I saw today the infamous pop-up of YouTube again that they will block the video player after 2 more videos if I keep using uBlock Origin. ** Google.

Link to discussion on the Signal community forums

Heard some sketchy stuff about duckduckgo recently, found out about start page.many users?

I am fully aware of what vpn services to use and not. I am not using Express VPN, I am simply doing research for a master thesis, when I came across these results from Express VPN. If you have any ideas or corrections, please let me know why a VPN provider would need to have access to these permissions.

Screenshot is from Exodus service, which let's you view what exactly perimissions and trackers each app uses. You can check out the results and the tool for yourself here: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.expressvpn.vpn/latest/

Link to Image

Hello!

Are there more sites like https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/ that would do privacy focused reviews? Maybe there are some more crowd based?

Thanks!

Edit:

• https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/
• https://privacyguides.org/
• https://tosdr.org/

Below is a disturbing amount of information data brokers have ammased from buying your data from trackers in ads and apps.

"a staggering amount of sensitive and identifying information about consumers," alleging that Kochava's database includes products seemingly capable of identifying nearly every person in the United States.

... can access this data to trace individuals' movements—including to sensitive locations like hospitals, temporary shelters, and places of worship, with a promised accuracy within "a few meters"—over a day, a week, a month, or a year. Kochava's products can also provide a "360-degree perspective" on individuals, unveiling personally identifying information like their names, home addresses, phone numbers, as well as sensitive information like their race, gender, ethnicity, annual income, political affiliations, or religion, the FTC alleged.

... target customers by categories that are "often based on specific sensitive and personal characteristics or attributes identified from its massive collection of data about individual consumers." These "audience segments" allegedly allow advertisers to conduct invasive targeting by grouping people not just by common data points like age or gender, but by "places they have visited," political associations, or even their current circumstances, like whether they're expectant parents. Or advertisers can allegedly combine data points to target highly specific audience segments like "all the pregnant Muslim women in Kochava’s database," the FTC alleged, or "parents with different ages of children."

To escape from the big corporations of the USA, as a user we have two options, either to use OpenSource alternatives, although not all of them they are free of influences from Google, MS, etc., or using products and services of European companies, which in general are rather more aimed at protect privacy (GDPR), although only a few are known to most. This is why I thought of using this thread to complete a list of the better European alternatives, starting with the link I put opening this thread.

I had turned targeted ads off, on Facebook and Instagram. I still got ads but they were not targeted based on my data. I could live with that

Today I got a popup requiring me to pick an option of either accepting targeted ads or pay the equivalent of €13/$14 for an addfree experience across all meta platforms.

After years of promises of implementing playlists and quietly removing it from their featured to do list, id like to see what alternative yall could recommend thats equally permanent and allows you to create playlists?

By permanent i mean that with freetube, i dont have much fear that it will suddenly go dark like an invidious instance, id like to have something similar with an alternative if possible.

any help is highly appreciated.

Privacy (for robot vacuums) isn't cheap. via the Verge.

Its the only thing making is a good choice, while people choose Brave, TorBrowser or Librewolf instead.

Come and join the discussion.

Firefox needs to have some courage. Get rid of all those fake funding by Ad companies. Block Ads and trackers by default. Actually. Dont use damn Google as that contract will run out anyways.

Chrome is the Google browser. Firefox simply offering nothing more (on the outside) than it.

What do you think? Do you use Firefox out of the Box? Or another browser?

On Android using Bromite and Mull (with uBlock). Have seen here mention of Chromite. A quick search shows that it is a fork of Bromite. Has anyone undertaken a meaningful real world comparison or general experience?

So, this might seem like a stupid question on face value, but I'll go further in detail.

Everyone talks about getting a personal website so you can freely express yourself without getting beaten up by typical Social Media companies. While I fully agree with that, there are a few issues I have thought of:

Firstly, (assuming self-hosting isnt an option) won't you have to use google or AWS to host your website? And if you post something "they don't like", nothing is stopping them from just ban-hammering your website.

Secondly, even if you get a stable host, getting a domain is a completely different issue with the same causes; they could just revoke your domain if, again, you say something "they don't like".

With all that being said, would anyone have any remedies for these issues? Are there any privacy/free-speech respecting web hosts and domain suppliers?

Thank you for your responses! :D

Hello lemmings lemmons and any other lemm out there. I’ve always wanted to try to switch to more privacy focused options but it’s always been difficult for me as I’m not really tech savvy and frankly for a very long time haven’t really cared about privacy.

Transitioning has also been hard since I feel like I’m pretty much the antithesis of this community: using an iPhone and 2 windows computers (one for home use and one for my college classes on campus) and use OneDrive to sync work between the 3 devices.

Pretty much every account I have is under my gmail account and a second back up email is also under gmail.

Frankly I’m sure this is the highest form of insult to this community but I use edge simply because I’ve given up trying to fight Microsoft

So it’s been a challenge to switch but for browsers and just copy paste all my bookmarks and saved passwords when I download Firefox on my phone and computers but as for email and online accounts switching off that gmail account seems daunting but not impossible and I have no idea what to do to replace OneDrive since it is useful and works in file explorer with no extra software

I figured if anyone was smart enough to tackle the abomination that is my privacy it’d be you guys

I don't know if this is 100% strictly privacy related but I think it does fall in the sphere of protecting one's right to express oneself privately.

"Government officials have drawn up deeply controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values, according to documents seen by the Observer.

The new definition, prepared by civil servants working for cabinet minister Michael Gove, is fiercely opposed by a cohort of officials who fear legitimate groups and individuals will be branded extremists.

The proposals have provoked a furious response from civil rights groups with some warning it risks “criminalising dissent”, and would significantly suppress freedom of expression."

Hello everyone, I'm in search of a new Android browser. Currently, I'm using Via browser, which is lightweight and functions well with essential features. However, the only thing it lacks is a tracker library blocker. I'm contemplating switching to Mozilla Fennec, which does have a library blocker, but I'd prefer something as minimalistic as Via, which I believe is only around 2 MB in size

I don't really use facebook anymore so couldn't care less; but so happened to log in today to change my password and saw this on my front page.

On Thursday October 26th, MEPs in the European Parliament held press conferences outlining the compromises reached within the EU Parliament negotiators on the controversial Chat Control proposal.

Thankfully it appears that progress is being made in the fight to preserve privacy. According to MEPs, Parliamentarians have agreed to remove the clauses that would give law enforcement the power to demand end-to-end encrypted platforms hand over users messages, emails, and files as part of criminal investigations.

Hey there,

Like the title say, what can i use to share music/creations in simplicity ?

My needs :

• dont need the remuneration or being paid
• listening on the web browser is an cool feature
• accept audio with no loses
• respect peoples, let us manage the licences

instead of, What do you use to share files ?

Is there something for music, based on activity pub ? It would be great.

I did an account on BandCamp, but just read about the "drama", F it.