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Being privacy-aware in 2016
- xgbi 10y agoGetting a Yubikey? What about this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11690774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11690774
- mavhc 10y agoI'd rather a fingerprint to lock my phone and always lock on screen blank, than a pin so complex I'll hardly ever lock my phone. If you're living as some kind of enemy of the state maybe it's just time to stop developing software. And do you really need to holiday in North Korea?
- Tepix 10y agoIdeally you have both: Unlock the phone with the fingerprint and unlock more private data with a passphrase. Same for password managers: Are there any that allow you to split your data into two categories: Protected by fingerprint and protected by passphrase? I'd love to see that feature.
- gnur 10y agoYou could probably attain that by using 2 password managers.
- Tepix 10y agoGood idea!
- hrktb 10y agoOtherwise you could allow fingerprinting only within 10 min after the last unlock. This would cover the case where you use your phone a lot and need to lock/unlock faster, while forcing a password entry when your phone gets stolen or used behind your back. You can still be forced to unlock it right after usage, but at this point you might have bigger problems.
- Tepix 10y agoIt's a good idea, however I'm not sure apps currently have access to this data ("phone was unlocked by fingerprints X seconds ago").
- zeveb 10y agoA fingerprint cannot protect data, since it's both public and low-entropy. It can authenticate identity to someone who holds the data. I.e., you cannot securely encrypt something with a function of your fingerprint: anyone can cycle through fingerprint representations and eventually get decrypt the data (or the key to the data). You can, however, authenticate yourself to someone (or something) which holds a plaintext encryption key, and once you have been given the key, decrypt the encrypted data. This only works if you can trust the person or thing to never give the key to an unauthenticated part. That only works with hardware, since any software which holds a key in plaintext can be examined to extract the key.
- Tepix 10y agoA fingerprint can offer some protection for your data, many times it will be sufficient protection and sometimes it will provide better protection than a weak password.
- Mikushi 10y agoOr may be it's just time to consider the state for the enemy that it really is. They are the main targets of such security measures, "hackers" are really not a concern, state actors on the hand have proven to be major threats. I will not let their fear tactics get in the way of my freedom of doing what I please without fear of leaks, theft or spying, be it directed toward my person or as a simple passive measure.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoI don't need to go to North Korea, but I'd certainly like to visit my family in Russia again.
- barking 10y agoSome people are advising that duckduckgo can say that they are not tracking you but being based in the USA could be made to do so by the NSA.
- Tepix 10y agouse startpage.com then. They're based in the Netherlands.
- kriro 10y agoHadn't heard of it before. You basically trade a bit of search speed for more privacy. Trade off I'm willing to make it's my new default for now. It basically gives Google results with a better layer of privacy if I understand it correctly...which I guess means they could be cut out by Google eventually?
- lnalx 10y agohttps://ixquick.com/ https://ixquick.com/ is the same ?
- barking 10y agoI tried it but it doesn't like my ip (vpn) and makes me do a captcha before every single search. I have switched to duckduckgo, I can understand that they have reasons for doing that but it make it unbearable.
- jsingleton 10y agoAs they run on AWS they may not even know if this happens, but that isn't the threat model addressed by this article.
- gnur 10y agoI get it, you probably want to be private and rather not have someone read everything you do. But if you follow this checklist to the letter, you'll have a big fat "SUSPECT" warning on your file in no time. Hiding non-suspect behavior is, for everyone watching, the same as hiding very suspect behavior. If you do this and make a single mistake (anything really, speeding could be enough) there could be a red flag on your file that makes sure your possessions will be searched (and possibly taken) and be prepared to spend some time in jail. I get it, everyone should be hiding all their activity online so that hiding your activity online isn't suspect behavior. But I really don't think that will ever happen and I'd rather be an open book about all my behavior then try to hide as much as possible while becoming a target.
- Tepix 10y agoThe [chilling effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect) is strong with this one.
- msh 10y agoI really dont see whats in this list that will get you marked as a suspect in relations to a speeding ticket or other cursory stops...
