What's the one between TikTok and Alexa and the one below iCloud?
I'm on between 2 and 4 of those hooks (though one is in pretty deep) depending on what those other 2 are. Though I suspect that if I was using them on a regular basis I'd recognize their logos.
Much of the obsession internet people have over ""privacy"" is just a feel-good-about-themselves thing, rather than actually protecting themselves from their data being collected and used. If you're posting on the internet, yes that includes Lemmy, there's almost no doubt that any government and world-destroying corporation would have easy access to everything about you in an instant, even if you go out of your way to try to use services "focused on privacy". You aren't protecting yourself from anything by not using Google/Microsoft/etc. products.
There is no "chipping away bit-by-bit" when it comes to this, it's pretty much meaningless unless you're nearly completely off the grid, to the point where you don't even use modern technology. The worst you're gonna do otherwise is fuck up targetted ads, but that's not very hard to do considering Google apparently thought I was a pregnant woman looking for leather boots and beauty products when I still had ads on YouTube.
I wish people would admit it's really not about their privacy. Say it's because FOSS services are better (because they are), say it's so you don't get spam from shitty sites you gave your email to, say it's so you can fit in in your niche online communities, whatever. But 99.99% of people in "privacy" communities haven't even put a dent in the data being collected from them by large entities, hell most people in these communities think VPNs will protect them from anything at all other than their parents or boss not noticing them being on porn sites (VPNs can help with privacy, but only under specific conditions that most people aren't meeting)...
Okay then, I'll ask you this. What can you demonstrate that you have prevented extremely large corporations or the government from doing with your information by replacing some of your services with "privacy-focused" services? Do you really think that, say, the NSA and Amazon don't know you better than you know yourself regardless of your efforts? What do you think is prevented by using some isolated services while you still, no doubt, have most of your data being collected and used by other things?
Could you prove that your life would be any different if, for example, every single piece of information Meta has about you that you don't know they have were wiped off of their servers? Or that anyone here's life would be different?
The only thing I could imagine you could demonstrate is that targetted ads could be "worse". Which is a non-answer, many peoples' ads are completely inaccurate regardless, and ads aren't such a good metric to base the government's or Nvidia's or whoever's access to your data off of.
Fact of the matter is is that, unless you're mega-Amish, your efforts to prevent powerful entities from collecting your data are meaningless, they don't work well, and without strong privacy laws it will forever be that way unless everyone suddenly agrees to only use FOSS user-friendly products and all the ISPs are replaced by good guys. I guess some people here have spent thousands of dollars and hours in an attempt to keep their privacy in their own hands in spite of that, so they have to convince themselves it does work... I don't blame them, government corruption & corporatism has made me desparate before too.
I love when people try to text wall and rhetoric to „winning“ a convo to ultimately feel good.
Neither have I the time nor the patience to point at all the biases and fallacies included in this.
Surprise fact: People can do whatever they like. If they install an ad blocker and deny tracking as much as possible, that is great and every little bit against megacorps is great.
This comment is defeatist to no end.
Instead of telling people to give up and be how you imagine people should be, be the change that you want and show them how to protect themselves and how to do things „the right way“.
If this person's beliefs are sincerely held, showing people on the internet the "the right way" to go about being serious about privacy is an impossible task. One can't be on the World Wide Web and "be the change they wish see" (i.e. not be on the web) with regards to their privacy perspective.
And I'm not sure if it's defeatist to state that all of us, just by being online, likely have some hooks in our mouths. It's just the cost we pay for not being luddites. Yes, there's benefits to not having a ton of hooks in us, which is why we do what we do, but even one hook is enough to steal your private info and sell it to everyone. We're posting to the World Wide Web after all, not Gopher/Gemini/Onion. Hell, this goes beyond the internet since the DMV freely sells your personal information too. We make these limited sacrifices so we have an actual community instead of feeling like we're self-righteous in our loneliness.
