What are /r/privatelife's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Google Play is not causing this issue. Apparently some ads can bypass the AOSP installation procedure and allow to install this one particular app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.home.weather.radar

The simple solution is to block ads well using a solid DNS, as recommended on the smartphone guide, or using a good HOSTS ruleset to block ads and trackers.

The apparatus allowing to bypass this is the Digital Turbine preloaded by carriers and OEMs in stickied comment picture here.

NordVPN blocked my ability to connect to any networks in China (which made my study abroad suck quite a bit since I couldn’t connect with the other students even on wifi). I wasted hours trying to fix it. It also wouldn’t function in the US but that’s a different story and a different malfunction.

I’m pretty terrible at this stuff, but that thing gave me a very bad experience.

Good point, folks like Techlore can probably be appetising but have their hands and interests tied with Brave Rewards, thus acting as shills for it, or you have r/privacy kind of echo chambers with tons of conspiracy. Objective analysis on your own is always going to feel time consuming, and lacking confidence in your own knowledge, and thus hard.

https://switching.software is a very basic kind of advice and a torch in the dark I can give you to look around. There is also https://prism-break.org that you should check out for guidance.

Refer to the threat model guide in sidebar of this subreddit and then you can atleast lay out a solid foundation and know precisely what you want.

Basically, you need to become independent with knowledge, and equip yourself in a lean manner. You can also ask on this subreddit for help.

SearX is a little buggy in my usage, and I find Qwant lot more polished so I just use it. Both are great for privacy though.

Use SearX if you can.

One more point, Bypass Paywalls is not on Firefox addon store but on a Github repo, because it breaks their ToS. Sideload it if you need paywall bypassing.

I do not remember where I talked about it, but me and my friend months ago researched this last year while making my smartphone 4.0 guide, where I replaced NetGuard with Invizible Pro.

We disable WiFi Captive Portal in the firewall to solve that issue, which was done almost an year ago. GOS has builtin firewall, but I am unsure if they allow disabling WiFi Captive Portal check, because it is not some system app.

You need to be really strict and methodical while performing these measures to attain real privacy, security and anonymity on Android devices (iOS is impossible and you need to neuter GMS on Androids). The Mullvad research ended up creating a bit of hysteria, but they are correct in what they said. There are ways to win the war, and banishing Google and NSA friends out of the Android is a necessity.

NordVPN has a rather... funny history with security of users' data... it happened twice. They did not reveal it to users until news broke in both occasions.

I was once a swipe typing addict. If you disable the app's internet from system settings and use a firewall filter on top of it, it should work well without any problems. I just preferred to change to AnySoftKeyboard since it has zero privacy hassle, and its text field manipulation features^ , the symbols and lennys it provides is far more useful than swipe typing has ever been to me.

^ Features like copy/cut/pasting from fields you cannot do by tap holding, or select all, or move one character in any direction in the text box/field through sentences or paragraphs. Also, undo/redo typing.

VPN is mainly for geoblock bypassing and anonymity from ISPs. With a top grade provider you also get traffic anonymity from government, but Tor is more anonymous. VPN trades off the slow speed of Tor for much higher speeds and lesser activist levels of anonymity.

You can pay with crypto such as Monero which is untraceable, truly anonymous, and fungible. You can research Monero but essentially you could buy it from an exchange such as Coinbase and send a payment somewhere (such as NordVPN payment servicer). The transaction's sender/receiver, amount, and history cannot be viewed publically by anyone except who the payment is sent to (they only see how much you sent them and what your address is). If you don't trust the servicer, create a 2nd Monero account yourself and not through an online service such as Coinbase. Send coin from your Coinbase account to your private address and then pay with that. Then it's impossible to know who you are even if the payment servicer releases your address. So no one could know YOU paid NordVPN. But who cares if you paying NordVPN is becomes public knowledge. Who cares if your account and that it's a paid account becomes public knowledge. What matters is that your activity is private/unknown.

This is where the no logs policy and proven track record matter. They don't log the IP address among other things when you log in. So internet traffic can never be traced back to your account. So even if people know you have a NordVPN account and paid for it. Even if they have your account email and password to NordVPN, they can't see your traffic. Your traffic is encrypted with keys between your computer and NordVPN and change periodically. They are also different for every connection.

Also, the point of a VPN is privacy. Not necessarily illegal activity. For example, securing your connection in public places or preventing your ISP from recording all websites you go to and selling that information. Or in countries who persecute sharing of certain information such as in China.

Change to a better VPN if you can. Mullvad, IVPN, OVPN, AirVPN, Windscribe and Cryptostorm are great.

/e/ is okay, I like LineageOS more due to wider community usage. You can pair NetGuard, InviZible Pro or RethinkDNS with them without root. AFWall+ with root.

GBoard only has the swipe type and popup search engine feature over OpenBoard, from my usage experience. FlorisBoard still has memory issues even though it has competent swipe typing. I see no other reasons to use GBoard. You can firewall it up from App info -> Data usage settings, and the firewall of choice you employ.

