object character recognition) feature integrated into iOS (versions 13 and up) to copy the URL and paste it into Safari. However, the process was very cumbersome switching between apps and copying/pasting over and over, and whenever something gets repetitive it’s best to make a Shortcut.

After more brainstorming and research I was able to build off the work of iOS Shortcuts wizard Matthew Cassinelli by taking his “Extract text from photo” Shortcut and modifying it. The Shortcut takes any photo containing text (in this case, a screenshot of the TikTok creator’s profile with their URL), and scrapes out any text in the photo. From the lines of text the Shortcut scraped, we select the one that contains the website link. That line of text containing the URL to the “Get URLs from” operator, which keeps only the text making up the URL. The Shortcut finally opens the URL in Safari.

Shortcut demo

Play the video from my tweet below to see a demo of the Shortcut in action.

Testing out a Shortcut I made /w the immense help of @mattcassinelli’s “Extract text from photo” shortcut to bypass TikTok’s enforcement of using their in-app web browser on iOS. pic.twitter.com/SWcO8grnXf

— Phil Kasper (@philkasper) March 15, 2022

Caveats

The Shortcut can be run through the Share Sheet or separately from within the Shortcuts app. I prefer to run it immediately after I take a screenshot through the Share Sheet. However, keep in mind that each time a screenshot is taken the screenshot will end up in the Camera Roll, so don’t forget to clear them out from time to time if you don’t want screenshots clogging it up.

Remember: this Shortcut can only work with the text it is able to detect and “see” in the photo. That means if a URL is too long that it goes off the screen and the link trails off with ellipses (…), then the URL may not render properly and the user may see receive a 404 error when trying to visit the website.

I’ll update the link to the Shortcut above as I find better ways to improve the process of opening links from the TikTok app into Safari. If you’re as irked by TikTok’s web browser sandboxing as I am and you have any suggestions or alternatives to my method, let me know on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, or in the comments below

Auditing My Social Circles

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.“ - Jim Rohn

This is a quote that’s been sitting and weighing on my mind a lot lately. In the past year I haven’t been spending much time physically around people, but, like many others, I’ve taken more to my social circles across the vastness of the Internet. I’ve forged new relationships with great people as a result, but other older relationships have taken a strain due to a lack of perspective, understanding, communication, and patience. Take the normal stresses of everyday life from within the home, to the work place, and out in public in general and combine that with the compounded stress of a global pandemic and the needless politicization on top of that and I can see why it may lead to a downward trajectory of my mental health and outlook on the future.

The Final Straw

What was the final straw for me were not only the reprehensible actions I witnessed on January 6th 2021 via live television and through various Internet livestreams (many from the perpetrators of the insurrection), but people in my social circles celebrating or encouraging the insurrection. A family member even attempted to gaslight my criticism of their praise for these insurrectionists, calling me a socialist and perpetuating the false narrative that “antifa” were actually the ones storming the Capitol in an attempt to make our President look bad. I immediately took action to reduce my contact with this person on social media.

That’s when I came to realize that I need to start surrounding myself with more positive and motivating people. People that not only have spiritual faith, but practical faith in things such as science, medicine, and critical thinking. By doing this it means I must distance myself from the negative, pessimistic, divisive, discouraging or conspiratorially-minded people in my life. As a result, I’ve decided to audit my social circles and cut those people out who I feel influence my psyche in a negative way.

An Open Appeal

If you are reading this and find we are no longer connected through one of the myriad of social networks that I interact with, I want you to know that this does not mean I do not want anything to do with you. I find your content not in the frame of mind into which I want to push myself. As a result I am limiting my interaction with your content, but I do not want to limit my availability to you. Do not think this means that I want nothing to do with you. If you are ever in a time of need - be it in need of prayer, words of encouragement, financial help, advice, a place to stay or any other variety of reasons - please feel free to reach out to me by any means necessary. I promise to listen, respond and assist however I can. Over time we may be able to reconnect through these social circles again, but until then distance is needed for a time of reflection on both of our parts.