But if you look a bit deeper at this, my conclusion is that it all depends on your needs and your habits. It is quite possible to minimize the amount of tracking that is done.
And doing so makes me feel a bit more relaxed personally about the surveillance capitalism circus and that is well worth it.
First, when you get into these arguments, always start from the viewpoint that these people do not see any worth in their data. Their convenience is worth way more than any privacy breach. That's why your goal is usually to convince them that privacy breaches can be a huge innconvenience for them, use their selfishness to advocate for their self-interest.
Quick example, what defines something that needs to be hidden changes constantly with different governments and regulatory bodies. There's no telling if your current data won't be illegal or something in the future, causing you problems. That's why it's important to have protections for your data to begin with so a future government can't just unilaterally decide to trample all over your rights.
Basically, see what they care about and try advocating from that viewpoint, not your personal viewpoint. There's a good chance you'll have a line of argument.
I find that I have more success convincing people if I put their self-interest first and foremost instead of trying to explain some grand ideology. People want something tangible, not a hazy ideal. It's only when something affects them that they may change their views.
If you didnt hide your preferences, likes, dislikes, etc. from ad giants like facebook they show you ads and suck out your wealth, doing psychological experiments using you - might be a good argument but people may even ignore that
I would likely go with would you change clothes with the door open? Would you take a shit in the public? How would it feel if someone took a picture of you naked? This won't likely work for those who have this kinks though lmao.
To be fair though, with those kinks there's a pretty big difference between always being pushed into that situation instead of in a controlled environment you prepared for, interactions you planned out with peope who you trust to a certain degree with safety put in place for a pre-specified amount of time.
I think the key word there is consent. And the other important topic is distribution.
Would you consent to having your picture taken naked is different to someone taking a picture without you knowing or them asking for consent. If you wanted the picture of you naked and the person wanted to take a picture of you naked, both sides consented. But then how it is distributed is another matter. You can still not have the consent a person would need to distribute the picture. This is why it’s becoming illegal in more and more countries to show a naked picture to someone you took with your phone even if that person consented to have the picture taken that does not mean they consent to you to distribute it acting on behalf as their agent. In cases where this has happened the person poses or sends the picture to one person they want to have it. That isn’t agency to distribute it or/and make money off of it.
A person taking a shit in public or changing with the door open are both examples of giving consent to be publicly seen if you’re deciding to do the act however the witnesses to it are not giving consent to have it in their space to be forced to see it. But then should one of the witnesses have a cel phone and film you shitting or changing in public, this also falls into the you-didn’t-consent to how it’s distributed.
The whole privacy issue is it is done entirely without one person giving consent to have their information distributed. Even if you did consent to give that person some personal information, they then decide without your consent to act as your agent about your personal information in how it’s distributed.
"Do you have a shredder? Do you keep your payment information in an exposed location. If you found out a company leaked your credit card data, your phone number, everything you'd ever said to your therapist, how would you feel?"
Ask them about their bank, all their passwords, the contact information of everyone they ever loved, ya know, in case you ever need to use that information against them or without their consent,
keep going till they are properly creeped out and as upset as they should be at anyone but them knowing that information.
All the answers you got show why this conversation goes badly. No one can come up with an actual problem that data collection causes, it's all silly comparisons to giving people your credit card number or shitting in front of them.
For me, having my data collected is like having CCTV cameras in stores. Yeah, technically someone is filming everything I do. Yeah it would be bad if a private individual was filming me for nefarious reasons. But no one actually uses that data for anything bad, and it doesn't actually cause any problems.
“Yea my bank information, passwords, personal identity, identity of all my loved ones. But hey, if you hate having security and love being blackmailed and hate everyone who you have ever made contact in your life and wish to make their life hell then you do you and stay far the fuck away from me. We don’t know each other and we never will”
It's not only online privacy. Every fucking major intersection in the city has cameras. There are no public places where there isn't a security camera watching. I can't even go to Wendy's without a camera watching me eat.
