You know what pisses me off more than having to update my system?
People who don’t care about their privacy.
Let’s first define ‘Privacy’.
The definition of privacy is: “The state of being free from public attention or unsanctioned intrusion.” This essentially means, in plain text, being free of watching eyes. If I asked 50 people in a room if they would like to be watched while they showered, most, if not all, would say no. A big tech corporation, such as Google, will always be watching.
So… what’s your point?
Google is essentially the Big Brother of Android phones. They track your location every few seconds, monitoring your position1, and even listening in, which they state is so that your phone can pick up “Hey Google”. Apple actually faced a lawsuit regarding this exact sort of thing2. My point is that these big corporations are doing things that are borderline illegal, and they’re getting away with it. AOSP is slowly becoming a hollow shell, with Google moving it away from the free, open domain it used to be, into a locked-down and closed shell. This is all just an effort to raise their market price, please investors, and generate more profit to do so.
I don’t have anything to hide. Why should I care?
The ’nothing to hide’ argument is… absolute trash. Privacy isn’t about hiding something illegal, it’s about having a boundary between your personal life and the rest of the world. If you really have nothing to hide, send me your whole photo library. Take off your bathroom door, or just livestream yourself showering. You wouldn’t do any of those now, would you? You do value privacy; you just confuse yourself with the border between privacy and doing something wrong.
Well… How do I fix it then?
Fixing your privacy can range from extremely simple tasks, like ditching Chrome for Firefox or Librewolf, to completely ditching Windows and the stock firmware that comes with your phone. There’s this pretty cool dude called Madaidan, you should totally check out his work. Also, Privsec too! Privsec is extremely useful, and maintained by people who know what they’re talking about. Check them out!
Ditching Chrome (or working with it?)
Google is one of the biggest data harvesters in the world, right next to Meta and Palantir. Getting rid of Chrome already gets rid of one extra company to worry about. Installing LibreWolf only takes a few clicks, and you can feel the benefit of not supporting an AI slop farm. Not to mention, LibreWolf comes with in-built privacy features that block trackers and ads; pretty cool, right? There’s also the option of “Degoogled Chromium”; Chrome is essentially just the Chromium engine (Which is Open-Source) stuffed full of trackers and proprietary bloatware that you do not need. Installing Chromium is simple, but setting up privacy flags can be rather tedious and time-consuming. A great middle-ground option is Helium, which is privacy-first, open-source and is made with the consumer in mind.
Switch DNS Resolvers
A DNS resolver literally just figures out what the IP address of a server is, and tells your browser the IP. It’s a simplified explanation, but it explains most of it. Changing DNS resolvers not only enhances your privacy, but using DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) makes it so that your own Internet Service Provider can’t even snoop on the queries you’re making, or hijack these requests… But you’ll actually still need a VPN to hide the destination IP… Pretty cool either way, huh? Changing this in your browser setting is relatively simple, but you can also apply it to your whole network through your router’s settings.
Get off of Windows.
Windows is a data farm. Don’t want to read anymore? You love Windows? I don’t care. Open-source projects like Fedora Linux or SecureBlue (For those who are high-risk targets) are recommended, and extremely user-friendly. It’s better to be on a system that doesn’t let you send data than a system that wants to send its own, no?
Conclusion
Your privacy depends on whether you are willing to fix it. It’s like a muscle; you either use it, or lose it. Don’t let these big corporations get their way, or they’ll only keep doing wrong. Money is the root of all evil, and I can say that to the fullest extent.
We all can.