Is there a GUI which I can just click and disable and enable packages debugging Samsung Android phones? I heard that there are options which are much simpler than vanilla ADB. I just want to get rid ofll the Samsung/Google/Meta bloat prepackaged with the phone. Appreciate any pointers/advice.

I'll start off by saying everyone's economic situations are just as varied as their threat models and how people make decisions on which services can be specific to themself and not one that can apply to anyone else. The services one chooses to use for free or to pay for may be based more on what they can afford vs what's the best broad reaching plan.

That being said i'd like to see what others think about the proton suit of services. I've been eyeing it as an option for a paid service for a while but am hesitant to put all my eggs in one basket. I'm interested in a vpn, mullvad seems to be the other popular choice. I'm also interested in email address anonymizing service like anonaddy. At $5 for mullvad, $3 for anonaddy, and $3 for base proton email it comes out to a dollar more than protons premium tier which gets cheaper if you pay for 1 or 2 years at a time.

As said above would the biggest reason not to use proton for all of these separate services be not putting all your eggs in one basket?

I just discovered this amazing app! It lets you remove (or just disable) preinstalled apps like Facebook, Netflix, etc. and system apps like samsung knox apps, diagnostic, bixby, and even One UI (but you must have installed other launcher). You can’t brick your device, worst case it falls into a boot loop and after 5 reboots it will factory reset.

Debloating your device will make it faster, more private and more secure (less atack surface).

Trying my luck here since I really couldn't get an answer on the grapheneos forum. I see thumbnails from videos not available to the currently used profile for the audio tracks that are playing, only on the notification popup though. Not sure if this is a bug or whatnot but I'm kinda concerned if this indicates that data is being leaked between profiles. I already checked the metadata/tags for the audio tracks and confirmed that they are correct also storage scopes are enabled. Should I be concerned? Any help will be appreciated.

Edit for some more information: vlc (permissions removed and not setup) is installed on the default "main" profile, where the video files are at, since I use it to install updates downstream to other profiles where vlc is also installed.

Edit #2: whatever bug was causing this seems to be taken care of after the latest update.

I should have known if the apps free, you're the product. Duolingo appears to harvest the most data compared to other language learning apps.

Source: Surfshark Research

The table is quite big (190+ lines of hand-written HTML) and it doesn't fit on mobile phone screens unless you zoom out. It should be fine on desktop. It also specifies the criteria followed and has analysis of some of the IMs in the table (not close to all of them, I hope to add more analysis in the future).

Counter-arguments are always welcome. Sources and additional information too. Note that the typical privacy recommendation (Signal) is not recommended here. It does not meet our criteria, being centralized and requiring a phone number. I don't want to hate on Signal since it's doing a decent job spreading the importance of E2EE, however we can not recommend it for the given reasons.

For example, I have been using Google or Apple for 7 years, and seeing that I was fingerprinted, tracked through third-party cookies, etc. I want to switch to a more private option.

But is it worth it? They know about me, they have now AI that can just use the behavior pattern for the last 7 years and still track me.

Again the question comes, should I become "privacy-focused" despite my data before I was "privacy-focused" used and sold?

With UK's new security bill that seems to more dismantle security rather than help. Am I still legally okay to use signal, VPN, tutanota, https, tor?

From the article:

Senior officials at the Home Office secretly lobbied the UK’s independent privacy regulator to act “favourably” towards a private firm keen to roll out controversial facial recognition technology across the country, according to internal government emails seen by the Observer.

Correspondence reveals that the Home Office wrote to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) warning that policing minister, Chris Philp, would “write to your commissioner” if the regulator’s investigation into Facewatch – whose facial recognition cameras have provoked huge opposition after being installed in shops – was not positive towards the firm.

This might have been discussed to death by now, unfortunately I couldn't find any discussion on it on Lemmy. Though I would love to be corrected on that!

How does an always on incognito Chromium with uBlock Origin on medium mode (and other hardening/privacy settings enabled) compare to Brave (with e.g. Privacy Guides' recommended settings) with respect to security and privacy on Linux^[1]^?

