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I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

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Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#71

Post by lazyjones »

judge2020 wrote: post #69
lazyjones wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to know where I was during my vacations to Canada and who I spent time with? It's all there for the taking and I'm not involved at all! Even if this didn't happen, Big Tech would still know since you probably took your smartphone with you...

I know this is against the general sentiment but I don't care much what these corporations know about me; we all know we're just ad clickers and numbers in their big data machines. I'm more afraid of who can see the data that's peronally about me, whether it be due to mishap (data brach) or lack of control (see: IG, Facebook tagging). Should any of that get out, it would be devastating if it were put up on shady webs…

> I'm more afraid of who can see the data that's peronally about me,

Big Tech knows all about you personally, including your name, address, phone number, locations you've been to, people you've met, things you've bought or considered buying. And guess what: they will sell it to anyone who pays enough.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#72

Post by ac29 »

close04 wrote: post #38
ac29 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adguard can be used with any router: https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html#instruction Its not built in per se, but its arguably less complicated than replacing a router (or worse, putting one router behind another, as would be required for the many people who's cable/fiber/etc modem is all in one with their router).

I think what GP means is that someone needs to set up the PiHole/Adguard software on their own hardware (like a RPi). After it's up and running it's pretty trivial to set it up in your router. Reading through Adguard's GitHub page I can't help not noticing some disingenuous feature comparison there. Like how PiHole doesn't support "Blocking phishing and malware domains" or "Parental control (blocking adult domains)".…

You don't need to setup adguard software or hardware at all to use it - you just change your existing router's DHCP setup to point to their DNS servers.

Its pretty handy on Android (I think requires 9 or later), you can set dns.adguard.com as your "Private DNS" server and it will work system wide, with no Apps or VPNs to install, and on every network you connect to. I beleive it uses DNS over TLS as well.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#73

Post by jammygit »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #10
duncan-donuts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s on a raspberry pi that is connected to your LAN. It is dns for the LAN and blocks any requests to hosts that are blacklisted

How does this differ from the traditional hosts file that blocks requests to blacklisted hosts?

It looks like pihole supports wildcards better maybe

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#74

Post by colordrops »

ac29 wrote: post #18
colordrops wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave works. Lots of propaganda on here against Brave for some reason. It's open source based on chromium with all the Google bits taken out, and it has built in ad blocking. So there's an opt-in crypto coin, so what.

> Lots of propaganda on here against Brave for some reason. I think the same reason some people find Google's advertising-based business model problematic, they find Brave's advertising-based business model problematic.

What is braves advertising based business model? I've been using it since it came out and haven't seen a single brave ad.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#75

Post by colordrops »

t-writescode wrote: post #4
colordrops wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave works. Lots of propaganda on here against Brave for some reason. It's open source based on chromium with all the Google bits taken out, and it has built in ad blocking. So there's an opt-in crypto coin, so what.

If I could have one thing in Brave, aside from bug fixes, it’s this: rather than give me popup ads on my desktop, replace some of the static ads it blocks with Brave ones. They’re way less intrusive.

Wait, what? I've never seen popup ads on my desktop from Brave. I'm on Mac and linux. Is this a Windows thing? Are you on Windows?

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#76

Post by close04 »

ac29 wrote: post #72
close04 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what GP means is that someone needs to set up the PiHole/Adguard software on their own hardware (like a RPi). After it's up and running it's pretty trivial to set it up in your router. Reading through Adguard's GitHub page I can't help not noticing some disingenuous feature comparison there. Like how PiHole doesn't support "Blocking phishing and malware domains" or "Parental control (blocking adult domains)".…

You don't need to setup adguard software or hardware at all to use it - you just change your existing router's DHCP setup to point to their DNS servers. Its pretty handy on Android (I think requires 9 or later), you can set dns.adguard.com as your "Private DNS" server and it will work system wide, with no Apps or VPNs to install, and on every network you connect to. I beleive it uses DNS over TLS as well.

When I commented the link in GP's comment was pointing to Adguard Home [0], the PiHole like solution. See screenshot where you set up the blocklists.

[0] https://adguard.com/en/adguard-home/overview.html which takes you to: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#77

Post by [deleted] »

colordrops wrote: post #74
ac29 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of propaganda on here against Brave for some reason. I think the same reason some people find Google's advertising-based business model problematic, they find Brave's advertising-based business model problematic.

What is braves advertising based business model? I've been using it since it came out and haven't seen a single brave ad.

[deleted]

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#78

Post by UncleMeat »

Yizahi wrote: post #55
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that russian spying app FaceApp Not that I've used it myself but has this been established as fact now?

It is established that it is russian and hypothesized that it is a spyware. Personally I include in spyware all apps that "only collect metadata" or only do "personalized ads" because for me it is equal with spying almost by definition. And people like Bruce Schneier have the same opinion (2). (2) https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/metadata_surv...

Schneier has, imo, lost a fair amount of credibility over the past few years by starting almost every analysis with the maximally uncharitable assumptions. This became most clear when he reported on completely false claims that Facebook was monitoring WhatsApp messages at the client.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#79

Post by m463 »

jammygit wrote: post #7
oscilloscope wrote: post #2

Since this was about devices and ad-blocking, I expected the Pi-hole to make an appearance. But alas, the author used Brave browser. https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/blob/master/README.md

After a brief skim of that README, I'm not 100% certain how Pi-hole works. Basically, it is a DNS server whose job is to lose requests to trackers, sort of like modifying the hosts file to fail to connect to facebook owned domains? And you use it by telling your router to use it as its DNS server, controlling it via a webpage it hosts on your private network?

I'm guessing a dns lookup of annoying.adserver.com returns the pihole ip address (or a dedicated alternate address)

Then when your browser tries to load content from annoying.adserver.com it connects to the pihole, which returns dummy content (a blank image or html page)

I would imagine hardcoded ip addresses in trackers/ads might bypass pihole.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#80

Post by m463 »

inetknght wrote: post #65
swebs wrote: post #62

Funny how they don't mention uMatrix. Or maybe the editor just removed that part seeing how this page loads 36 different scripts from 9 different domains and sets 16 cookies.

I wonder how well uMatrix stacks against Firefox's reader mode? You can prepend `about:reader?url=` to most URLs and they'll load fine, fast, and have very clean UI elements. It's a lot less of a hassle than using uMatrix.

reader mode loads everything.

umatrix prevents loading of a lot of stuff. I have configured umatrix to only load first-party content (I can always add 3rd party content back in using the menu and save it).

Also, umatrix can be used first, then you can use reader mode. Weirdly I notice reader sometimes bypasses some umatrix protections.

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