- thegp 10y agoThen if you believe in the rule of law (in germany we say "Rechtstaat") and the presumption of innocence, it is kind of a civic duty to follow these steps. If only to oppose this line of thinking. Or even better, bait those who would like to control us into openly acting. Especially if you are a lawyer, have enough money to pay a lawyer etc. I will probably piss myself and cry if I ever really "become a target" as it happens in China, cartel controlled parts of south america, dictatorships etc. But I will be damned if I don't make some kind of token resistance to us going down that path if all it costs me is keeping my privacy and maybe having legal hassle+ cost of replacement if my stuff gets seized.
- adrianN 10y agoEven if you think you're doing everything right, once you're targeted by LEAs they'll find something.[1] Even if they find nothing, they can make your life miserable pretty much indefinitely or until you run out of money for lawyers. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487044715045744389...
- ybroze 10y agoUse unique SSH keys for each service (sharing a SSH key on your GitHub/Gitlab account, network router and AWS/Azure instance is a very stupid idea) I don't see how this makes sense. Assuming your private keys all live on the same machine (presumably with 0600 in /.ssh), then if your machine is stolen and your user password compromised, access to one private key is the same as access to all of them.
- Tepix 10y agoIt only protects you against SSH fingerprinting done by hostile servers.
- ybroze 10y agoI suppose, then, it's for those who don't want to be tracked, and not a "very stupid idea" per se. But then again, if you don't trust the remote to know who you are, then why do you have an identity with them? I mean, the remote service is SUPPOSED to know who you are. That's kinda the point.
- jjnoakes 10y agoI don't think so. GitHub should know I'm the user who has access to push to repos a, b, and c. AWS should know I'm the user who has access to update code or data at places d, e, and f. But neither needs to know my full identity, or about each other, at all.
- rad_gruchalski 10y agoRight. What about paid service. Shall I pay with someone else's CC or ask the bank for another one just because I don't want to be tracked.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoMany banks and credit card companies offer a service that lets you generate a one-time-use credit card number.
- Tepix 10y agoThe part about the browser is a bit too short. If you are privacy conscious you should configure your browser to a) block 3rd party cookies (all browsers except Safari have them enabled by default, even Firefox) b) delete all cookies when the browser is closed. Make it a habit to close the browser every now and then.
- peteretep 10y agoSelf Destructing cookies plugin will delete them even more quickly
- jgrahamc 10y agoI highly recommend using KeepassX as a password manager, secured using a key file and not a password. I like KeePassX as well, but prefer to unlock using a password. I have a Yubikey programmed to output a 32 random password that I generated and I append to that a 16 character password that's in my head. I keep the Yubikey and the SD card on which I have the password vault separate. The SD card itself is encrypted* and the version of KeePassX I run is on the card and is one I compiled myself. Not sure I'd be getting additional protection with a key file. But perhaps I am wrong. *I did that so that someone couldn't just copy the KeePassX database off it when I wasn't looking and run some offline attack against it. The SD card also has a kind of social engineering defence mechanism on it to dissuade the curious from playing with it... I wrote the word INFECTED on it.
- Loic 10y agoI am security conscious but not as conscious as jgc, I am doing the same with the database on the drive and the drive is encrypted. I have a "smaller" password in the head plus a Yubikey password which is appended to my smaller password. For each website I am using a randomly generated password. What is important is that in my daily life, this is working perfectly well and I do not feel at all the annoyance of the added security against using the same dadada password on all the websites. I really recommend a head stored + hardware generated password too, this is working wonderfully.
- distances 10y agoI suppose I'm even less security conscious, as I'm storing my file in ownCloud and sync it also to my Android. I assume this use case prevents using a Yubikey password for enhanced security?
- willemmali 10y agoYou can always put your files in OwnCloud in a TrueCrypt container, and anything that's unlocked by a password can use a Yubikey password with head-stored additions. I'm not aware of ready-made solutions to locally decrypt cloud-stored data on mobile phones though, I don't think you can mount TrueCrypt volumes on your phone. Anyone know of a way to do this?
