Current Events > do you actively take any steps to protect your privacy online?

(+) Yeah! (+)

i'm wondering if anyone here actually does anything to protect their privacy.

examples would be...

- avoiding google's "my activity" collection by opting out of search/location/youtube/etc history for instance.

- avoiding google search in favor of search options that don't collect data like duckduckgo.

- run a vpn as an internet condom.

- use a privacy oriented browser plugin to stop tracking cookies (ghostery, etc).

- avoiding unencrypted cloud storage.

- enabling 2fa when possible, employing strong unique passwords for different sites etc
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This past week I disabled as much of Google's tracking options as I could find in their account privacy settings. I was actually disturbed to see voice recordings from my texts and searches for bands when driving down the road.

And I've started using duckduckgo but I don't really like that they partner with yandex and the results are spotty (way too many RT links when I search for news).
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I never use the internet at all. That way my privacy is never at risk of being breeched.
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Hexenherz posted...

This past week I disabled as much of Google's tracking options as I could find in their account privacy settings. I was actually disturbed to see voice recordings from my texts and searches for bands when driving down the road.

And I've started using duckduckgo but I don't really like that they partner with yandex and the results are spotty (way too many RT links when I search for news).

what privacy implications does duckduckgo partnering with yandex have? i just switched my default search engine to duckduckgo and so far it's only delivered subpar results for a handful of queries (still kind of annoying). i noticed if you included "news" in a query suddenly news is a selectable tab on their platform.

i also checked myactivity recently (new to me) but was surprised to see there was only one youtube video, because i had enabled youtube history once on accident. i guess i had previously deactivated a lot of these functions through time as they were offered before they started compiling all this data on one page. from my understanding most people are super creeped out when they see all the data that's been collected on them.
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I have an inherent distrust of anything Russian-based, since there is nothing stopping their government from collecting on anything you surf there (based on their own laws). So... I don't really like the idea of a "secure" search engine actively relying on a third party like that. In reality it's probably fine and there's probably no association between my computer and the search results generated by yandex but it's still that nagging feeling I get.
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not really

if someone wants to steal my identity and pay off my student loans they can do it
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I purposely type in the url of every site I wish to see wrong three times, just to throw people off the scent.
That'll show them.
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I leave my bank and credit card information in coded messages throughout the internet so it's harder to get access to.
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Bump
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