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How To Become More Free Online: A Guide For The Technologically-Impaired

Despite everyone being glued to a screen, I have found that most people have no idea how a computer works. This is true for both the older and younger generations as they did not have a chance to experience the old-way of using a computer. There were no apps or app-stores. Productivity happened outside the web browser and the challenges that this posed taught those using a computer in the 90s and early 2000s the basics that seem to be lost on others

This guide is intended to help those who want to maximize their privacy online and avoid using software from companies that do not value your freedom or hate you because of your political views. If you are already scoffing and saying “I have nothing to hide”, then this guide is not for you, bye!

If you are still here you most likely already understand the following:

  1. Your privacy is valuable and something that you should strive to protect.
  2. Companies are using/selling your data to target advertisements at you.
  3. They are also collecting huge amounts of personal information you would not want anyone knowing to begin with:
    1. Go here to learn how to download all the information Google has stored about you. They had my longitude and latitude of absolutely everywhere I went with my cellphone for over a decade (why do they need to know this?)
    2. Companies are also using your data to train chatbots, which makes them richer while you don’t see a cent. Not to mention chatbots are ruining the internet (email me if you want to know more).
  4. Many companies push a narrative that is politically at odds with yours, there is no reason to support them by using their products.

Begin taking back your freedom with these baby-steps that anyone from any technological background can make. Do not try to tackle all of these at once, it takes time to totally revamp your habits online. Biting off more than you can chew will most likely result in you feeling overwhelmed and giving up. Maybe try one or two changes a month.

I am going to separate these by difficulty.

  1. Easy Peasy: A task that can be completed within an hour.
  2. Medium: A task that may take a day to complete, or a paradigm shift that would require some learning.
  3. Advanced: A task that would take a day or two to complete and a week or more to get used to.

Change Your Browser || ■□□□□ [Easy Peasy]

I do not think it can get easier than this. This is the best place to start on your journey towards internet freedom and privacy. When it comes to browsers, the best recommendation I can give to someone who is just starting out is the Brave Browser.

Out of the box it will:

  1. Block Ads (Yes, even on YouTube.)
  2. The Brave Search Engine
    1. Does not profile you.
    2. Does not use search results from Big Tech (like DuckDuckGo does).
    3. Claims to be censorship free.
    4. Allows you to filter results based on political bias.
  3. Block Fingerprinting
    1. Digital fingerprinting is the process where a remote site or service gathers little bits of information about a user’s machine, and puts those pieces together to form a unique picture, or “fingerprint ,” of the user’s device.
    2. Companies can learn information about you and your device, and either use or sell that information to target ads at you, put you into a category of what type of user you are, track which websites you use, etc.
  4. Block Third-Party Cookies
    1. Useful for fingerprinting, websites can store data on your browser to help identify you across the web.

Brave comes with an AI chatbot. I turn mine off.

You can download Brave on a PC, Mac, Linux and any smartphone. You can sync Brave across your devices so your bookmarks and history are everywhere you are.

Alternatives:

  1. LibreWolf (Desktop only)
    1. Download Here: https://librewolf.net/
    2. LibreWolf takes privacy to the next level, you are essentially in incognito mode all the time.

Stop Using the Cloud to Store Your Files || ■□□□□ [Easy Peasy]

This is also an easy win. Stop putting your data on the cloud. Cliche but true: The cloud is just someone else’s computer. It is not, as Kamala says, in a non-physical form floating above us.

When you store your data on a cloud service like Google Cloud, you have no expectation of privacy for your files. You also cannot assume that they will be there forever, because you do not own them, Google does. Furthermore, if their servers were to be hacked, now a nefarious third party has access to your files. On top of all of that, who knows if they are scanning your files to harvest data for fingerprinting, categorization, ad targeting, etc.

The solution is simple. Stop using the cloud, only store files on your own computer. While hosting your own private cloud is an option, this tutorial is for the technologically-impaired and hosting your own services would be an advanced topic.

Portability: If you are using the cloud for portability, The simplest solution would be getting a thumb-drive that has usb-c capability (usb-c is the common usb port on smart-phones), putting data that needs to be portable on it, and carrying it around with you.

Backing Up Data: If you are using the cloud as a backup, putting your files on a thumb-drive or external hard drive would be a better solution. This is data you find important enough to back up, why are you backing it up on someone else’s computer?