- libeclipse 10y agoI don't get the point about marking screws with nail polish. What does that accomplish?
- crummy 10y agoI assume it shows if someone has opened your laptop (because the nail polish will be scuffed perhaps).
- tillinghast 10y agoPresumably it allows you to detect when they've been removed and your hardware has been compromised?
- msh 10y agoa in depth explanation is here: https://www.wired.com/2013/12/better-data-security-nail-polish/ https://www.wired.com/2013/12/better-data-security-nail-poli...
- bazzargh 10y agoOriginally it was glitter nail polish http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/itll-take-more-than-glitter-nail-polish-to-stop-snooping http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/itll-take-more-than-glitter... ... the idea wasn't just to mark the screws to show if there'd been physical access, but to make a mark that's easily verified but very hard to reproduce, so you also know if your whole laptop has been replaced by the 'evil maid'. You need to photograph it to check! The actual bit in the 30c3 talk where this was discussed is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV4XnvE2p34#t=54m24s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV4XnvE2p34#t=54m24s
- lnalx 10y agoYou should be using either Bitlocker (for Windows platforms, warning ahead) or LUKS (Linux platforms) full disk encryption Using encryption on laptop can be very battery-greedy unfortunately.
- wepple 10y agoI think it's somewhat negligent to recommend people use the only browser that doesn't have a sandbox. You're trading privacy for security, and where you have less security your privacy is long gone.
- Bellyache5 10y agoYou could run Firefox in a Docker container. It wouldn't protect between tabs, but would help isolate from the rest of the system.
- deanclatworthy 10y agoThe advice here recommends generating an RSA keys. Mozilla recommend using ED25519 keys "when backwards compatibility is not required" [1] [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Guidelines/OpenSSH#Key_generation https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Guidelines/OpenSSH#Key_gen...
- vox_mollis 10y agoThis is not settled. Colin Percival, for instance, is firmly on the side of using RSA with many decades of cryptanalysis until EC solutions also have many decades of cryptanalysis.
- amq 10y agoIt is scary to realize that there is no realistic real-life way to be at least close to keeping information secure. We are just closing holes in a sieve.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoIt's impossible to keep your house burglarproof, too, but I still lock my door.
- RodericDay 10y agoWhen I was a kid, watching american media, I thought it was incredible that people in TV shows would just leave their houses unlocked and trust their neighbours. I don't know whether there is any place where people still do this, but in a community where everyone feels they belong and aren't driven to desperation, I could imagine an "open lock" policy working really well. Everyone locking up their own stuff and blaming people who did not lock theirs down if they get robbed is in itself a form of arms race, which aren't usually optimal.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoThe idea behind locking doors is to make things slightly challenging for a casual burglar. My parents live out in a rural area, and they never lock their doors, house or car. The odds of someone driving to their house and burglarizing it are just too low to worry about it - and if someone were specifically targeting their house, they could just break a window and get in that way. In denser areas, however, that logic doesn't make sense; it's trivial to case dozens of houses in five minutes just by driving down a street.
- feklar 10y agoLocking doors isn't just to prevent burglars, especially if you live around bars. I don't know how many times a group of aggressive drunk football hooligans has got off the elevator on the wrong floor, then tried to get into my apartment thinking it is theirs or a friends. If my door wasn't locked I'd be confronted with 6-7 violent goofs in my living room @ 3am.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoI'm assuming OS X's FileVault is fine for full-disk encryption? It only sends your key to Apple if you choose to, and it's completely transparent from the end-user's perspective.
- Karunamon 10y agoPersonally I'd never trust any encryption provided by the OS - absolutely no one is in a better position to be compromised by bad guys (c.f. Recent Apple FBI scare). Would rather use a third party solution that's not so easily coerced.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoThat's true. On the other hand, Apple are competent enough to implement it properly.
- majewsky 10y agoIt's not about being competent enough to implement it properly. Microsoft's BitLocker is surely implemented just as competently. But because of their ubiquity, these are the most likely to have government-mandated backdoors in them that Apple/Microsoft employees are not allowed to tell you about because of gag orders.