What we need is a feature in OpenContacts to directly send to WhatsApp:

In other words, mixing: OpenContacts (A different database for contacts to keep them private only to you.) https://f-droid.org/packages/opencontacts.open.com.opencontacts/

With: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tk.crazydevelopers.whatsdirect

ExpressVPN is one of the best vpn’s out there i used it for a Long time its simple and easy, and its safe. I Would highly recommend it. I have had No problems with it at all. Its super fast and Secure. You Can use it for watching movies or Gaming, you choose.

Check out the awesome prices and buy it in the link under:

Have RiseUp, Mullvad, Proton and other good VPN providers said anything on this matter? I understand why the Govt is doing this (national security you know the neighbors and ofcourse the ever increasing piracy), but this is a very aggressive decision and I wonder if this topic will be taken to the Supreme Court (as it should be, our Supreme Court has always promoted Right to Privacy). Now I just can't wait to see Tor public nodes being blocked by the indian ISPs......

> The LiquidVPN Defendants describe their VPN service as a tool to "Watch Popcorn Time without being detected by your ISP and P2P tracking software” and promote it as a tool that can be used to pirate copyright protected content “without the risk of getting caught by your ISP or anyone else.” See SAC at ¶¶225-226.

It appears that LiquidVPN advertised their service as able to break the law, with no consequence. That was a very silly thing to do.

They are good for basic anonymity against ISP, geoblock bypassing and heavy bandwidth usage. They still fulfill a lot of purposes. They are just not anonymous for stronger threat models, like Mullvad is. Also a bit iffy for torrenting.

I do not use them either.

A little reminder. We now have 2 VPN monoliths in the industry.

• Kape Technologies: PIA, ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, ZenMate ()

• NordVPN-Surfshark merger

I recommend trying NordVPN

Custom encryption isn't something you want either. Telegram's encryption is very weak. Signal also has sealed sender which is the best metadata protection that we have yet.

A few things I could ask of you is getting a cheap unlocked burner phone from a different service or even offline and moving Facebook and Whatsapp to that “Work Phone” and have a general VPN budget, for a Cheap one I recommend Mullvad VPN on Bitcoin with an offline Wallet.

I'm using ProtonVPN and . ProtonVPN for unblocking streaming services and for my GL-inet router (WireGuard) and also to evade government censorship.

It depends on what do you you want, and there is no best. It all depends on you mate!

On the Whonix wiki, it is clearly stated that they do not endorse networks on which they create accounts. And considering that the Gab account is not posting any content that suggests fascist sympathies, this is simply guilt by association, and not a reason for concern.

Privacy is a human right that should be spread as much as possible. Everyone deserves privacy, even those without a sane mind.

I agree with /u/CDr0m on using decentralized services, but also agree with you, OP, that keeping an open connection to non-free, centrally-owned services is important when discussing these kinds of things. Although I limit my proprietary software usage and thus won't be using Telegram, I'm still stuck with using Reddit and Discord.

Maybe instead of completely shooting down a connection to Telegram for being non-free and open to surveillance, the service can be bridged to Matrix. The same could be done with other services, and a group of bridged channels could be established on Matrix for a community like this. Channel names like Private Life (Telegram), Private Life (Discord), etc. could make it clear for anyone who joins those channels (from the Matrix side) what service their messages are going through, while those who join the non-free service will still be able to reach out to those who prefer more private solutions. The sidebar could list Matrix, XMPP or Jami channels as well as things like Discord and Telegram, so that whatever people are comfortable with can be accommodated.

IVPN is the middleman entity acting as an anonymous networking tunnel, providing servers from various countries. Policies of various providers can depend regarding logging, encryption of traffic and so on. IVPN does well in that regard.

WireGuard and OpenVPN are the VPN protocols, or the technical framework of a VPN system on client AND server sides. (AND because server side aka VPN provider has to support these VPN protocols.)

You have to setup Wireguard or OpenVPN to use IVPN, from what I know. Look through online blog guides, most of them should be easy to accomplish. Ask IVPN for documentation and better support as well.

IVPN is a solid pick, now you just need to get your hands dirty on the keyboard.

AdNauseam extension clicks ads and blocks them. It's based on uBlock Origin. If you are using Chrome or some Chrome based browsers like Brave you will not be allowed to install it. The Chrome based browsers that do let you install it you need to enter developer mode.

It's in the extension store in Firefox and is a simple install for Firefox.

Another option is to use Brave and enable the Brave browser ads and automatic BAT tipping. Brave is not a good privacy browser though, but it is probably marginally better than Chrome.

I am not sure if AdNauseam reduces tracking. Clicking on every ad may obfuscate trackers or it may make you stand out. That said, you can be fingerprinted pretty easily on almost any browser.

https://adnauseam.io

If you want to see how easy it is to be tracked, you can check out https://coveryourtracks.eff.org

There was even a new tracking method that works even if javascript is competely disabled using just CSS and HTML. But most sites probably won't use this newer method as it's a bit trickier to implement.

Another option is to message the channels you view a lot and ask if there is a way to donate directly to them.

If you are excited about Firefox's evolution, you should keep an eye on LibreWolf:

https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

It's a FF fork aimed at protecting user's privacy while browsing the web.