File Sharing: This really depends on the size and sensitivity of the file you are sharing.

  • If you need to send a small non-sensitive file, you can just send it over email (we will go over getting you off of Gmail later).
  • If you need to send a small, sensitive file over email, you should zip and password protect the file. Follow the instructions here.
  • If you are sending a large file, simple options are limited. I would always opt to share the file in person via usb thumb-drive if you are not hosting a private cloud server.
  • If you need to upload a large and sensitive file to the cloud, I recommend zip and password protect it using the method above.

At the time of writing this you can buy a USB with both USB-A and USB-C capability that has 128GB of storage for less than $30. I try to use ebay to purchase things like this, but there really is no online retailer that respects your privacy or is not completely political.

Change Your Search Engine || ■□□□□ [Easy Peasy]

Most people have the wherewithal to not use Google or other search engines from Big Tech companies. But I think the bigger issue is that most people will go to something like DuckDuckGo instead and think that is enough. DuckDuckGo still uses big tech trackers and (from what I understand) gets its results from big tech as well. They are still a large corporation and their code base has proprietary software (aka not open source)! I have even seen the DuckDuckGo mentioned (and maybe ever recommended) by the news.

tldr DuckDuckGo is not the solution.

Brave search is a better alternative and comes with the brave browser as well. But if you want the best alternative it would be the Searx engine. Searx search engine is open source software that has instances hosted by the general public. This means that your search results are most likely not being tracked and if they are it is by some schmuck and not a huge corporation. There are many Searx instances and you can find the best ones here: https://searx.space/.

You will need to manually add the search engine instance to your browser. In your browser, go to Settings > Search Engines > (then it will be different steps for each browser).

Disclaimer: Because the search engine instances are self hosted, it is possible they will go down and not be usable. This could be for a day, a week, or forever. If this happens, go back to https://searx.space/ and pick a new instance that is working. Yes this is more work than just going to Google or DuckDuckGo. This is the price you have to pay for privacy. If you want convenience, you pay for it with your privacy.

Coming Soon:

  • Get off social media
  • Use a password manager
  • Stop using chat apps
  • Stop using chatbots
  • Change your office suite
  • Change your operating system
  • Change your email provider
Tags:

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How To Become More Free Online: A Guide For The Technologically-Impaired

Despite everyone being glued to a screen, I have found that most people have no idea how a computer works. This is true for both the older and younger generations as they did not have a chance to experience the old-way of using a computer. There were no apps or app-stores. Productivity happened outside the web browser and the challenges that this posed taught those using a computer in the 90s and early 2000s the basics that seem to be lost on others

This guide is intended to help those who want to maximize their privacy online and avoid using software from companies that do not value your freedom or hate you because of your political views. If you are already scoffing and saying “I have nothing to hide”, then this guide is not for you, bye!

If you are still here you most likely already understand the following:

  1. Your privacy is valuable and something that you should strive to protect.
  2. Companies are using/selling your data to target advertisements at you.
  3. They are also collecting huge amounts of personal information you would not want anyone knowing to begin with:
    1. Go here to learn how to download all the information Google has stored about you. They had my longitude and latitude of absolutely everywhere I went with my cellphone for over a decade (why do they need to know this?)
    2. Companies are also using your data to train chatbots, which makes them richer while you don’t see a cent. Not to mention chatbots are ruining the internet (email me if you want to know more).
  4. Many companies push a narrative that is politically at odds with yours, there is no reason to support them by using their products.

Begin taking back your freedom with these baby-steps that anyone from any technological background can make. Do not try to tackle all of these at once, it takes time to totally revamp your habits online. Biting off more than you can chew will most likely result in you feeling overwhelmed and giving up. Maybe try one or two changes a month.

I am going to separate these by difficulty.

  1. Easy Peasy: A task that can be completed within an hour.
  2. Medium: A task that may take a day to complete, or a paradigm shift that would require some learning.
  3. Advanced: A task that would take a day or two to complete and a week or more to get used to.

Change Your Browser || ■□□□□ [Easy Peasy]

I do not think it can get easier than this. This is the best place to start on your journey towards internet freedom and privacy. When it comes to browsers, the best recommendation I can give to someone who is just starting out is the Brave Browser.

