Hello, Lemmy!

It may be difficult to spend time actively improving some of the services you use to have a more privacy conscious presence, and so this thread is dedicated to help people learn and grow in their privacy journeys! Start by stating which services you currently use, and which ones you may be looking for/want to improve. This thread is entirely optional to participate in, because a lot of people understandably feel uncomfortable listing which services they use. Writing those out can be a lot of work, but the payoff is huge!

Remember these rules:

  • Be respectful! Some people are early on in their privacy journey, or have a lax threat model. Just because it doesn’t align with yours, or uses some anti-privacy software, doesn’t mean you can downvote them! Help them improve by giving suggestions on alternatives.

  • Don’t promote proprietary software! Proprietary software, no matter how good it may seem, is against the community rules, and generally frowned upon. If you aren’t sure, you can always ask! This is a place to learn. Don’t downvote people just because they don’t know!

  • Don’t focus solely on me! Since this happened in another one of my posts, I want to mention that this thread is not designed to pick apart only my setup. The point is to contribute your own and help others. That doesn’t mean you can’t still give suggestions for mine, but don’t prioritize mine over another.

  • Be polite! This falls under “Be respectful”, but be kind to everyone! Say please, thank you, and sorry. Lemmy is really good about this, but there will always be someone.

Here is my setup:

Web browsing

  • I use Tor for using online accounts (such as Lemmy, etc.)

  • I use Mullvad Browser for general browsing

  • I use Librewolf for functionality that Mullvad Browser doesn’t have (security keys, etc.)

  • I use Firefox + uBlock Origin for streaming videos that break on Librewolf and Mullvad Browser.

  • I always use a SearXNG instance for web searches. I always use ProtonVPN (free tier). I use a private DNS resolver.

Desktop

  • I use Secureblue (yes, I’m that guy from a post a couple weeks ago)

  • I sit behind a firewall.

  • I only use FOSS Flatpaks with Flatseal.

  • My BIOS is password locked but proprietary (due to compatibility issues).

  • I occasionally use Tails because I think it’s fun.

  • I use full disk encryption, multiple disks, and a second layer of encryption for specific important files (NSA style)

Mobile

  • I currently use hardened iOS until I can scrape together some money for a Pixel to use GrapheneOS

  • Again, I constantly use ProtonVPN (free tier)

  • I use a private DNS when ProtonVPN is turned off

  • I use AdGuard, but I browse the internet with the DuckDuckGo app (I can’t sideload)

  • I use a very strong passcode

  • Airplane mode is constantly enabled, I don’t have a SIM

  • I use a Faraday bag to store my device when I’m in public

  • I use a privacy screen protector

Messenger

  • I mainly use Signal with a borrowed phone number, because SimpleX is still buggy on iOS, and Signal is the easiest to switch friends to. I rarely use iMessage, but there are times when I have to.

Online accounts

  • Passwords are stored in Bitwarden for mobile accounts, and KeePassXC for desktop accounts.

  • Yubikey is placed on any account I can, otherwise 2FAS is used

  • I keep public accounts (Lemmy, etc.) as locked down as I can.

Video streaming

  • I use the native YouTube app on iOS, simply because any of the others I’ve tried either don’t actually work or require a Mac to install. I don’t have a Mac, obviously.

  • I use FreeTube on desktop, but as I was writing this I was informed that FreeTube has a few issues I may want to look into (Electron).

AI

  • I would love to know if there are any Flatpaks that run local LLMs well, but I currently use GPT4All (since that’s what I used a year ago).

  • On mobile, I use an app made by a friend that gives access to GPT-4 and Gemini. Because it’s running off of his own money, I’m not going to share the project until he has a stable source of income.

Social Media

  • I don’t use any social media besides Lemmy.

Email

  • I use ProtonMail

  • I have addy.io as an alias service

Shopping/Finance

  • I currently either proxy my online purchases through someone else (have them buy it for me and I pay them back), or use a gift card

  • For physical purchases I use cash

  • I only use my bank account for subscriptions (Spotify, etc.)

  • I am working on using Monero and privacy.com

Music streaming

  • I use Spotify on my phone

  • I use Spotube or locally downloaded files on my computer

  • I have multiple AM/FM receivers with some yard long antennas and direct metal connectors

TV shows

  • I stream from ethical services for some movies

  • I go to a theater or buy a DVD for other movies. I am the proud owner of a USB DVD player.

  • I also have an antenna hooked up to my TV

  • There are certain IPTV services I have used in the past

  • I do not use a smart TV.

Gaming

  • I download local games, plain and simple. Or I code my own game.

Programming

  • I code in Python using PyCharm. I’m looking for alternatives.

  • I will use GitLab when I decide to publish some of my work.

Productivity

  • LibreOffice, although the UI is iffy

Misc

  • I don’t use any location services

  • All my clocks are set to UTC

  • I don’t have a smart watch

  • I don’t have a smart car

  • I use Bluetooth earbuds

  • I cover my webcams with paper and tape. Reason: It’s worth taking a couple seconds to peel tape off when you use the webcam than to risk a massive breach.

