As the title says, what are the risks, I assume people don’t host these servers for no reason. Is it just the ad revenue they get from the popups when trying to start the movie.
Could they be running exploits on here that would make it not safe at all to do so?
As a web developer, should be okay. Still risks involved.
I don’t have a iOS device. Can you get Firefox and run adblockers and privacy software? If so, do it.
If you want additional protection:
Pi-hole at the router level.
You can run adblockers and other privacy extensions in Safari. Unfortunately Firefox on iOS doesn’t support extensions, because it still uses Safari to display the pages (iOS is dumb that way).
If you have a 1-click exploit for iOS, you’re not using it on a shitty movie site. You’re selling it for top dollar to governments.
If you use safari content blockers combined with a DNS blocker configuration to block ads and malware, you should be fine. A lot of those sites will break though, compared to viewing them on desktop FF with uBO.
No, No, and Yes.
Browsers are fairly secure, no simple site would have an exploit. Just don’t give them info.
Yes ads would be their main income.
Using the default browser on an iOS device should be fairly safe, assuming that you accept all security updates as they become available. Outdated browsers, on the other hand, are a major security risk.
For legitimate free movie sites (Plex, etc.), ads are indeed the main source of income, along with paid services like the ability to rent current movies. If you are smart about it, they may not collect too much of your personal information.
For the rest, the business model relies on pop-up based scams, hijacking machines for botnets, and ransomware.
Browser updates on iOS devices are tied to system updates and people put off a system update longer that an app update. So no, not as safe as OTA updates independent of the OS, as they are on every other god damn operating system.
True, that is a thing to consider. I have to use an iPhone because I get it through my place of employment, and if I had a nickel for every time the actual OS postponed an automatic update because I wasn’t connected to power / I seemed busy / the stars just weren’t aligned properly, I would probably have over a dollar.
In that respect, I like my desktop (Debian) so much better: I can set it to update the OS automatically, which includes all installed software (as long as it’s installed through the official repository), and it will let me know if something failed to upgrade, so I can do it by hand. Also, they rock at getting critical security updates out in a timely manner. I’m not sure how much I trust Apple with that.