Out of the box it will:

  1. Block Ads (Yes, even on YouTube.)
  2. The Brave Search Engine
    1. Does not profile you.
    2. Does not use search results from Big Tech (like DuckDuckGo does).
    3. Claims to be censorship free.
    4. Allows you to filter results based on political bias.
  3. Block Fingerprinting
    1. Digital fingerprinting is the process where a remote site or service gathers little bits of information about a user’s machine, and puts those pieces together to form a unique picture, or “fingerprint ,” of the user’s device.
    2. Companies can learn information about you and your device, and either use or sell that information to target ads at you, put you into a category of what type of user you are, track which websites you use, etc.
  4. Block Third-Party Cookies
    1. Useful for fingerprinting, websites can store data on your browser to help identify you across the web.

Brave comes with an AI chatbot. I turn mine off.

You can download Brave on a PC, Mac, Linux and any smartphone. You can sync Brave across your devices so your bookmarks and history are everywhere you are.

Alternatives:

  1. LibreWolf (Desktop only)
    1. Download Here: https://librewolf.net/
    2. LibreWolf takes privacy to the next level, you are essentially in incognito mode all the time.

Stop Using the Cloud to Store Your Files || ■□□□□ [Easy Peasy]

This is also an easy win. Stop putting your data on the cloud. Cliche but true: The cloud is just someone else’s computer. It is not, as Kamala says, in a non-physical form floating above us.

When you store your data on a cloud service like Google Cloud, you have no expectation of privacy for your files. You also cannot assume that they will be there forever, because you do not own them, Google does. Furthermore, if their servers were to be hacked, now a nefarious third party has access to your files. On top of all of that, who knows if they are scanning your files to harvest data for fingerprinting, categorization, ad targeting, etc.

The solution is simple. Stop using the cloud, only store files on your own computer. While hosting your own private cloud is an option, this tutorial is for the technologically-impaired and hosting your own services would be an advanced topic.

Portability: If you are using the cloud for portability, The simplest solution would be getting a thumb-drive that has usb-c capability (usb-c is the common usb port on smart-phones), putting data that needs to be portable on it, and carrying it around with you.

Backing Up Data: If you are using the cloud as a backup, putting your files on a thumb-drive or external hard drive would be a better solution. This is data you find important enough to back up, why are you backing it up on someone else’s computer?

File Sharing: This really depends on the size and sensitivity of the file you are sharing.

  • If you need to send a small non-sensitive file, you can just send it over email (we will go over getting you off of Gmail later).
  • If you need to send a small, sensitive file over email, you should zip and password protect the file. Follow the instructions here.
  • If you are sending a large file, simple options are limited. I would always opt to share the file in person via usb thumb-drive if you are not hosting a private cloud server.
  • If you need to upload a large and sensitive file to the cloud, I recommend zip and password protect it using the method above.

At the time of writing this you can buy a USB with both USB-A and USB-C capability that has 128GB of storage for less than $30. I try to use ebay to purchase things like this, but there really is no online retailer that respects your privacy or is not completely political.

Change Your Search Engine || ■□□□□ [Easy Peasy]

Most people have the wherewithal to not use Google or other search engines from Big Tech companies. But I think the bigger issue is that most people will go to something like DuckDuckGo instead and think that is enough. DuckDuckGo still uses big tech trackers and (from what I understand) gets its results from big tech as well. They are still a large corporation and their code base has proprietary software (aka not open source)! I have even seen the DuckDuckGo mentioned (and maybe ever recommended) by the news.

tldr DuckDuckGo is not the solution.

Brave search is a better alternative and comes with the brave browser as well. But if you want the best alternative it would be the Searx engine. Searx search engine is open source software that has instances hosted by the general public. This means that your search results are most likely not being tracked and if they are it is by some schmuck and not a huge corporation. There are many Searx instances and you can find the best ones here: https://searx.space/.

You will need to manually add the search engine instance to your browser. In your browser, go to Settings > Search Engines > (then it will be different steps for each browser).

Disclaimer: Because the search engine instances are self hosted, it is possible they will go down and not be usable. This could be for a day, a week, or forever. If this happens, go back to https://searx.space/ and pick a new instance that is working. Yes this is more work than just going to Google or DuckDuckGo. This is the price you have to pay for privacy. If you want convenience, you pay for it with your privacy.

Coming Soon:

  • Get off social media
  • Use a password manager
  • Stop using chat apps
  • Stop using chatbots
  • Change your office suite
  • Change your operating system
  • Change your email provider
Tags: