Open source OS everywhere, as many foss apps as possible, no google services, no social media, texting through Signal and Matrix, Librewolf configured to throw away all cookies (exept whitelisted sites).
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Interesting! Is librewolf a personal choice or is there a particular reason? Also if I may ask are you on Linux?
Librewolf is a good alternative to hardened Firefox as it comes with sane defaults, removes - instead of disabling - Mozilla crap and doesn't require maintenance.
Although, I personally think trying to achieve privacy by using a less secure engine like Gecko is counter productive and futile.
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I just avoid services that invade my privacy and freedom.
I am on my browser a lot. I use VPN most of the time. Am blocking ads system-wide with DNS on all my devices.
I have like only 30-40 sites that I allow to save cookies. Any site that won't work without cookies is opened in a guest/temp profile, if I use such a site frequently it makes to the allowlist. Same allowlist principle is applied to the number of apps I install. If the service works well on the browser am not installing it.
I also use Jshelter and NoScript to allowlist Javascript, WebGL (farbled with Jshelter) and other browser properties. My browsers are mostly on a Javascript allowlist for my PC and on a denylist for my phone because I don't use it as much as my PC and am fine with the hardened levels on Cromite.
I self-host most of the services I constantly use (those that I can) and use community alternatives whenever I can just to avoid giving data/analytics to FAANG. That said I sometimes cheat with Twitter & Instagram (haven't opened this in forever) all on PWAs with a separate browser (Mulch).
It's a bit overkill but am safisfied with the level of control.
That browser setup is inspiring. Reminds me of a TOR Browser on steroids + VPN. May I ask you which VPN you prefer using?
The free version of ProtonVPN is sufficient enough for my use.
Local Kiwix.org server for most research, local LLMs through huggingface.co to play with new tech, FOSS & hardened OS, openwrt router, lots of physical books, e2e encryption and mail for a good amount of correspondence
I wouldn't say it's hiding, since my finger print is unique and everything is tracked, logged and will be broken some day if attacked long enough. More, just a bit of relief from the observer effect since I'm just a human trying to breathe
relief is the right word
linux on my pc, /e/OS(degoogled privacy focused lineage OS fork) on my phone, phone has the Mull browser which is basically arkenfox mobile. On pc hardened firefox with custom DNS and ublock origin set to block thirdparty scripts also noscript with default set to be same as untrusted. Keepasa XC on pc and keepass dx on mobile. Also I am spoofing my location and blocking trackers systemwide on my phone. Libredirect on firefox also so that I don't have to go to the tracker filled social media sites at all, oh also the skip redirect extension and url shortener list for ublock. And most things I use are FOSS. oh I also use the startpage as my search engine on all my devices. Also protonmail.
How do you achieve the location spoofing?
built into /e/OS
GrapheneOS for phone. Multiple user accounts to further isolate apps.
Pi-hole as a recursive dns server with dnssec also using unbound for DoT for home network and IoT devices.
AirVPN for my daily driver devices and windscribe for other devices that may need a vpn.
Proton for E2EE mail and storage. SimpleLogin for alias emails.
Try to use FOSS apps and block trackers where I can. Feeder (RSS), Squawker (Twitter frontend), and Eternity (Lemmy app) have replaced all the more popular social media apps.
Bitwarden for password manager.
For browsers I use Firefox with some settings tweaked or Mullvad (if I'm concerned about fingerprinting).
Question: how do you deal with the fact that ProtonMail can theoretically track you? (At least from the last time i checked) For that reason i prefer countermail
Another question: which phone model would you reccomend for grapheneOS?
All email providers can track you, read your emails, do whatever else Google and Microsoft does. Email by design, is not secure or private and you should not be using email if you're concerned that Proton potentially tracking you is harmful.
Yeah as another said, any email provider can track you. If your threat model has that as a concern then you should always be logging into your email with a vpn on.
As for GrapheneOS I think the Pixel 8 series is most recommended. MTE was a huge security boost. The staff also says do not get anything lower then a pixel 6 as they are to close to end of life.