Earlier quoted context omitted.
what do you mean by gps free? i have lots of apps installed from fdroid that use gps
Google Play Services, not Global Positioning System.
Yes, this.
The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
411–420 of 445 posts
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Consent-O-Matic (auto fill cookie consent forms) This will modify the browser fringerprint making you more unique. I would not install so many extensions as you're trusting a huge number of organizations/people with privileged access to your browser. Anything that modifies CSS, Document Object Model (DOM) will make your browser stand out. We wrote a blog post about this: https://blog.privacyguides.org/2021/12/01/fi…
Trying to avoid tracking on the modern web is a losing battle for any but the most hyperparanoid, consistently careful, and technically astute individuals. For everyone else: you're going to leak identity information one way or another, and it's going to get correlated. The more plugged-in and connected you are, the harder it is to remain anonymous. If you really value your privacy, don't use the internet or any type…
> If you really value your privacy, don't use the internet or any types of computers, including phones, and never go outside.
Or, perhaps, take a bit of a more nuanced view of things. Perfect privacy, exactly like perfect security, is and always has been an unattainable ideal. But less than perfection is still very useful.
Locking your front door won't stop someone with a battering ram, but you might want to do it anyway.
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
So? It still blocks ads.
Sure, but do they also not collect any analytics for their ads? Will that last through a financial crisis if advertisers offer them more money? Will it last if they gain market dominance? If their money comes from advertisers and not users, they serve advertisers and not users. Supporting them as a temporary solution just means if they succeed we have all the same problems when the same incentives come into play.
> Sure, but do they also not collect any analytics for their ads?
Configurable.
> Will that last through a financial crisis if advertisers offer them more money?
Will Brazil win the 2090 world cup? I'm not sure I get your point...
> Supporting them as a temporary solution just means if they succeed we have all the same problems when the same incentives come into play.
Internet services are run by ads. Unless we can transfer to a model which is publicly funded or subscription based (even free software needs to pay for servers and employees -- the money has to come from somewhere) then the best we can hope for is an ad-funded service which allows you enough control to turn everything off if you want to.
Do you have a better solution and are you willing to start working on it?
Otherwise, you are making 'perfect' the enemy of 'good'.
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see any ads. You can turn them off.
You can not say a browser is built to block ads when showing ads is literally how it makes money. You maybe turned it off, but most people didn't. If everybody turned it off, it would not have a revenue stream.
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Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see any ads. You can turn them off.
You can not say a browser is built to block ads when showing ads is literally how it makes money. You maybe turned it off, but most people didn't. If everybody turned it off, it would not have a revenue stream.
> You can not say a browser is built to block ads when showing ads is literally how it makes money.
Sure I can:
It was built to block ads. You have to tell it to do so in a way that blocks "all of them" otherwise it just blocks the terrible/annoying/malicious ones.
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do all the people who use computers to browse the internet (the majority of people on the internet) suddenly no longer exist?
I'm wondering if those still are the majority, worldwide. Smart-phones have done a lot to democratize computing power (now if only they weren't used to put >90% of their users in corporate controlled walled gardens...)
I don't actually believe smart-phones have done much to democratize computing power because phones don't give you much control over computing power. You can't develop software on a phone using a phone. And frankly the vast majority of phones have way more computing power than is actually used.
On a related point, the push to the cloud is befuddling when everyone has a phone with "free" (from the developer's point of view) computing power sitting there unused. Everyone's wasting money on centralizing compute despite more distributed compute being available than ever before.
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#417Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#418why only when searching?
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
PiHole?
You don't need pihole. there are adblockers on iOS. They aren't as flexible as ublock on android but they're 98% there and good enough with the added advantage that google isn't spying on your every move and sending it back to the mothership.
Instead, Apple is (https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/13/ios-16-vpns-leak-data-e...). And so is your cell phone provider (https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/us-cell-carriers-still-sel...). And so is every third party app on your phone (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government...).
Carrying a smartphone is incompatible with privacy. Unfortunately, so is using a credit card (https://www.fastcompany.com/90490923/credit-card-companies-a...) and having a face (https://www.wired.com/story/get-used-to-face-recognition-in-...).
We're all doomed, so you may as well just use the software that makes you happy.
Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Consent-O-Matic (auto fill cookie consent forms) This will modify the browser fringerprint making you more unique. I would not install so many extensions as you're trusting a huge number of organizations/people with privileged access to your browser. Anything that modifies CSS, Document Object Model (DOM) will make your browser stand out. We wrote a blog post about this: https://blog.privacyguides.org/2021/12/01/fi…
I use Ad Nauseum instead of plain UBlock so that the data sent is just garbage. You would think something simple like clicking all the ads wouldn't work, but it works well enough that Google banned it from the Chrome store
I totally forgot about Ad Nauseam! I used to use it instead of uBlock Origin (which, if I remember correctly, is what Ad Nauseam actually uses for its adblocking). Google banning it from their extensions marketplace only strengthened my loathing for Google and my resolve to use it. I don’t remember why I eventually stopped - probably the inconvenience. Now that I’m a Firefox user, I should pick that back up and give it a spin again. It was entertaining to see the visualization of all the ads it had clicked on.
I also used to use Chaff (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chaff/jgjhamliocfh...), which opens up a tab and browses on its own when the browser is idle and disappears when you start using it again. As with Ad Nauseam, the means of protecting privacy behind it is not anonymity, but rather obfuscation - muddifying your actual browsing behavior by flooding the data you leave behind with junk data (at which point it ceases to be data, I suppose). The problem with that extension was that I would sit back and wait for it to start browsing, and then I’d waste too much time watching it / customizing its behavior.
The book _Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest_, written by the authors who developed Ad Nauseam and TrackMeNot, has a great chapter on chaff (the obfuscation tactic, not the Chaff extension mentioned above).