It's even people in tech. I work with someone who will gladly take tech claims at face value, and call me a conspiracy theorist on data collection. I said I didn't want a smart thermostat because it increases our attack surface and he immediately snapped back with "oh China is gonna get us". Like... No these things have had CVEs already and will again
Well to be fair even if you go full conspiracy theory or whatever an go insane to the point of blocking everything I doubt you are completely safe from anyone knowing who you are or what you do. In my country a few years back it was a big scandal because the internet ISPs were decrypting trafic and we're knowing everything anyone did on the internet as well as selling that date to ad companies. So I don't really care about this shit anymore cause I already know someone somewhere is already selling my data, I use an ad block just to not be bothered by stupid pop-up ads and that's about it.
Agree. Full-doomer isn't for everyone. We can reduce our attack surface, but there's no silver bullets. Just using a good adblocker increases privacy quite a bit, and quite frankly makes browsing the web bearable.
internet ISPs were decrypting traffic
I always thought it was a little sus that the NSA designed a lot of of the ciphers we use today.
The ciphers are chosen in a competition and then turned into a standard. If you think that the NSA is after your ass there are many ciphers that are not standard and there are ones from non-NATO countries you could use
But I've been using adblocking DNS and system-wide adblocking for a few years now so significantly fewer of that bullshit has been connecting to my devices since then.
Totally based. Is it a PiHole? We set one up a few years ago. One of the best things we've ever done. Totally worth it when even the inline ads and tracking are blocked on phone apps.
closed source operating system. on mobile data there is no way to reliably view/block requests to Apple servers (such as firewall/wireshark). even assuming they dont have some sneaky hardware-level spyware like intel IME...
Well, it would most likely show up in the network traffic if they were doing that for starters. And no one doing security analysis on iOS has ever mentioned that AFAIK. And since Apple bases about 90% of their marketing on protecting your privacy, that would be very bad for them as a company.
I mean, what’s stopping someone poisoning a library on open source? That’s actually provably happened.
Which is not to ding open source, which I quite like too. Just saying you are running certain risks no matter what you choose and in a phone OS, if you just want it to work and not think about it, I personally feel like Apple is a decent risk still.
you think apple wouldnt abuse customer data just because of its brand image? thats awfully trusting of a comany which has been proven to scan 'private' icloud images. most of their customers either 1) don't care 2) will believe it's somehow justified 3) will forget soon enough
the great thing about open source is that people can audit it. and for a big project like android (aosp, grapheneos, etc -- as a parallel), people will. any new commits will be analyzed by maintainers. of course its not impossible, but its a lot less likely than anything closed source, where developers are forbidden to disclose any details to the public.
but if youre willing to use siri and icloud despite the privacy concern, that is fine; every solution is a compromise.
Scan private iCloud images? What part of the E2E did you miss? Also, if this is the plan I think you’re talking about for CSAM, they actually abandoned that, even though it was a pretty decent plan…
so because they say that they wont scan your images, you just trust them? the fact that Apple had planned to is evidence enough that they could and possibly do. again, there is no way to prove that they don't.
do you understand what i'm saying when i say "e2ee is almost meaningless on a closed source app"? you are taking their word on whether they know your private key, or even encrypt your data at all. to encrypt a file properly, use a local opensource program (gpg) before ever letting Apple touch it.
btw, have you heard of the case where a persons picture was flagged as csam, when it was sent to the kids doctor in lockdown? these filters are not perfect, and can ruin someones reputation. any pedophile with even a glint of common sense would avoid proprietry spyware (iCloud) anyway, or at the very least encrypt manually.
again, your privacy is being eroded in the name of "saving the children".
Everything you’ve said aside from the CSAM scan doctor thing has absolutely nothing to back it up so far. (And for the record, I absolutely agree CSAM scanners can be wrong—a human needs to be involved at some level, which they were in the system Apple devised. At any rate, I guess this convo is over as we obviously inhabit very different worlds.
Apple bases about 90% of their marketing on protecting your privacy,
LOL "We have access to all your data and use it to target ads and any goddamn thing else we want to do, but we don't sell it to third parties, we just take the third party's wishes and shove them down customer throats ourselves! It's not much better, but it is better."
I think the funniest part of this meme is every company bar Amazon, Discord (both not in market yet), and TikTok (Chinese) were confirmed to be a part of NSA's PRISM
Every social media platform with a feed uses some system to rank content for its individual users. This can be abused to subtly influence users.
You say TikTok has never harmed you but the truth is you probably wouldn't know. You just changed your mind about certain things over time.
That problem is certainly not specific to TikTok and I personally avoid also YouTube, Reddit or anything Facebook but it's not hard to believe that a Chinese or Russian platform is even less hesitant to influence elections, for example.
I've never encountered a site which had an allow list of domain names. The hardest thing about self hosting an email server is most home ISPs will block SMTP as it's a source of spam. Usually this requires business level ISP or an SMTP relay, both which aren't usually free from what you're already paying for home internet.
That's not an allowlist though, SimpleLogin was on a denylist, possible because of high rates of spam. An allow list would be if they only allowed @gmail.com for example. If you have your own domain and set it up to use Proton Mail, you shouldn't have any problems.
Well... More or less. They specifically told me that I needed a "public domain email" and that it couldn't be encrypted. I read their ToS and it wasn't written anywhere.
They didn't sound like they were too tech savvy and I had to insist before I got that answer. They are most likely just a call center with a manual to follow.
What I bothered the most is that they allowed me to change the mail. The kept sending me (wanted) ads there and I could login into their site. They even kept charging my subscription. Until I tried to pay for extra tickets. That broke their system and got stuck. After that I couldn't even use the tickets I already had in my account from the subscription.
I'm not proud to admit that I finally caved and went back to my old mail for the moment. I even had to show them an ID (which at least partially defaced before) so that I could use the tickets I has already paid for
I tell them to go fuck themselves. A more serious problem is that unless you sign up with a provider that has all of the encryption/verification stuff sorted out and a significant amount of outgoing mail, your messages will go straight to spam for everyone else.
I honestly haven't had much of an issue. I only send emails to things like medical providers, and I use an SMTP forwarding service to prevent those emails getting bounced back.
Same. 1€ a month for some local service, hosted in my country, which means they have to abide by EU laws. And also I can actually use their calendar with Thunderbird. Damn google calendar stopped working every update and needed an addon to work in the first place.
Stupid question: What exactly are the dangers being implied here? I have accounts with all of these services although I don't use all of them. I know that they are using and selling my personal information, is there more? I have ways of doing things in private when I need and I'm aware that using these services has no expectations of absolute privacy.
I like to compare that to a stranger looking through your window while you sit on your couch watching TV.
There is no harm if the stranger knows how often you scratch your butt or what other information he gathers. But we still would put the afford in preventing that Espionage.
The thing about the collection of data online is you don't know what's happening to it.
Will radical groups buy information to categorize people into groups of enemies.
Will it lead to false positives during a law enforcement investigation because they subpoena some cunk of information which contained yours.
This is of course an extravaganted worst case.
But it won't get better during capitalism and enchitification.
Privacy = freedom. If you don't have privacy, or to the extent you don't have privacy, you are in proportion not free.
It seems to me this is the trade off we are all figuring out how to make. For example, I've considered not having a cell phone at all, but then I find it almost impossible to get a job, or operate in the economy. So I use a custom privacy ROM. I have no illusions that this is perfect, but at least a step in the right direction.