> Why are phone numbers a privacy problem?

> (...)

> Phone numbers are critical to the way we move about the world these days. Pretty much every service that lets you make an account—including essential services like banking and health—use your phone number for verification that you’re the real human that you’re claiming to be. This ever-increasing dependence on phone numbers makes it a logistical nightmare to try and change your phone number, and because of this...people just never change it.

> Even as a privacy-conscious person, it has been years since I updated my phone number. Changing my digits wouldn’t just mean that I have to sit down and spend hours tracking down and change my on-file phone number at my doctor’s clinic, gym, work, and a million other places — it would also mean that hundreds of contacts from years of professional and personal number-sharing would (effectively) lose my phone number. Even worse, if my old number ended up getting recycled, then my personal messages could end up in someone else’s inbox.

> Because of all this, people end up changing phone numbers less often than they change their actual, physical address. This is a big problem — over the years, you’ve probably entered your phone number into long-forgotten websites, petitions, and apps, and now your phone number is buried deep in all corners of the internet.

> (...)

> https://getsession.org/blog/phone-number-privacy

https://nitter.net/BatmanAoD/status/1267547083705159680#m

https://nitter.net/BatmanAoD/status/1267556614241832960#m

Seems like Fackler is only a single employee on the Library team. Besides the programming language is open source, so I guess it cannot be too much of an issue unlike Brave which is directly influenced as in coin mining and spying on users.

Programming languages cannot spy or harm anyone. From an ethical standpoint, it cannot miff you off too much since it is just one member.

Just my take on this.

GDPR seems to have protections. The first couple lines of the new privacy policy refer to EU separately, take a look.

The new policy affects people outside EU, so I addressed that, still take a look. https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy-eea

>

First few lines from the article:

> Report identifies the most dangerous mobile app store on the internet

> And, no! It's not the Google Play Store. Catalin Cimpanu

> , a portal for downloading free Android games, was identified as the mobile app store hosting the most malicious apps in 2019.

Are you purposely equating to F-Droid? This store is not even known to people. Is this a purposeful attempt at encouraging users to give in to FUD?

>

Lines from the article:

> 1. Android makes it easier for hackers to develop exploits, increasing the threat level.

> Apple’s closed development operating system makes it more challenging for hackers to gain access to develop exploits. Android is the complete opposite. Anyone (including hackers) can view its source code to develop exploits. As the most used mobile in the world, It could be said that Android phones are generally more susceptible to security flaws.

This reeks of dishonesty, and an attempt to smear open source software code culture as some illegal, underground, shady thing compared to the assumed clean, sterile corporate closed source code.

NordVPN client is not even open source. And they were hacked twice in massive breaches. Why are you citing NordVPN as an authoritative source of information on mobile privacy and security, when they are hostile to open source culture?

You are violating Rule 2. Another attempt to smear FOSS culture will result in strict action, unless you want to debate properly.

Welcome, r/VPN moderator! It is nice to see such recognition for this tiny subreddit.

A suggestion to make the document available on domains other than Google. Also, Mullvad is missing in the list, one of the most well known VPNs.

“The at least until recently CIO of big VPN ExpressVPN is one of the three former U.S. intelligence operatives who agreed today not to fight charges they illegally helped UAE hack people. Kind of makes you think.”

Take a look at:

I use Mullvad and they offer it as standard. You just enter the proxy address and port in your browsers proxy settings and it diverts your internet traffic so you don't have to complete a captcha on every other website.

In the underground community, everyone knows it is a corporate buzzword. This subreddit is only a bridge between those and Reddit tier users, minus the toxicity.

Monero is one of the authentic cryptocurrencies at the moment, but how long will it last remains to be seen. We saw the Bitcoins being spammed like Raid Shadow Legends and NordVPN on YouTube.

That One Privacy Guy has a curated VPN list:

Personally, I consider Mullvad, ProtonVPN, RiseUp solid, and any VPN that allows WireGuard and/or OpenVPN manual configuration good.

If you do not care about anonymity and critical operations, and just want geoblock bypassing, pick whatever is decent on That One Privacy Guy's list above and on sale.

At the bottom of Torrentfreak's page

> several of the providers listed in this article are TorrentFreak sponsors. We reserve the first three spots for our sponsors, as a courtesy.

Oh yes just like every other review site (except the legit ones like That one privacy site and maybe ) they get paid to recommend shit VPNs like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Private Internet Access (USA). After that is ProtonVPN, then you would have to scroll to the near bottom of the page just to find a good VPN like Mullvad. By then the user wasn't willing to read the whole article so they just settled on one of their top 3 or they picked the shitty ProtonVPN just because they had a "free" version. Most review sites including that are bullshit because the internet as we knew it has been ruined by capitalism and large corporations.

Maybe this sub should create a wiki like the one on r/privacy where we list our recommendations for services as well as give the users some good resources on how to choose software without relying on the elites recommendations. We can encourage users to read it all before posting shit like "which email provider should I use" where everyone replies "ProtonMail" (shit provider which forced VPN/Tor users to give out phone number and it uses javashit encryption). If you're willing to do that I can help you get started.