Internet privacy

[lcsavb]

I wasn't concerned about internet privacy at all until two days ago.

As you may know, the pandemic hit Brazil very hard. We were slowly emerging from a serious economic crisis inflicted by dumb liberal policies and the pandemic arrived to put us on our knees. The worsts predictions estimate that our GDP will shrink 8% this year and unemployment, through the roof.

This context paved the way for a increase in telephone scams. I received a call from a guy asking for money. He used the little information made public in my facebook profile to try to deceive me. I'm seriously thinking about erasing all my social network's accounts.

Besides using a VPN, a open source OS and sandboxing browsers, what additional strategies would you recommend to enhance online privacy?

[pjp]

I'd first suggest making a list about the things that concern you most.

The scam / social media issue seems unrelated to the other things you mentioned (VPN, OS, sandboxing).

Do you receive value from social media by interacting with friends and family? Weigh that against your level of concern about being tracked by social media for advertising or whatever other purposes they may devise. Can you make the information private so it is only available to people you choose (such that scammers couldn't get to it)?

In my opinion, the primary benefit of using a VPN is to not be using public connections such as would be in an internet cafe or some other public place offering free connectivity. More recently people have been using VPN to circumvent restrictions on viewing content blocked in certain locations.

The piece that stands out the most to me that you did not mention is browser extensions to block ads and javascript. I primarily use uMatrix, but also have uBlock Origin (both by Raymond Hill). There is another similar tool with a similar name, so verify the author. uMatrix offers more granular control, but can be tedious at times. If a website is too reliant on javascript, then I'll just close the window.

Since you haven't been concerned about it until recently, you may want to read up on 'browser fingerprinting.' In short, the more you customize about your browser that javascript can identify, the more identifiable "you" are to websites / ad tracking. But they'll assure you that you are "anonymized."

If you haven't seen this article or something like it, you may find it interesting: Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy

The pursuit of "internet privacy" seems to be almost unattainable, so be careful how consumed you become by the pursuit.
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

[mrbassie]

Speaking of browser extensions, I use ublock origin, privacy badger (for tracking cookies) and https everywhere.

[pietinger]

I worked in a computing center ... and I always was (and I am) concerned about internet privacy. So:
No facebook, no twitter, no instagram, ...
Only an open source OS
No ads in my browser (adblock + privoxy).
"Sandboxing" with an additional User (with immediate deletion of browser data)
Javascript only for some trusted pages.
A 15 years old mobile (non-apple; non-android; no gps) without internet.
Yes I am old and paranoid.

[IELeibowitz]