Thanks for reading!

Note here: I found out the other day that a Google Streetview car passed by my house, and my blinds being shut were the only thing keeping my room away from prying eyes. Is there an easy way to blur/censor my house without giving up my soul?

Special thanks

Lots of people kindly contributed their personal setups in the comments, and some even made their own posts! I’m really glad I could spark inspiration and start a way for people to learn and grow in their privacy journeys. To think, just this morning, I was stressing on if people would even enjoy the post at all! Thank you all again, and please go forward to inspire others. I am not the person who made this happen, all of you are!

  •  Hellfire103   ( @hellfire103@lemmy.ca ) English
    3•3 months ago

    Nice setup! I think I’ll maybe make one of my own!

    I have a few questions, though:

    • How did you set up your firewall? What did you use and what rules do you have in place?
    • How did you harden iOS? I have read up and implemented a number of basic settings to reduce tracking, and NextDNS blocks the rest, but I wouldn’t consider my current iPhone “hardened”, per se.
    •  Charger8232   ( @Charger8232@lemmy.ml ) OP
      2•3 months ago

      1. Since this is a fresh install of Secureblue, I have the default rules in place. I will eventually take a day to crack down and find out what rules I want.

      2. This explains now to harden iOS

      3. Thanks for letting this inspire you to make your own!

        •  Charger8232   ( @Charger8232@lemmy.ml ) OP
          2•3 months ago

          Running on Lockdown Mode now, and it’s actually not that bad!

          I have only had issues with it twice, been using it for a year

          1. Images on a website wouldn’t load (for security reasons)

          2. Some apps break, but you can disable it per-app

  •  Wild Bill   ( @clark@midwest.social ) 
    3•3 months ago

    I’m not educated enough to comment on most of your points, so here is my set-up:

    • Web: Safari on iPhone with Google browser, Firefox + uBlock origin on desktop with Google browser. I had DDG for a while but I missed the short summary answers you get when you type in a question to Google. I am not in a place to pay for a browser (i.e. Kagi).

    • Mobile: iPhone with free tier NextDNS. I am looking into buying a Samsung S9/S10 to install LineageOS on. It’s been a while I used Android so I’m not sure how easy that will be. I store all my passwords in Apple’s “Passwords” in settings, and all of them are 20+ characters long and complex (I use a generator whenever I make a new password). Any suggestions on (free/FOSS) password storers?

    • Messenger: I use Facebook messenger to communicate with my family as only my sister and I have iOS. Furthermore, FB is the only social media I have besides Lemmy.

    • Email: I use ProtonMail but am considering switching to Tutanota. I don’t have the opportunity to pay for a mail provider right now.

    • Music/streaming: I use Spotify for music. I use FreeTube for YT on desktop only. My parents pay for Netflix & HBO and so I watch them sometimes, although I have made it a habit to pirate movies online. Also books. Part of me wants to download my music from Spotify and store it somewhere, but iPhone Drive isn’t the greatest when it comes to that. Maybe somebody has (free/FOSS) suggestions?

    • Misc: I never pay with cash since most stores don’t take it. I use Bluetooth earphones. I don’t game.

    Keep in mind I am relatively new to the piracy / privacy community and there’s a lot of terms I don’t know. I hope to improve my privacy and receive advice from more experienced people. Cheers!

    •  Charger8232   ( @Charger8232@lemmy.ml ) OP
      1•3 months ago

      I am looking into buying a Samsung S9/S10 to install LineageOS on.

      If you have the money, check out GrapheneOS!

      Part of me wants to download my music from Spotify and store it somewhere, but iPhone Drive isn’t the greatest when it comes to that. Maybe somebody has (free/FOSS) suggestions?

      Spotube does this really well

        •  Charger8232   ( @Charger8232@lemmy.ml ) OP
          2•3 months ago

          I remember I tried out Spotube on my computer but the code wouldn’t work.

          It’s buggy, but it works good enough with some effort.

          How does Graphene differ from Lineage, in any way that it is preferable?

          This table compares Android ROMs based on a lot of metrics. Basically, Lineage isn’t as private as people think, but Graphene does it proper. Let me know if you have specific questions :)

  •  Zerush   ( @Zerush@lemmy.ml ) 
    3•3 months ago

    Tip, FreeTube is fine, but as you say, certain difficults with some Videos. Because of this, I have specified SMplayer (MPlayer engine) as an external player in FreeTube, this way, if a video does not work in FreeTube, just click on the small rectangle at the bottom left of the thumbnail, so that the Video opens in SMplayer, which practically works always.

    If you visit YouTube directly, there is a simple trick to convert the Video into embedded, that is, the video is opened as such in a tab, without going through the YT page. This also avoids a lot of trackers and ads, as well as unnecessary loads (thumbnails, comments, suggestions and other crap).