I think the most practical answer is to gain knowledge of the situation, and limit our attack surface. I don't think there's any silver bullets, unless you want to live like the Amish (which, doesn't sound like a bad idea, either. If that's what you want and you can do it, go for it.)
what do you mean by free? if total privacy means i can’t have a phone or talk to most people then does that really make me more free?
i agree that privacy is important, but i think this is fundamentally a legislative problem. there’s only so much that can be done at the individual level without making massive sacrifices and dedicating a serious amount of time to it. i have a vpn, i use content blockers, etc. but i think its too simplistic to say more privacy = more free.
one of the other commenters mentioned the thing about having someone looking in while you’re watching tv. but if the only solution is to go live in the woods, is it really worth it?
if total privacy means i can’t have a phone or talk to most people then does that really make me more free?
Yes, and it's totally based if you do this. Our gadgets don't really makes us more free. At least not with how they're currently used. Everyone is disconnected from nature, sunsets, each other, and more. When's the last time you saw a concert? Everyone is staring at their phones and not even enjoying the moment they're in. Many are depressed and drowning in meaninglessness. When we look at old pictures of beaches from the 90s (not even that old) everyone appears physically fit, bright, and happy. Did our gadgets really make us any more free, or happy?
but if the only solution is to go live in the woods, is it really worth it?
it seems like you’re blaming all of societies problems on technology. surely there must be more to it than that, right? the lack of fitness for example may be due to increasing grocery costs, the rise of fast food, the cost of living crises, and/or many other economical/sociological factors.
i just really don’t understand your argument here. you’re conflating the concept of “privacy” (the original topic of the conversation) with “all of our gadgets” and the effects of those gadgets. i don’t see anything in your comment that’s related to privacy.
and do you honestly think you’ll find more meaning by living in the woods? if so, why haven’t you done it?
it seems like you’re blaming all of societies problems on technology.
We are talking about technology, and privacy. And I'm answering your questions. I'm no one special, and I don't have all the answers. Just because you and I are talking about this specific topic doesn't mean that's all I care about. Respectfully, what a silly thing to say.
and do you honestly think you’ll find more meaning by living in the woods? if so, why haven’t you done it?
Again, I'm no one special. But I that's exactly what I'm doing. Because I wouldn't offer any advice that I myself wouldn't be willing to follow. We sold our property in the city and purchased acreage on the countryside, are raising animals, and planting a garden this year. It's great. Humanity needs more experiences like this that are in harmony with nature and natural living, and less in the dull, gray brutalist, dehumanizing cityscapes we've created.
you’re conflating the concept of “privacy” (the original topic of the conversation) with “all of our gadgets” and the effects of those gadgets.
Right. Because there's nothing inherently wrong with gadgets. But our modern gadgets are purpose-built to be addictive, monopolize our attention and time, and invade our privacy. I believe these are all interrelated.
I live in a city. Me being "disconnected" from nature has nothing to do with my phone. It's a personal choice to live as mosquito-free a life as I can. (Also I just genuinely enjoy living in a city.)
sunsets
What are you even on about? There's one every day.
each other
Literally the opposite of truth. Modern technology allows me to stay in contact with people I'd be unable to stay in touch with otherwise.
And more. When's the last time you saw a concert?
January.
Everyone is staring at their phones and not even enjoying the moment they're in.
Yeah, because my fucking commute would be so much more enjoyable if I spent it staring into the distance and/or at the other people on the train.
Many are depressed and drowning in meaninglessness.
And you think that's somehow a new development? I mean, I guess you don't have time to think about life if you spend every waking minute just trying to survive as a hunter-gatherer but I wouldn't call that better.
When we look at old pictures of beaches from the 90s (not even that old) everyone appears physically fit, bright, and happy. Did our gadgets really make us any more free, or happy?
Because as a general rule people don't take pictures of unhappy moments. Especially not when taking pictures is actually expensive, film wasn't cheap and neither was getting it developed.
but if the only solution is to go live in the woods, is it really worth it?
Yes.
Fuck no. I don't enjoy literally everything that's associated with living alone (and a small group with limited-at-best contact with the outside world counts as "alone" as far as I'm concerned, I enjoy meeting people) in the wilderness.
You seem to think that because you'd enjoy life as a hermit in the woods everyone would. No. No, we would not.
if total privacy means i can’t have a phone or talk to most people then does that really make me more free?
I have a phone; it runs GrapheneOS; I'm using it type this. I have attempted, in total, to get five of my friends and my own mother to talk to me on Signal. I have, so far, succeeded at getting four out of the five friends and my own mother to talk to me on Signal. That's five out of six; I would call that being able to talk to most people.
what do you mean by free?
If you're asking me personally, pretty much that. If you're asking someone way smarter than me, pretty much that.
People should be able to pick up the phone and call their family. People should be able to send a text message to their loved one. People should be able to buy a book online, they should be able to travel by train, they should be able to buy an airline ticket without wondering how these events are going to look.. To an agent of the government, possibly not even your government. Years in the future, how they're going to be misinterpreted and what they're going to think your intentions. We have a right to privacy.
Everyone says this kind of stuff about any and every social issue. It drives me insane, do people not realize that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy? If everyone I heard say "there's no point fighting it" got together and fought it, they'd easily win.
I'm genuinely curious, who exactly do you think will do the fighting?
Cuz I can tell you who will be the first pushed forward, and that's young men and women. I can't speak for women so I won't. However, not sure if you've noticed, but we've got several generations of young men that have been taught that they are literally everything that's wrong with everything and are treated like it. What exactly would those young men be fighting for?
Of course they're defeatist. They have been trained to be.
Took me a long time to break out of the programming. I feel you.
It helps to understand that the phrase "you have value; you are worthy" is objectively true. It's not a matter of opinion. It is a fact. You are a sentient person, therefore you matter. You are deserving of dignity, respect, and love. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong. It's like saying 2+2=5. They're just not correct.
We need to address this on a societal level. And not via right wing douchebros.
I see this a lot in discussions about climate change lately: country X is polluting just as much or more than us so we shouldn't do anything. This argument makes no sense.
I'm definitely not without sin, I still use some services I know damn well don't give a shit about my privacy.
But I'm using a lot less of those than I did 5 or 10 years ago, So it might be small steps but it's steps in the right direction and I intend to keep going that way.
There is a 3rd argument which I think is a bit more valid in "I value the service I receive in exchange for my personal data"
Using the internet without an adblocker, noscript, and whatever else is really nasty. But even if you aren't on these platforms, marketers are still building profiles on you. Honestly we need data privacy legislation and some real talk about marketing and the costs of using the internet as a society.
But I don’t use those services; they still keep my data.
Exactly why we need data privacy laws. Sadly there are "profiles" out there for all of us, whether you chose to be tracked or not. Personally I think that any kind of sharing of personal data with marketers should be illegal nor should it be legal for any entity to purchase personal data without a signed consent form from the person in question.
That'd probably end "free" services and our credit score system in the United States but honestly that kind of data collection is equivalent to stalking and unethical.
I would opt in to a credit score system, as long as I'm aware of exactly what they use to generate that score.
On the other hand, I would not opt in to having an advertising profile just to be allowed to access many websites. If that means I have to pay to use them, so be it.
It's funny, because people who defend DRM also use this argument. They are happy with the service, so they don't mind losing freedom. They can't understand that they could have both.
No, no, if you want me to punch a baby tell me all about "appropriate ads", and how sometimes you see ads that genuinely interest you, and that you're happy for Google to use your browsing habits in this way.
I see lots of folks here who are programmers or have a ton of knowledge on ways to get around the big 5 to maintain privacy, but as a layman with only so much time in the day, it's hard to avoid taking the path of least resistance when using the Internet.
I am a musician with a public profile on Instagram, and many of my friends who are also artists use TikTok or YouTube to get their exposure. It's kind of a necessity if you want to simply book a gig at a venue (they will ask for your social media handles to see how many followers you have to determine if it's even worth having you on).
