The Browsers discussion

Not all of us have the money for that and luxury of that.

Yeah, for a while I was pretty privacy conscious. I was doxxed pretty hard after I sold my company. There wasn't anything too malicious with it, but people ordered me and my family so many pizzas and signed us up for so many gay porn mailing lists... The idea of 'swatting' didn't really exist back then, or someone might have done that.

These days, there's not much to be concerned about (for me).
 


Rather than messing with a hosts file or apps I just use NextDNS. it works on Android by using the Private DNS setting that Android 9+ has. For Linux I setup each browser and just to be on the safe side, I set it up using /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.
Screenshot at 2021-11-03 13-46-09.png
 
These days, there's not much to be concerned about (for me).
Nor I.
The info that could be gleaned about me, (now) would likely bore them stupid.
 
The info that could be gleaned about me, (now) would likely bore them stupid.

Yeah, some folks even know my last name. It'd be trivial to find me in the real world.

It's all good. If anyone happens to be stopping by, be sure to stop at the store for some beer.
 
So reading that article which @wizardfromoz linked, it further states "Brave also "phones home" ...is there a procedure or an addon or whatever to silence the 'phone' ?
Yeah, Brave was caught using their refferal links to redirect users to earn some "ching chings" which they admitted and apologized later.
Try Gnuicecat or librewold which I guess @SpongebobFan1994 is also using. Both are harderened for privacy and security at default
 
Lately their discussion around open source browsers vs proprietary browsers and the evils of google. The thing do not understand why the need for a privacy focus open source browser when most people keep going to youtube, and gmail. ? which are both are owned by google and is gathering some information about you . i do not know how google gathered the information that im on linux but it their .If you really want no tracking or information to be given out then best option is to use Protonmail for email and odyssey for consuming video. if you going to still use google platforms like Youtube you might as well google chrome browser from the best media consumption. I would like to know your thoughts on this.
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if you only browse youtube, then you are right. They might as well use google chrome in that situation.
But majority of people browse news articles, forums,etc.... GC collects so many information, they cross track all devices we use. We don't know what they can do even beyond tracking our internet activity if we choose to install GC on our devices. So, Brave and Chromium is the best answer for those who only use their webbrowsers to browse youtube,gmail,fb,insta and other garbage. Actually, there is no reason not to uninstall GC and then install Brave or chromium since both of them are faster than GC
 
Google is mange their security system strongly than other service provider and it is more reliable to use
 
Would like to enlighten me a bit on these, please?
Would like to enlighten me a bit on these, please?
Both gnuicecat and librewolf are demozillaed Firefox browsers (just like degoogled chromium browser). Right out of the box, both of these forks disable javascripts, telemetry services, etc. (I don't have anything against firefox browser, even Tor is based on FF. I don't really understand why google is the default search engine on FF and pocket is enabled at default.)
I don't think these are suitable for normies though because most of websites breaks down when disabling java scripts.However, this website is designed and created well;), not many websites are like this.
It just shows this message when visiting, but it does not break down unlike other bloated websites..
1640850439323.png

So, whoever created this, you have done a good job buddy.
Librewolf is now available on mac os and "Windoze" too, but I don't think anyone who wants a better privacy will use it on those oses.
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what about spyware?
Security and privacy are different things. Google's standard for security is a very high one.

It's the T&C you chose to accept when using(*) any of their products or services, including the search engine and Chrome, what make you agree to hand over your activity, socioeconomic and geopolitical data to them.

(*): no need for a Google Account.
 
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^^^^....what @gvisoc said above. THAT hits the nail on the head !!
 
Security and privacy are different things. Google's standard for security is a very high one.

It's the T&C you chose to accept when using(*) any of their products or services, including the search engine and Chrome, what make you agree to hand over your activity, socioeconomic and geopolitical data to them.

(*): no need for a Google Account.
yeah, I agree with you. but google doesn't have a history that they take consumer's side when it comes to either security or privacy. Sometimes they don't fix vulnerabilities as soon as they're discovered in order to gain more access to user's data.
So, instead of using google chrome, why people can't use chromium:(
(Though chromium is open source, chrome isn't fully open source.)
 
The whole question of which browser to use etc etc add nauseum.....is really terrifyingly simple.

If you use a browser.....any browser.....you will pay for that privilege by sharing some information about you and/or your browsing habits etc etc etc with the owner of that browser.

If you are not comfortable with that, find a browser that you have to PAY for.