    Simply edit the URL

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxx

    to

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/xxxxxxxx

  •  Mikina   ( @Mikina@programming.dev ) 
    2•3 months ago

    My own setup from the top of my head would be:

    • Browser: Mullvad with Mullvad VPN, LibreWolf for stuff that breaks. Brave if I really have no other choice.
    • Phone: Pixel with Graphene, main profile is Google-less, second profile with Sandboxed GServices for apps that don’t work without it but I need them, downloaded through fresh gmail profile. Third profile linked to my old gmail with credit card for the two apps I bought and sometimes need to use.
    • Mail: I use Protonmail, with my own domain that sounds vaguely corporate. I have a catch-all address, and generate random name.surename@mycorpdomain.com addresses for each service.
    • File storage: I have a NAS, that I use for most file sharing I need.
    • Music: Jellyfin server with Headphones and redacted.ch account, and I also make sure to support artists every month by spending what would be my Spotify subscription price on Bandcamp albums
    • Desktop: I run Nobara, too lazy to run QubesOS - plus I game a lot, so it would be infeasible. I mostly try to get stuff on GoG and back it up on my own NAS. I have a ZeroTier network set up for streaming through Sunshine/Moonlight when I need to game from a laptop.
    • VPN: I use Mullvad paid for with Monero, because it plays nicely with the Mullvad Browser fingerprint.
    • Home automation: I have a few basic stuff made for Home Assistant that is running on RockPI I have at home, everything local and without any cloud, mostly through ESP32s.
    • Messaging: This is the one I hate the most - most of the groups I’m working with or volunteering for use Messenger, so I have a Matrix server hosted that bridges it and Discord. It’s not ideal, but better than having anything Meta on my phone.
    • Payments: This one is the one I’m struggling with the most. I pay by card almost everywhere, because cash is so much effort. I’ve tried looking into crypto or prepaid cards, but it’s really hard to find anything without KYC in Europe, so I’ve given up. I’m looking for advice regarding this, but I’m afraid that aside from switching to cash I’m out of luck.
    • Passwords: I just use Bitwarden with YubiKey setup, same as using YubiKey for every important MFA I can. I have two backup keys stored at home, so I don’t need to use other recovery methods that would render it useless.
  •  Mikina   ( @Mikina@programming.dev ) 
    2•3 months ago

    Few recommendations from the top of my head, from skimming the post.

    I’d recommend checking out QubesOS (https://www.qubes-os.org/), especially since it seems you switch between ToR and already use Silverblue, which is AFAIK similar, but why not go all the way in?

    Also for VPN - I’ve switched Proton for Mullvad VPN, because I really like the idea they are going for - if you pair Mullvad browser, that is designed to have the same fingerprint for all users, with a VPN that’s from the same company, you can kind of expect that most of the Mullvad VPN users will also be users of Mullvad Browser. Which means you will not be one of the few Proton VPN users with Mullvad fingerprint, but will have the same fingerprint as most of other users of Mullvad VPN. This will make it harder to fingerprint you based on your browser. One word of warning, though - don’t install extensions to Mullvad. If you do, you break the “same fingerprint” premise, and the more extensions you install, the more identifiable you are. Mullvad should be used without any extensions.

    Another thing I see is music streaming - I think that in general I’d recommend just getting a cheap laptop/NAS and run your own Jellyfin, and slowly start building your own music collection. You can also run Matrix server as a bonus, and bridge all your communication (including Signal, even though that may not help that much) - but it does help if you need to use some kind of service, i.e Messenger, for group or work related purposes.

    My approach to music was to cancel my subscription, and then use the money I save to spend on albums on Bandcamp, so I still support the artists I want. I make sure to do that every month. Since there’s just wast amount of music to get, I use Headphones with an account on redacted.ch to fill my library, but I still make sure to buy albums I like even if I already have them downloaded. The added bonus is that you actually don’t loose any of your music, if the artist decides to pull it off the streaming service, which has aready happened to me several time.

    If you want hosting your own LLM, take a look at https://refact.ai. But note that it’s not really cheap, I’ve recently upgraded my computer and decided to use my NVIDIA 1060 to run refact, and it still didn’t work well - 8Gb of GPU memory is borderline usable, and I couldn’t do the finetuning.

    •  Charger8232   ( @Charger8232@lemmy.ml ) OP
      1•3 months ago

      Thanks for these recommendations!

      but why not go all the way in?

      I’ve tried Qubes in the past, and I’m not ready to tackle the learning curve yet. I want Secureblue to be the bridge to learning Qubes first.

      I’ve switched Proton for Mullvad VPN, because I really like the idea they are going for

      I’ve considered using it from a fingerprinting perspective, but I don’t have the finances to switch yet.

      I think that in general I’d recommend just getting a cheap laptop/NAS and run your own Jellyfin, and slowly start building your own music collection.

      Oh?