As artists we are also not flush with cash to pay for all the privacy software or VPNs. On top of that, so much of our information is already out there, I'm not sure how we'd even start reeling it back in.
That's the thing you don't . Once on the internet always on the internet is a real thing just try not to post anything from now and also if you do want to keep using insta a vpn is basically worthless as they will be "suspicious" and want more info like phone number (if you haven't given it to them aldready ) don't know about tiktok tho.
Not really a programmer, learned a lot with this list. I run a lot on old laptops and in the background of my desktop. Super useful skill and you can basically get 99% of software you need free with it. I save so much compared to subscription services, though I do pay for Proton cuz self hosting email is too much.
you don't have to go all in at once, mate. you can start by getting most important things in your control: your browser and search engine.
if you like the interface of Google chrome and can't part away with it: use brave. else highly recommended to use Firefox.
if you just like Google search results, use startpage, else use duckduckgo or brave search.
these two things alone would make a meaningful difference.
then for neutering most of third party tracking: use a private DNS(I'd suggest nextdns). it's just a "add a URL and forget about it'. it'll stop the tracking significantly.
then you can continue by replacing other inconsequential stuff like Google notes(use Joplin), Google assistant(don't use any of this "smart" crap), Google fit(just exercise regularly. you don't need to micromanage it).
then next step would be to start making some tough decisions: replace the keylogger that is Google keyboard with it's open source equivalent heliboard.
then eventually you can go hardcore and use Facebook and other crap on browser only.
so, all in all, even if you do only the first two(or just first) step, you're already 50% there.
let me know in case you got any questions. and happy journey.
Quick question why are you so sure that startpage, duckduckgo or brave are not tracking your data ? As far as I'm concerned they need to make money too there is no such thing as free shit. Also even if they are more private and don't track your date if the search is not giving the results you want/need it's not really a good search engine, I'm saying this as a few years back I tried duckduckgo and it was so bad at that point at giving results I wanted/needed that even bing was doing a better job.
because they don't serve you targeted ads. duckduckgo's(and startpage's) business model is keyword-based ads, for which they are getting plenty of revenue.
brave has other paid offerings like search without ads(premium), brave VPN, their own shitcoin(BAT) and so on.
as for the search results, I'm a software developer. most of the time I know what I am searching for, and I don't want my search engine to go on overdrive and interpret it as something else. for me, duckduckgo is perfect. google, on the other hand, is worse for me for this and other reasons.
and there shouldn't be much difference between duckduckgo and bing(sans account) since duckduckgo sources the results from bing.
I don't know when did you last try duckduckgo, but I've been using it since 2015 and I've rarely been disappointed. in case i am missing on something, it's just a !sp away(duckduckgo bangs).
You are in Sam Gold's world. Eventually social media will be no different than not using credit cards, being part of a grid, census (intermittent camps were established based on census data, so I'm not hyperbolizing here), yada yada yada.
How to get out of it? Everyone who tries has their own gives and gets. Good luck to you, friend!
I'll never give up. I'll shove my 256-bit AES encrypted USB stick so far up the glowy asses they start vomiting shit and USB drives. I still use YouTube and shit tho. I try and convert people. I've been successful getting quite a few people on Signal. The problem is that if there isn't interoperability and everyone's friends aren't on it some forget to even check the app or don't get notifications. If you leave message contents in notifications you're fucked anyway. Lol I feel their pain, but I wish I could get people to care before bad things happen. I mean, bad things have happened. We just gotta keep it up.
Might be defeatist, but it's still an up hill battle. It's a lot of effort to stay off the grid while still having access to a lot of modern technology.
I'm not about to start using multiple phones, swapping them in and out of faraday cages, never connecting to the net through anything besides proxy chains, and keeping my pc on an external hard drive. The list goes on and on for what you'd have to do to really truly have privacy. It's a lot of work.