If you are still not comfortable, get the hell off the internet.
 
Lately their discussion around open source browsers vs proprietary browsers and the evils of google. The thing do not understand why the need for a privacy focus open source browser when most people keep going to youtube, and gmail. ? which are both are owned by google and is gathering some information about you . i do not know how google gathered the information that im on linux but it their .If you really want no tracking or information to be given out then best option is to use Protonmail for email and odyssey for consuming video. if you going to still use google platforms like Youtube you might as well google chrome browser from the best media consumption. I would like to know your thoughts on this.
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honestly i think theres so much money put into new ways to extract our personal data that i just assume every you do on the internet is cached and recorded on some super server somewhere. I perosnally think anonymity doesnt exist anymore, NSA and CIA have been known to of created persistant firmware malware. in other words they have found creative ways to write there spying into our hardware. Unless you are an expert in computer science and and also a security and networking expert i think most of us stand little chance. Go only knows what algorythms and A.I they use for our data behind closed doors. Our most imporant data is our "biometric data" at least with any of our digital data , we can change passwords, musical tastes, hobbies and interests but we cant change our DNA, retina pattern or finger prints. Be warey of ancestry sites mining everybodys DNA, who knows what they are mapping with that kind of DATA!

I use firefox when it comes to browsers!
 
I perosnally think anonymity doesnt exist anymore,

It really doesn't exist anymore. At best, on the public web, you've got pseudonymous as an option, At some point, it may have been reasonably possible to be fairly anonymous, even to government agencies. They simply didn't have the resources to figure out who you were.

If you use TOR then you're reasonably private IF YOU STAY ON THE TOR NETWORK - and ONLY if you do that. If the domain ends in .onion (and you don't have scripting enabled) then you can be pretty sure nobody knows who you are - until you start leaving your personal information around.

Using TOR and then going on the public net is subjecting you to things like timing attacks.
 
It really doesn't exist anymore. At best, on the public web, you've got pseudonymous as an option, At some point, it may have been reasonably possible to be fairly anonymous, even to government agencies. They simply didn't have the resources to figure out who you were.

If you use TOR then you're reasonably private IF YOU STAY ON THE TOR NETWORK - and ONLY if you do that. If the domain ends in .onion (and you don't have scripting enabled) then you can be pretty sure nobody knows who you are - until you start leaving your personal information around.

Using TOR and then going on the public net is subjecting you to things like timing attacks.
personal data is the new currency. with that data they can run it against databases which categorize our "personality types", so governments can get a better hold on the latest trends, who were likley to vote for and make it easier for companies to make us part with our money using sophisitcated algorthyms and subliminal advertising. On one level it does all improve our experience on the web but on the dark side our personal data often is used in an exploitative mannor by the marketing gurus and genius's. They have now "hacked" the human mind, they probaably have algorythms that can detect your personality just by the way we type on a keyboard! Its a balancing act trying to balance seccurity with privacy - the 2 often work antagonistically as opposed to synergystically, the more secure we are the less privacy we have , yet the more freedom we have the less safe we potentially are. If our data is just sat on servers somewhere fr eternity thats fine by me, but what concerns me is we dont know how it may be used against us in the future, none of us can foresee what will be done with our data, perhaps "pre crime" from the movie "minority report" will beocme a real technology based on our searches,interests and purchases they will have data maps of the likelyhood for certain populations and inidviduals who are most likely to commit crime. The human race will be reduced to a large number of 1's and 0's with a pre determined life span and predictors for behaviour, humanity will be in the clutches of a skynet type hybrid computer-organism that calls the shots. There will be be an uprising of linux enthusiasts who will rebel, and run their own operating sytstems on ancient hardware which is so old that cutting edge spyware will not even operate on those machines. Those linux rebels will be led by a "john connor" like leader possibly a giant penguin!
 
personal data is the new currency.

For some definition of 'new'. I recall a relatively famous person (whose name escapes me) lamenting how all of our information was 'going into databases' - and this was back in the mid to late 80s.

We largely ignored them and considered them a bit of a kook, but they weren't wrong with these regards.

They talked about trading and selling databases and how we never knew what information their databases had in them. They discussed how credit cards all recorded the products and prices we paid and more things like that.

I wish I could find it. There's a good video from one of the old computer TV shows on (probably) PBS. Hindsight being 20/20, we probably should have given them more attention.

It might have been Woz? I'm not sure... A part of me wants to say that it was someone that went to school with me, but it was definitely a TV show that they were on.
 

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