I’m a Home User non techie whose been hacked both over wired & wirelessly within the last year. So, I’m very interested in Security. First, when I clicked on the link to “activate” a balena acct. my firewall disconected briefly & then I was connected to ballena etcher forums. I want to know right now how, why, & if you put something on my operating system to violate my security / & or privacy in the future. I don’t need to visit your website of use your services if so, & I will immediately remove all programs & services you offer. If your response is my information is safe with your website, save your breath, because all websites say the same. The best privacy / security is to not collect information in the first place! Please answer this before I go any further?
Hi @saj54 and welcome to the forums!
By “balena account” you mean for the forums? Our forums are powered by an open source platform called Discourse, and technically I don’t see how this platform that is on the web would be able to do anything to your firewall that is on your computer.
Regarding Etcher, the software is installed on your machine and by definition needs priviledged access to be able to write on you flash drive. The software is also open source: GitHub - balena-io/etcher: Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily. · GitHub. We used to collect anonymous data in Etcher for product analytics but we don’t anymore. We still collect crash logs, but you can opt out from these.
Finally all of our websites and products are GDPR compliant, we don’t collect any data without your consent. You will not be tracked if you don’t accept analytics cookies.