I pray and wish you peace and happiness in the future.

Sincerely,

~Phil

Book Review: The Art of Social Media

I just blazed through The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, the latest book from Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick regarding online social presence. I believe this should be on any current Social Media Marketer/Analyst/Strategist's reading list. Even though I've used the major social media platforms discussed in the book for years (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.), I still walked away with some great insights on how I can enhance my usage across these various platforms.

Tons of Tips

This book is packed with hundreds of social media tips (123 to be exact). These tips range from just basics in social media to help establish your brand (picking a screen name, what kind of pictures to use for your profile, etc.) to using advanced features of specific platforms (e.g. Chapter 8 - How To Run Google+ Hangouts on Air).

In addition, Guy and Peg give a plethora of online web services and tools that can be used to provide interesting or entertaining content (Chapter 2 - Feed the Content Monster) or help in publishing posts to multiple platforms and streamlining or scheduling posts to different social media outlets. There are also a number of online tools that can enhance the usage of a specific platform, such as Twubs for tracking Twitter hashtags or Tiberr for increasing exposure of one's blog post. I even used Guy's graphic tool service, Canva, mentioned in the book to create a quick and easy graphic for this review.

Some Criticisms

Most of the information found in this book is very useful, but as Guy and Peg point out, "No matter how smart you are, best practices always change, because the platforms change how their sites work." Technology moves fast and iterates quickly, and the same can be applied directly to social media. If you're going to read this book, read it soon and quickly, because even though this book was published in December of 2014 it's starting to become outdated. For example, Guy mentions how to "Use Comments and +1s to Run Polls [on Google+]." However, Google added a built-in polling feature to Google Plus in October of 2014, so there's no longer a need to use the workaround of adding comments to a post and use the +1s as "votes" in his example.

My own personal tip: if you're going to read this book, get the eBook version from Amazon or the book's website. The eBook contains hundreds of useful URLs to the services and examples listed throughout the book, and you can quickly jump to the example or resource provided with a quick click of the mouse or tap of the finger. I do not recommend reading the physical dead-tree version like I did. Although I could Google many of the tools Guy and Peg mention in their book, it still left me with frustrations of not being able pull up several examples while reading. The screenshots and pictures were sometimes difficult to make out in the printed examples as well.
 

The Bottom Line...

All in all, whether you're just starting out in social media or perceive yourself as a seasoned veteran in the social arena, this quick and easy read contains plenty of useful nuggets to extract and help you increase your online presence.

Update: As Guy points out in the comments, physical book readers can got here to find a digital document containing all of the URLs listed in the book.

Twitter Testing "Buy" Button for Feeds

Twitter announced a new buying system in the works for users today with the aim to make shopping on a mobile device more seamless. Partnered brands, artists, and charities such as Burberry, Eminem, and (RED) will begin to tweet special offers and merchandise with a "Buy" button that will allow you to purchase the product directly from the tweet. Since this is in the testing phase, only a percentage of U.S. users will see this new purchase method, and the user will need to follow brand in order to see the special offering.

It appears that Twitter is working with online payment startup Stripe, as pointed out by Re/code, to secure credit card and billing information. Once you make your first purchase through this new buying initiative, your payment information is encrypted and stored so additional purchases can be made more easily. Twitter goes on to say that "your credit card is processed securely and won’t be shared with the seller without your permission."

A Virtual Strip Mall

I believe Twitter is building up to make a virtual strip mall, but with the advantage of having only stores that users want to see and shop from. This can be a powerful revenue medium for Twitter, which has been trying to find ways to monetize its service outside of traditional advertising methods of sponsored tweets. Using this new approach, however, users will be able to build up their own custom strip mall and see what they want to be sold by following the brands they want to buy from. If this testing phase goes well and more brands hop on board to increase their own revenue streams, the 271 million active users Twitter reported on in Q3 of 2014 will begin to look quite valuable as this new initiative is pushed out to more users later in the year.

Source: Twitter