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Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#41

Post by andrepd »

- Firefox with First Party Isolation, resist_fingerprinting, uBlock, Cookie Autodelete (with manual exceptions), and LocalCDN. This is the basic set up to have at least some degree of privacy on the www. I wish there was a simple way to have this all set up out of the box, or 99% of technical users won't be able to do this unless their techy friend does it for them.

- On the phone, besides a similar setup for the browser, I run LineageOS+microg, AdAway (system-wide ad-block), AfWall on allow mode (block internet access for all apps except whitelisted), and XPrivacyLua (fakes permissions for apps which refuse to run without them). Absolutely NO google apps whatsoever.

- Social media I mostly don't do, for my privacy but also for my sanity x)

- Email I use ProtonMail, storage I use my NAS (not ideal, I know, need offsite backup)

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#43

Post by afarviral »

I used to self host everything (nextcloud) but it was a pain, so I stopped. I just use google drive and fastmail because Im locked in with my fastmail email addresses. Firefox is still the privacy browser, despite its recent dying gasps it still goes hard. Ive taken to just doing things the frictionless way as I dont think my personal risk is very high and the extra effort taxes my productivity. E.g. if I let firefox store passwords (in addition to keepass) I can instantly log in everywhere, but anyone/thing on my PC could hijack my life. There is no single right approach, only various tradeoffs. Time and effort being spent causes direct harm, vs only risk of an inconvenience like identity theft. If I need to really cover my tracks I use tails and tor, but the better opsec is just not to do anything illegal/embarassing in the first place. I use windows because gnu/linux is too distracting to be my daily driver (endless config and rough edges and too easy to lose data, and windows has better bare metal gaming experience for competitive), though I've had several years using as my primary os. I use iDrive to clone all my data as a fire back up.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#44

Post by nullcipher »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #11
nullcipher wrote: post #10

Apps - I selfhost most of my stuff. Very similar to https://axbom.com/indieweb/ OS - Ubuntu everywhere Online Storage - This is part of my selfhosting stack. My server is in my house (but accessible from internet), no need for at rest encryption. Social Media - Not much apart from some reddit and HN. Never got into other things.

At rest encryption helps if your threat model includes someone stealing your server. Junkies probably aren’t going to go through your files, but would you rather worry? Similarly, offsite backup for if your server is stolen / house burns down /you accidentally rm -rf everything

well, I also have my passport, visa, house documents and what not. I don't lock them up in a safe. So, yeah, all this really depends on how much you worry about robbery. Atleast , where I live, there is practically 0 robbery.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#45

Post by andrepd »

shmoejoe wrote: post #34

I have given up on privacy. Any steps I take to preserve my privacy are negated by my inactions of years past, the current actions of my friends and family, and the actions of my government That said… I use an adblocker because it makes the browsing experience better and I use Firefox because it makes me feel better about browsing the internet. I’m in the apple ecosystem which makes me feel slightly more private and…

>Any steps I take to preserve my privacy are negated by my inactions of years past, the current actions of my friends and family, and the actions of my government

Well pester your friends and family to move to Signal and install uBlock on their browsers x)

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#46

Post by shmoejoe »

raspyberr wrote: post #38
shmoejoe wrote: post #34

I have given up on privacy. Any steps I take to preserve my privacy are negated by my inactions of years past, the current actions of my friends and family, and the actions of my government That said… I use an adblocker because it makes the browsing experience better and I use Firefox because it makes me feel better about browsing the internet. I’m in the apple ecosystem which makes me feel slightly more private and…

>inactions of years past Completely untrue. Data becomes less valuable as time goes on to the point that it becomes worthless.

Does it? Even old data could be used to build a psychological profile on someone and be extrapolated to present day if I dropped off the map

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#48

Post by afarviral »

afarviral wrote: post #43

I used to self host everything (nextcloud) but it was a pain, so I stopped. I just use google drive and fastmail because Im locked in with my fastmail email addresses. Firefox is still the privacy browser, despite its recent dying gasps it still goes hard. Ive taken to just doing things the frictionless way as I dont think my personal risk is very high and the extra effort taxes my productivity. E.g. if I let firefox…

Oh, and ublock origin and use social media apps in a browser on my phone and at a minimum with fake details.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#49

Post by als0 »

Support Firefox. The last independent browser resisting Google. I don't need to list all the things that Google are doing to undermine the web and adblocking. Safari is also fine in my book, but it's obviously proprietary and you may not trust Apple. Enable strict HTTPS and use an adblocker.

Encrypted cloud storage is fine but it's simply not convenient and sadly lacks good usability.

If you don't trust your ISP, use a VPN. Ideally a VPN you have full control over.

Social media needs and deserves to be handled separately from the rest of your life. Firefox Containers are one way for handling this. Or use Qubes if you deeply worry about advanced attacks.

Finally, use a different e-mail for each site you register for. This can be transparently automated using Firefox Relay or Apple's Hide My Email.

Of course, everything above are what I consider lightweight protections. There are heavier measures. Whatever you do, it's important to be clear about _who_ you want to keep your data private from. Because that entity may have more than way to gain access to your data. There is no such thing as absolute privacy in the virtual or physical world.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#50

Post by shmoejoe »

andrepd wrote: post #45
shmoejoe wrote: post #34

I have given up on privacy. Any steps I take to preserve my privacy are negated by my inactions of years past, the current actions of my friends and family, and the actions of my government That said… I use an adblocker because it makes the browsing experience better and I use Firefox because it makes me feel better about browsing the internet. I’m in the apple ecosystem which makes me feel slightly more private and…

>Any steps I take to preserve my privacy are negated by my inactions of years past, the current actions of my friends and family, and the actions of my government Well pester your friends and family to move to Signal and install uBlock on their browsers x)

Ha in a perfect world.

Honestly I used to try and convince people to be careful about online privacy but I found it made people like me less

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