- avodonosov 10y agoThe browser configuration here (disable various features) seemed too complex and reminded me of another, simpler, approach: do not power on your computer ever.
- veeragoni 10y agoWhat about mobile privacy? which OS? which Phone? which app? the author forgot there is even more privacy info we could lose via mobile with its built in sensors and features.
- raldu 10y agoI am not trying to be sarcastic but the first thing that came up to my mind is that, "Mobile privacy" rather sounds like an oxymoron.
- dandelion_lover 10y agoPerhaps, https://neo900.org/ https://neo900.org/ should be enough as a first step ;)
- floatboth 10y agoCyanogenMod without Google apps (gapps) is good enough (for normal life, not a Snowden-style situation, obviously). microG is a great open source replacement for gapps. If you do want Google apps, at least turn off all the creepy features like Google Now, location history, etc.
- zeroxfe 10y ago> Also, you should download the source code, compile it (using a Linux machine) and always look over the source code for rogue functions, you CANNOT afford a vulnerability inside the password manager. I'm not sure that this actually possible in any reasonable sense. Its not that hard to throw in an obfuscated back door into source code, especially in a complex system (ignoring the build chain and the whole trusting trust thing.) Even if there are a small number of people who have the time and expertise to audit such systems, it just doesn't scale.
- vladharbuz 10y agoOf course doing constant code reviews for every single piece of software you use is preposterous. I have trouble keeping up with my employees' code reviews.
- jjnoakes 10y agoThis is why security-conscious folks prefer open source software. No one wants to audit every line of code they use (nor is that possible). But if one relies on relatively popular open source software, just the fact that someone else could have audited it helps a lot. Add on to that the fact that you can use a linux distribution which keeps an eye on the vulnerabilities reported in the wild and updates the packages for you, and you are much better off over someone who only uses closed-source software and hopes and prays.
- ahartman00 10y agoexactly, look at how involved the process was for the truecrypt audit. large software systems are complex... and lol at the having trouble keeping up with your employees. at least they are productive :)
- vladharbuz 10y agoIf you're seriously concerned that someone will break into your house and remove the screws on your laptop to mess with it, you have problems way beyond what strong passwords and ad blockers can solve.
- wongarsu 10y agoA lot of people regualary take their laptop through American airport security, where there are multiple reported cases of laptops being messed with. Regarding hibernation/locking: many people leave laptops unatteded in more risky situations than at home and at the office. As a trivial example, imagine somebody going around a university library, infecting any unatteded laptop with a virus.
- lozf 10y agoYet there are probably a fair few here for whom the risk of crossing borders with a laptop and suffering a similar attack is not unheard of.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- nikcub 10y agoDistilling tips down for regular users who don't use SSH or are intimidated by compiling KeePassX for Linux themselves, my tips would be: 1. Use a user-friendly password manager like Dashlane or 1password with a long unique password and a second factor (that isn't SMS based). Password re-use is the #1 way accounts are being compromised at the moment and there are now good password managers that are easy to use with a low barrier to entry 2. Use an extensive ad blocker like uBlock Origin and use multiple profiles in your browser to separate your serious accounts like webmail and banking from general web browsing. The other common way of being exploited is drive-by malware and web-based exploits. A combination of blocking third-party content and separating your browsing profiles will prevent a lot of it. Don't feel guilty about blocking ads - most publishers are extremely negligent with what they allow on their sites via ad networks. Bonus: switch to Chromium[0] (firefox isn't sandboxed and exploits are too common) (but alert yourself to Chromium updates with an IFTTT of the release blog to <pick your notification method>) or alternatively remove Google, Flash, Java etc. 3. Get a VPN subscription and set it up on your laptop & mobile devices. Seriously, don't use open WiFi networks or shared networks without wrapping your connections in encryption. sslstrip is extremely effective and many apps either don't verify/authenticate SSL connections or don't pin certificates. IVPN, PIA, the Sophos VPN product - take a pick. 4. Most home routers are super shit and full of holes. Upgrade to a router that supports open firmware and pick one of openwrt, dd-wrt, monowall, pfsense etc. bonus: run an UTM like Untangled (commercial) or Sophos (free up to 50 CALs iirc) 5. Encrypt your stuff - VeraCrypt is a decent TrueCrypt fork but most operating systems now have support for volume encryption - your local disk, USB sticks[1], or a file-based volume. Backups should be to encrypted media 6. Be anonymous - create a disposable email with a fake name to signup to services with. even better sinkhole a random domain name you register. No service outside of banking, insurance, health, etc. really need to know your actual identity details. [0] https://download-chromium.appspot.com/ https://download-chromium.appspot.com/ [1] http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/encrypt-an-external-disk-or-usb-stick-with-a-password http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/encrypt-an-external-d...
