Data lock-in

<mediawiki xmlns="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11/ http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11.xsd" version="0.11" xml:lang="en">
  <siteinfo>
    <sitename>Consumer Rights Wiki</sitename>
    <dbname>wiki</dbname>
    <base>https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page</base>
    <generator>MediaWiki 1.44.0</generator>
    <case>first-letter</case>
    <namespaces>
      <namespace key="-2" case="first-letter">Media</namespace>
      <namespace key="-1" case="first-letter">Special</namespace>
      <namespace key="0" case="first-letter" />
      <namespace key="1" case="first-letter">Talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="2" case="first-letter">User</namespace>
      <namespace key="3" case="first-letter">User talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="4" case="first-letter">Consumer Rights Wiki</namespace>
      <namespace key="5" case="first-letter">Consumer Rights Wiki talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="6" case="first-letter">File</namespace>
      <namespace key="7" case="first-letter">File talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="8" case="first-letter">MediaWiki</namespace>
      <namespace key="9" case="first-letter">MediaWiki talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="10" case="first-letter">Template</namespace>
      <namespace key="11" case="first-letter">Template talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="12" case="first-letter">Help</namespace>
      <namespace key="13" case="first-letter">Help talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="14" case="first-letter">Category</namespace>
      <namespace key="15" case="first-letter">Category talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="106" case="first-letter">Form</namespace>
      <namespace key="107" case="first-letter">Form talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="828" case="first-letter">Module</namespace>
      <namespace key="829" case="first-letter">Module talk</namespace>
      <namespace key="3004" case="first-letter">Projects</namespace>
      <namespace key="3005" case="first-letter">Projects talk</namespace>
    </namespaces>
  </siteinfo>
  <page>
    <title>Data lock-in</title>
    <ns>0</ns>
    <id>6756</id>
    <revision>
      <id>26599</id>
      <timestamp>2025-10-09T08:13:01Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>Created page with "'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.  == Incidents == === Saved pages in Samsung Internet === The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directo..."</comment>
      <origin>26599</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="4009" sha1="g6i8c375o336lipnhrpg3t8imfbmrdy" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

== Incidents ==
=== Saved pages in Samsung Internet ===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

=== Android data folder ===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app ===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app graciously lets paying subscribers of "YouTube Premium" download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== References ==
&lt;references /&gt;</text>
      <sha1>g6i8c375o336lipnhrpg3t8imfbmrdy</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>26612</id>
      <parentid>26599</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-09T14:28:39Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>Keith</username>
        <id>4</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>minor tone edit</comment>
      <origin>26612</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="3993" sha1="os8q2my3cdbl7796ohq3lc0pufkims2" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

== Incidents ==
=== Saved pages in Samsung Internet ===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

=== Android data folder ===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app ===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== References ==
&lt;references /&gt;</text>
      <sha1>os8q2my3cdbl7796ohq3lc0pufkims2</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>26669</id>
      <parentid>26612</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-09T23:57:42Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>Mr Pollo</username>
        <id>391</id>
      </contributor>
      <minor/>
      <origin>26669</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="4019" sha1="14hq7elct6iw1x1p3xhndyh0d0kldo6" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

== Incidents ==
=== Saved pages in Samsung Internet ===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

=== Android data folder ===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app ===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== References ==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>14hq7elct6iw1x1p3xhndyh0d0kldo6</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>26812</id>
      <parentid>26669</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-11T21:33:19Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>Drakeula</username>
        <id>5807</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>see also right to own</comment>
      <origin>26812</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="4036" sha1="cfte2k0fgkny5d7zno3nq31dpo09kll" xml:space="preserve">{{See also|Right to own}}

'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>cfte2k0fgkny5d7zno3nq31dpo09kll</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>27024</id>
      <parentid>26812</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-14T02:08:33Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>Created "see also" section.</comment>
      <origin>27024</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="4044" sha1="e5d2hs4rnbvdscfm9dl599o3hayhsbq" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== See also ==
* [[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>e5d2hs4rnbvdscfm9dl599o3hayhsbq</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>27029</id>
      <parentid>27024</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-14T02:45:49Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>Safari "reading list"</comment>
      <origin>27029</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="4521" sha1="9cp6khk3b3hmthvpk8mgn3hhgpqcnpe" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== See also ==
* [[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>9cp6khk3b3hmthvpk8mgn3hhgpqcnpe</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>27156</id>
      <parentid>27029</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-16T04:55:11Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Incidents */ User data on mobile web browsers.</comment>
      <origin>27156</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="5461" sha1="mtkylyptunw0lwlzm9busfx2ita862p" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== See also ==
* [[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>mtkylyptunw0lwlzm9busfx2ita862p</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>27158</id>
      <parentid>27156</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-16T05:59:25Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Incidents */ unexportable text messages</comment>
      <origin>27158</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="7418" sha1="6e19eli92m6gbnfsyil72c9bfin98yz" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' prevents device owners from accessing data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external data storage to make space free.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank  I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