Commonly heard whataboutisms:

• "With the looming advent of Manifest v3, this discussion might not be very relevant for long." I'm aware.
• "Just use Firefox/Librewolf or any other privacy-conscious browser that isn't Chromium-based." I already do, but some websites/platforms don't play nice on non-Chromium-based browsers due to Google's monopoly on the web. Sometimes I can afford to not use that website/platform, but unfortunately not always.
• "Brave's [insert controversy] makes them unreliable to take services from." Honestly, I think that if both solutions are as effective that a reason like this might be sufficient to tip the balance in favor of one. Because ultimately this all comes down to trust.
• "Just use Ungoogled Chromium." Some more knowledgeable people than me advice against it. Though, I'd say I'm open to hear different opinions on this as long as they're somewhat sophisticated.
• "Just use [insert another Chromium-based browser]." If it has merits beyond Brave and Chromium with respect to security and privacy, I'll consider it.

Thanks in advance!

1. I can be more specific about which distro I prefer using, but I don't think it matters. I might be wrong though*.

Are there any ways to avoid handing over your real phone number, besides having an extra SIM? Lots of places/services want SMS verification, but i rarely want to hand out my actual phone number.

I know some people here distrust F-droid for some reason. Here is a blog post explaining how they are working on improving security

Do these news articles on the same day suggest that politicians are either out of touch with technology, or that removing encryption has little to do with protecting children?

https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-18/in-spain-dozens-of-girls-are-reporting-ai-generated-nude-photos-of-them-being-circulated-at-school-my-heart-skipped-a-beat.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/meta-encryption-suella-braverman-child-abuse-b2414479.html

Today we announce that we have completely removed all traces of disks being used by our VPN infrastructure!

I have been reading about internet privacy for a long time. As time went on, I got a vpn subcription, a custom domain, a paid email hosting, etc. No regrets on the services themselves.

I recently had this conversation with a colleague of mine, complaining about the rising cost of everything including internet subscription services: netflix, spotify, youtube, you name it. I could simply disregard my colleague's complaints as I didn't have any of those and know the ways of obtaining materials. However, once I start adding up the privacy related services I'm willingly paying instead... they also add up into a considerable amount.

So, do you pay for anything privacy related, how much do you pay in total, and is it affordable for you? For example, many VPN providers offer yearly subscriptions around 40-50 USD.

Haven't seen a lot of talk about URLCheck.

It can clear useless URL parameters, unshorten shortened links, scan links with VirusTotal (API key required) or redirect you to privacy friendly websites like Nitter or Libreddit.

If you are interested checking it out, check out my guide I made on it too!

PS. I'm not affiliated with the dev/app in any way. Just wanted to share this useful app that no one has been talking about.

Dark day for online privacy in the UK.

So I'm in a somewhat unfortunate situation. My circle of friends doesn't want to switch to another messenger and we are currently stuck on the worst possible platform for security: Telegram.

The problem is that it is very hard to convince anyone to switch, if they are all perfectly fine and like Telegram. I mean I can get why they like it: The UX and UI of Telegram are amazing and there are well functioning clients available for any platform. It has more features and gimmicks than any other messenger I know BUT it lacks one mayor thing: E2EE. And that's mostly what I care about. The second problem is that I was the person who recommended the switch to Telegram right after WhatsApp was bought by Facebook. I know, that was a bad recommendation, but back then I didn't know shit about privacy or why E2EE mattered. I was just like "Hey, it's not by Facebook, so it must be better". And now everyone I know is there and won't leave.

If - in the hypothetical situation of me setting an ultimatum and deleting my Telegram after that - I wanted to make them switch somewhere else: What messenger would that be? Currently I'm mostly thinking Signal. I know it's not perfect either, it is centralized, and the servers are in the US, but it has a bigger user base already than most of its competitors like Threema or Matrix/Element and it is very easy to set up and use. I'm already a user of Signal, Threema, Matrix, WhatsApp and Telegram (every platform for some contacts, but most of them on Telegram sadly), so having yet another option is not a problem for me, as well as getting rid of one is also no problem. I'd love to delete both Telegram and WhatsApp in this move.

So, in conclusion, what I need is a messenger that has all or most of the following:

• best possible security (E2EE is minimum)
• easy to use (no complicated setup, simple UI)
• already has some users (not too niche)
• cross-platform and multi-device (should run on Android, iOS and Windows/Web)
• some flashy dumb features like stickers and so on to keep them entertained

My choice would be Signal. But I am unsure if that is the best choice or if I should just wait a bit and see what all of the new EU laws about messengers and gatekeepers bring to the game and if anything chances with that.

Long range (LoRa) mesh networks are interesting alternatives to communication, especially when state actors are blocking internet access for various reasons.

More details about meshtastic: https://meshtastic.org/

About its current state of encryption: https://meshtastic.org/docs/overview/encryption