- akandiah 10y agoInstead of a VPN subscription, I'd recommend a self-managed VPN solution. One can easily fire one up thanks to Streisand (https://github.com/jlund/streisand https://github.com/jlund/streisand)
- stirner 10y agouMatrix combines the functionality of every recommended Firefox extension except HTTPS Everywhere.
- _asummers 10y agoAlmost positive one of uMatrix or uBlock has that functionality, because I get redirected to https when available and those are two of my very few extensions.
- gruez 10y agoHow do you know it's your browser doing the redirect rather than the server? The distinction is important because if it's the latter, you're vulnerable to sslstrip
- corv 10y agoIs it actually necessary to use both Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin?
- Karunamon 10y agoUBlock for the ads, privacy badger for tracking cookies. They compliment each other nicely.
- chinathrow 10y agoVery nice read. I would add a subscription to "have i been pwned?" to learn of data breaches. https://haveibeenpwned.com/ https://haveibeenpwned.com/
- czechdeveloper 10y agoIt was interesting when I found my name there the first time on service I did not even remember using. But I did and I just forgot about it. Luckily at time when I was already using different passwords everywhere.
- weavie 10y agoWhy has this been downvoted? Is it because of a known issue with the mentioned site?
- AdmiralAsshat 10y agoI'd recommend this as well. When I did my big migration to LastPass about a year ago (i.e. logged in to every site I ever remember having used and changing the password to a randomly generated one), I thought I was all set. But the site has reminded me at least three times that I registered to alot of BBS-style message boards and maybe only made one or two posts before abandoning them forever and forgetting I ever registered. Those are concerning, because I'm positive that something I registered for in 2006 and never used again probably used a weak, re-used password.
- ComodoHacker 10y agoThe sad thing about this and other otherwise good privacy guides is that it can be properly applied only by a small fraction of all people who really need this privacy in their everyday work and life. Especially I like the "look over the source code for rogue functions" part.
- trollian 10y agoThis was funny until I got to the part about disable malware detection. Then it becomes dangerous. Is this idiocy or malice?
- ianpurton 10y agoGiven that virus checkers only catch about 50% of any malware and recently there have been zero days in some household name virus checkers anyway. It might be good advice. Some people will click on exe's because they believe the virus checker will protect them.
- floatboth 10y agoActively scanning for malware in the background doesn't sound like a good idea to me tbh. The only malware detection anyone ever needs is Google Safe Browsing. And not running random crap executables :)
- whyagaindavid 10y agoWhy everyone forgot firefox sync? Why waste time with clipboard+1password+dropbox?
- ashitlerferad 10y agoAmazing the post and no comments here have mentioned the Tor Project. https://www.torproject.org/ https://www.torproject.org/
- Tepix 10y agoTor is mentioned in the original article.
- prettynew 10y agois RDP safe on wifi connections?
- wepple 10y agoit can be configured to use strong TLS, making it at least as good as a regular browser. That configuration isn't particularly straightforward, unfortunately.
- prettynew 10y agoAre Windows RDP connections safe to do on wifi? like hotel wifi? curious.
- gruez 10y agoThere secured with tls, albeit with self signed certificates. But you can configure it to use a properly signed certificate.