== See also ==
* [[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>6e19eli92m6gbnfsyil72c9bfin98yz</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>27699</id>
      <parentid>27158</parentid>
      <timestamp>2025-10-19T07:40:49Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>Drakeula</username>
        <id>5807</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>Data portability  /* See also */ Enshitification</comment>
      <origin>27699</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="7629" sha1="iuz4xq4uzippnmimogllgoxqwdmmecb" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>iuz4xq4uzippnmimogllgoxqwdmmecb</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35292</id>
      <parentid>27699</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T10:20:38Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Incidents */ Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings lost as a result of data lock-in.</comment>
      <origin>35292</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="9112" sha1="qcal2yntxa06waj2exbby9bb8d2mgp9" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, used to sell landline Internet television receivers and recorders, named "Entertain" Media Receiver 100, 102, 300, 301, 303, 500. 

Its operating system was designed in a way that it would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devicse stored the television recordings on its internal 512 GB hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the device featured USB ports, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the device when the online service its operating system depended on was shut down. The device was in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.
&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>qcal2yntxa06waj2exbby9bb8d2mgp9</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35293</id>
      <parentid>35292</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T10:24:24Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings */ I couldn't find sources that all models had the same HDD size. Removing for now. Plural because multiple device types.</comment>
      <origin>35293</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="9119" sha1="2gyf5sge8171t9v54tu2tzbglvds3ak" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, used to sell landline Internet television receivers and recorders, named "Entertain" Media Receiver 100, 102, 300, 301, 303, 500. 

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured USB ports, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.
&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>2gyf5sge8171t9v54tu2tzbglvds3ak</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35294</id>
      <parentid>35293</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T10:53:53Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings */ The 100 series had no HDD. More sources.</comment>
      <origin>35294</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10145" sha1="dten86d1ziih4d3g4xvkq25mxq9jtwe" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, used to sell landline Internet television receivers and recorders, named "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured USB ports, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>dten86d1ziih4d3g4xvkq25mxq9jtwe</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35295</id>
      <parentid>35294</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T10:55:15Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <minor/>
      <comment>deduplicate ref</comment>
      <origin>35295</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10060" sha1="b0bzehpmwg88fvh7ad0n42my7aezes5" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, used to sell landline Internet television receivers and recorders, named "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured USB ports, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>b0bzehpmwg88fvh7ad0n42my7aezes5</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35296</id>
      <parentid>35295</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T11:12:54Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings */ +source</comment>
      <origin>35296</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10273" sha1="fjylh4vd4sr7cny0ou25151s0bupvws" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, used to sell landline Internet television receivers and recorders, named "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR500 /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured USB ports, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name=MR500&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>fjylh4vd4sr7cny0ou25151s0bupvws</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35297</id>
      <parentid>35296</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T11:18:47Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings */ Funnily, the thing even had an eSATA - but it was an unused dummy too.</comment>
      <origin>35297</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10522" sha1="cqtmrgcfi2l79k1ambwwuwh5shkk3n7" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, used to sell landline Internet television receivers and recorders, named "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR500 /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name=MR500&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>cqtmrgcfi2l79k1ambwwuwh5shkk3n7</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>35298</id>
      <parentid>35297</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-01-27T11:31:56Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings */ clarified wording</comment>
      <origin>35298</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10544" sha1="k3ix12r8m6idxl4awpxx3fcl35222in" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR500 /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name=MR500&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>k3ix12r8m6idxl4awpxx3fcl35222in</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>36581</id>
      <parentid>35298</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-10T15:51:22Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>+ "and manage"</comment>
      <origin>36581</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10555" sha1="bvnfq1xqjomzgkpqztxcq70ere3ijk1" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[http://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR500 /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name=MR500&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>bvnfq1xqjomzgkpqztxcq70ere3ijk1</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>36741</id>
      <parentid>36581</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-11T17:54:36Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>AnotherConsumerRightsPerson</username>
        <id>4554</id>
      </contributor>
      <minor/>
      <comment>http to https with [[wikipedia:WP:AWB|AutoWikiBrowser]], replaced: http: → https:</comment>
      <origin>36741</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="10556" sha1="l5ol74670278yvppazw9s08vlt6x1nt" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable.&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation]&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR500 /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name=MR500&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>l5ol74670278yvppazw9s08vlt6x1nt</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>37206</id>
      <parentid>36741</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-16T04:23:46Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>Banana</username>
        <id>6361</id>
      </contributor>
      <origin>37206</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12090" sha1="9xqb8011d159hyowkd5x4oac9tiz9z5" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.13-125718/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974%23issuecomment-2721105904 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.03.24-225433/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

=== Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings ===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650  Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR500 /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name=MR500&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name=MR300 /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>9xqb8011d159hyowkd5x4oac9tiz9z5</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>40206</id>
      <parentid>37206</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-28T07:02:11Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>SomebodyThatMayContribute</username>
        <id>8120</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* References */</comment>
      <origin>40206</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12075" sha1="l5i52jvjgempu50grokmqvjh5msk1ej" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053829/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>l5i52jvjgempu50grokmqvjh5msk1ej</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>40207</id>
      <parentid>40206</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-28T07:21:46Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>SomebodyThatMayContribute</username>
        <id>8120</id>
      </contributor>
      <origin>40207</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12078" sha1="afvnes079het391bgv9d1aqh11wv971" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.16-053940/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>afvnes079het391bgv9d1aqh11wv971</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>40208</id>
      <parentid>40207</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-28T07:28:38Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>SomebodyThatMayContribute</username>
        <id>8120</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>replaced cite to megalodon as IA wasn't working on this</comment>
      <origin>40208</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12081" sha1="3bqmjm4a5r2av5q3m81wgna9fbovl1u" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.10.10-130524/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://megalodon.jp/2026-0228-1623-45/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>3bqmjm4a5r2av5q3m81wgna9fbovl1u</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>40210</id>
      <parentid>40208</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-28T07:37:52Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>SomebodyThatMayContribute</username>
        <id>8120</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>replaced cite to closest available (20250806 compared to 2025.10.10 on AT) on IA (as the original page doesn't exists - for any more recent capture)</comment>
      <origin>40210</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12096" sha1="iu3fjxyd22u1d1vwvw2rmx35y4jvngg" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2024.10.12-140435/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[http://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://megalodon.jp/2026-0228-1623-45/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>iu3fjxyd22u1d1vwvw2rmx35y4jvngg</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>40211</id>
      <parentid>40210</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-28T07:42:40Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>SomebodyThatMayContribute</username>
        <id>8120</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>replaced cite to closest available (20250806 compared to 2024.10.12 on AT;) on IA (as the original page doesn't exists - for any more recent capture</comment>
      <origin>40211</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12098" sha1="micgbuhwm56kscvtrv9fjfken6ncm9f" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[http://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[http://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://megalodon.jp/2026-0228-1623-45/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>micgbuhwm56kscvtrv9fjfken6ncm9f</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>40213</id>
      <parentid>40211</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-02-28T07:50:11Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>SomebodyThatMayContribute</username>
        <id>8120</id>
      </contributor>
      <minor/>
      <comment>change line 5, 12 cites to https</comment>
      <origin>40213</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12100" sha1="2xh7ay18gwfkkze5rx8eq8wyz678ygf" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://megalodon.jp/2026-0228-1623-45/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>2xh7ay18gwfkkze5rx8eq8wyz678ygf</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>41531</id>
      <parentid>40213</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-03-06T18:11:56Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>The Apple link was correct.</comment>
      <origin>41531</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12164" sha1="8318agmx7syeogiycri3thvn9s2vh0b" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260228070610/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank archive])&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://megalodon.jp/2026-0228-1623-45/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>8318agmx7syeogiycri3thvn9s2vh0b</sha1>
    </revision>
    <revision>
      <id>41678</id>
      <parentid>41531</parentid>
      <timestamp>2026-03-07T12:19:16Z</timestamp>
      <contributor>
        <username>JodyBruchonFan</username>
        <id>5871</id>
      </contributor>
      <comment>/* Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone */ Correct discussion. The other one was about iMessage, not Safari. It was correct before the editor before me [[special:diff/40208|replaced it with the Samsung discussion link]].</comment>
      <origin>41678</origin>
      <model>wikitext</model>
      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
      <text bytes="12133" sha1="0g8wxq1qkddh37k0m9tbjnjamyirzt8" xml:space="preserve">'''Data lock-in''' limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the app, with no possibility of creating backups or moving them to external storage to free space.  Many social media platforms make it difficult to export data.  '''Data portability''' is a more consumer friendly approach, where it is easy to move data from one application or platform to alternatives.

