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Re-Focusing on Privacy-Focused Applications - Where to Begin? (self.technology)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Rekorse to c/technology

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Now, I am hoping I am not the only one in this community who has realized that privacy should be one of the top considerations when choosing what software to use on any device.

Leaving Reddit has been the catalyst for me to realize this, as silly as that might sound, and now I have to re-evaluate my list of "convenient" apps that are in NO WAY secure or private.

I want to ask everyone here if they have any recommendations for essentially replacement applications for all of the major categories of software that we use on our computers and mobile devices.

For example, here are some of the switches I made today: Chrome Mobile > Opera Mobile Chrome Desktop > Opera Desktop Facebook Messenger > Signal Facebook Social Media > No alternative just deleted it.

My hope with this post is that we can have a discussion on privacy apps in general as trying to track down information for each sector one by one and test each out can be arduous.

To kick off the discussion here are some other categories that I have not figured out an answer for yet:

Search Engines (duckduckgo is mentioned a lot, why?) Operating Systems Cloud Storage Email Providers Podcasts Video/Music Services (Youtube, Paid services, etc) Environment Specific advice for Android, iOS, and any others.

Also if it makes sense, should we consider privacy when choosing, say, a news website to frequent? Or would browser choice ultimately be the decider there.

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[–] Sendbeer 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want a browser that gives you better privacy options then that video is a good one to watch. He does a pretty good job of breaking down most of them. They are all indexed too so you can jump right to any browser you want an overview on. Opera starts right about at 12 minutes.

To do a crappy tldr for opera: unfortunately it was the worst tested. It didn't do things like block trackers, 3rd party cookies, set do not track, or really anything by default. It has a policy that allows them to share info collected from you with 3rd parties. They're Chinese owned, so they could be compelled to turn that data over to the Chinese government. Some of the options you can change yourself, but the company is not very trustworthy and you're better off going with anything else in the meantime.

It's a fucking shame because the browser itself has roots all the way back to 1994 and they pioneered a lot of browser features that we take for granted now like pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing.

[–] Rekorse 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah I gotta say part of the reason I initially downloaded opera was cause I had known of it already. I didn't know it was Chinese owned. No such thing as privacy in China.