==Incidents==
===Saved pages in Samsung Internet===
The mobile web browser by Samsung stores saved pages in the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; directory. This is a locked-in directory where apps store data only accessible to themselves.

Users have requested Samsung developers to change its browser to store saved pages in a non-locked-in place that makes them accessible from other applications and makes it possible to create backups, or to let users export copies of saved pages, but Samsung refused to implement this change. Some users have stored thousands of web pages this way before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250806152342/https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/regarding-saved-webpages/5304/1 Regarding saved webpages - Samsung Internet - Samsung Developer Forums]&lt;/ref&gt;

Rooting a device would make the &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt; folder accessible, but this requires an unlocked bootloader. The process of unlocking the bootloader involves a factory reset, which deletes all user-generated files from internal storage.

In comparison, Google Chrome on mobile stores web pages as MHTML files in the download folder where they are not locked in, and Firefox on mobile completely lacks a feature to save pages.

===Saved pages in Apple Safari on iPhone===
Apple refers to saved pages as the "reading list", a name that implies the feature is intended for storing pages only until they are read, not for archival. Like with Samsung, people have asked for an ability to export saved pages. Apple has not responded.&lt;ref&gt;[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638  How do you EXPORT your Reading List from Safari - Apple Community] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20251010130718/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8293638 archive])&lt;/ref&gt;

===User data in mobile web browsers===
No major mobile web browser lets the user export their session (list of opened tabs) and browsing history and bookmarks to a local file. Exporting all tabs may be desirable to start with a fresh session without losing the existing session, and exporting the history makes it easier to search for pages a long time after visiting, beyond what the browser retains.&lt;ref&gt;[https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html The sad state of personal data and infrastructure] - Karl Icoss ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203233117/https://beepb00p.xyz/sad-infra.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Some web browsers have a "Sync" feature that allows synchronizing tabs and bookmarks across devices, but it is cloud-based, meaning it depends on an online service that can cease to operate at any time.&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260202071758/https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ How to Export Chrome Bookmarks for the Last Time] - Workona ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126072849/https://workona.com/pages/how-to-export-chrome-bookmarks/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Text messages===
The built-in text messaging applications of both Android and iOS lack a built-in local export option.

On Android, the third-party app "SMS Backup+" can create exports, but they can not be directly stored locally, only uploaded to the middleman GMail, which requires Internet connection and a Google account, and can cease to function at any time due to Google API changes.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250314125929/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/974 Feature request: save to local file · Issue #974 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20250313124817/https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/1110 SMS -Backup+ unable to log into my email to backup SMS messages · Issue #1110 · jberkel/sms-backup-plus · GitHub]&lt;/ref&gt;

On iOS, exporting apps require payment, an external computer, and save as PDF, resulting in much larger files than plain text.&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20251111204709/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255416051?sortBy=rank Export iMessage conversation - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://megalodon.jp/2026-0228-1623-45/https://discussions.apple.com:443/thread/255674743?sortBy=rank I want to download my messages to an external drive (flash drive) - Apple Community]&lt;/ref&gt;

Chat messages can be archived manually with screenshots and screen recordings, but this takes lots of time and manual work, and the resulting files can not be searched for text and will be much larger in size than a plain text-based export would be.

[[WhatsApp]] lets the user export messages to a text file, but this has to be done for each conversation individually, and starting with an April 2025 update, exporting can be remotely disabled by the other participant.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2025.08.28-001731/https://faq.whatsapp.com/715385484388016/?cms_platform=web About advanced chat privacy &amp;#x7C; WhatsApp Help Center]&lt;/ref&gt;

===Android data folder===
Since Android 11, apps can no longer browse the &lt;code&gt;Android/data&lt;/code&gt; folder in the shared user storage (not to be confused with &lt;code&gt;/data&lt;/code&gt;, which was locked in since the beginning).&lt;ref&gt;[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Storage updates in Android 11  &amp;#x7C;  Android Developers]: If your app targets Android 11, it cannot access the files in any other app's data directory, even if the other app targets Android 8.1 (API level 27) or lower and has made the files in its data directory world-readable ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260130032658/https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/storage Archived]).&lt;/ref&gt;

===Videos downloaded inside the YouTube app===
YouTube provides no official way for people to create permanent local copies of videos. This includes Creative Commons media.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 07:20&lt;/ref&gt; The only exception is YouTube Studio allowing channel owners to download their own videos in up to 720p.&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Changes to Unlisted Videos Uploaded Before 2017], 4:30 ([https://preservetube.com/watch?v=l6UHS1-vDMM Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

While the YouTube app lets paying YouTube Premium subscribers download videos for offline viewing, the videos are only accessible through the YouTube app, encoded in a proprietary format, and forcibly deleted after 29 days.&lt;ref&gt;[https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/L1S0SiBuJN8 Google is Locking Down Android - Mental Outlaw], 06:41&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 YouTube videos offline FAQs - YouTube Help] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260207132551/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7381437 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Warning: Youtube Premium "Downloads" aren't MP4 Files - Virtual Curiosities] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20251126100053/https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/articles/3383/warning-youtube-premium-downloads-arent-mp4-files Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html What's Wrong with YouTube - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041246/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

Permanent local copies are necessary to preserve Internet history when YouTube ceases to operate:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;ref&gt;[https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ My Dependencies on the Cloud] - Karl Voit ([https://web.archive.org/web/20260216041319/https://karl-voit.at/cloud-dependencies/ Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

===Telekom Entertain media receiver recordings===
The German Telekom, an Internet and Internet Television provider, sells landline Internet television receivers and recorders. A former product line were the "Entertain" Media Receiver 300, 301, 303, and 500. (The 100 and 102 were secondary devices with no internal hard drives. The others had hard drives between 160 and 500 GB.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101349/https://www.telekom-profis.de/vermitteln/news/media-receiver-mr-102-wieder-erhaeltlich-60.html Media Receiver MR 102 wieder erhältlich! - Telekom Profis] (June 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6725650 Media Receiver 100] (user manual)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://www.woogmedia.de:443/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Media Receiver 300 Bedienungsanleitung] (user manual) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260210175058/https://www.woogmedia.de/downloads/BDA_MR300.pdf Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Deutsche Telekom T-Home Media Receiver 300] - hifitest.de (June 2009) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260208092154/https://www.hifitest.de/test/stereoanlage-und-komplettanlage/deutsche-telekom-t-home-media-receiver-300-380 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-101343/https://www.golem.de/1101/80856.html Media Receiver 303: Neuer Festplattenrekorder für Telekom Entertain - Golem.de] (January 2011)&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR500" /&gt;)

Their operating systems were designed in a way that they would not boot without connecting to Telekom servers, and the devices stored the television recordings on their internal hard drive in a proprietary format, and provided the user with no means of copying or moving recordings to external media such as an external flash drive or hard drive, meaning users were forced to delete recordings when running out of disk space. While the devices featured up to two USB ports, some even an eSATA port, they had no use other than supplying electrical power.&lt;ref name="MR500"&gt;[https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Deutsche Telekom Media Receiver 500 Sat] - hifitest.de (June 2012) ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250621145244/https://www.hifitest.de/test/sat-receiver-mit-festplatte/deutsche-telekom-media-receiver-500-sat-6114 Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref name="MR300" /&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Telekom Media-Receiver 303 (MR303 Festplattenrekorder)] - telekom.tarife-angebote.de ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260127112814/https://telekom.tarife-angebote.de/magenta-zuhause/entertain/media-receiver-empfaenger/mr303-iptv-festplattenrekorder Archived])&lt;/ref&gt;

In 2019, its users lost access to all recordings stored locally on the devices when the online service their operating system depended on was shut down. The devices were in service for eight years (since 2011), meaning users would lose access to up to eight years of television recordings.&lt;ref&gt;[https://archive.today/2026.01.27-095619/https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100604/https://www.telekom.com/de/konzern/details/magentatv-loest-entertain-ab-558808 MagentaTV löst Entertain ab | Deutsche Telekom]&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;[https://web.archive.org/web/20210412055921/https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/telekom-zieht-2019-beim-alten-entertain-den-stecker_214313.html Telekom zieht 2019 beim alten "Entertain" den Stecker]&lt;/ref&gt;

==See also==
*[[Enshittification]]
*[[Right to own]]

==References==
&lt;references /&gt;
[[Category:Common terms]]</text>
      <sha1>0g8wxq1qkddh37k0m9tbjnjamyirzt8</sha1>
    </revision>
  </page>
</mediawiki>