- jeffreyrogers 10y agoThis is overboard and paranoid for the average user. You are almost certainly not a target for your government and probably not a criminal and so don't need to worry about full disk encryption, your google search history, a judge compelling you to unlock your phone, etc. Most people should just use an adblocker and strong passwords.
- whamlastxmas 10y agoPeople get their electronics stolen all the time. I use FDE despite knowing that if law enforcement ever seized my computer, they'd probably force me to unlock it or throw me in prison for contempt for the rest of my life. I use FDE simply because I don't want to worry about some asshole stealing my stuff and getting access to all my files.
- georgehotelling 10y ago> Use unique SSH keys for each service (sharing a SSH key on your GitHub/Gitlab account, network router and AWS/Azure instance is a very stupid idea); use ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 to generate a 4096 bit RSA SSH key. I tried this. Turns out to be a bad idea. SSH will walk through each private key and attempt to authenticate with it in order. That means a lot of bad login attempts which in turn leads to getting locked out. SSH public keys are public for a reason. What attack is this even preventing - that someone will be able to reverse ssh public keys and get the private? A better approach is to generate a unique key per client so that if you lose access to a device you can remove only its public key. > Also, you should download the source code, compile it (using a Linux machine) and always look over the source code for rogue functions So I becoming an Underhanded C Contest judge is the price of admission to using the internet? Can anyone really be expected to do that? Can we blame anyone who gets owned because they didn't?
- Tepix 10y agoI think you're supposed to configure SSH to use the right key without trying them all in your ~/.ssh/config
- bjt2n3904 10y ago> What attack is this even preventing I think the thought is the security practice of compartmentalization. If you lose the private key you use for GitHub, Amazon, DigitalOcean, your home servers, etc... you've effectively given root away. Now if my laptop is compromised, it doesn't matter if I have one key or ten, I've lost them all. But if there's something heartbleed-esque that allows individual private keys to be stolen when pushing commits to GitHub, I've at least isolated damage to my GitHub account.
- danmarg 10y agoBut the private key is (of course) never sent to GitHub, so it's hard for me to imagine what kind of vuln this would help with. I can think of a few, but they're odd: 1. Some sort of remote memory leak that leaks the current private key, I guess. 2. Some sort of relay attack where you can impersonate the legit host. In both of these cases, it seems like at a minimum you would need to, on the client, set up an ssh config that limits each identity to each host so as to prevent the client from trying each key in sequence (and thus potentially exposing it). That's a huge hassle! So I guess tl;dr: I can think of a few cases where this might be useful, but if you're always SSH'ing from the same laptop, this step can probably be pretty far down your list of things to do.
- secfirstmd 10y agoBegins blatant plug If your looking for a tool which has a ton of easy security guides all in one place, you might like to try Umbrella App. It has lessons and checklists on everything from how to send a secure email to how to deal with a kidnapping. Built by the human rights and tech community, it's open source and available on Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u... Ends blatant plug :)
- gravypod 10y agoDoes anyone know of any good hardware password managers? I'd love to switch from a software to an offline, open source, and self maintainable solution that will work for everything, not just websites/when I have my browser open.
- luxpir 10y agoPencil. Paper.
- andrey_utkin 10y agoI'd add apparmor or selinux or virtualization (or all at once) for untrusted closed-source crap like Skype. Well, for things with large attack surface, like web browsers, it's important, too. This is hard to recommend to everybody, but I use SELinux and this way I am more sure that my private keys won't get stolen.
- leni536 10y agoI'm curious, do you run Skype on the same X server as your other software?
- andrey_utkin 10y agoYes I do. And yes I know that clipboard content hijacking is piece of cake with Xorg. By this reason I launch original Skype only when I need it to have a call with my chief. Fortunately, such occasions are rare now. So I just avoid copy-pasting anything sensitive when Skype is launched :) For the rest of time, I use XMPP-Skype transport (gateway) to stay connected with ~100 of my skype contacts. This XMPP-Skype gateway handles 1:1 and groupchats, which is ok for me. I host this system as a public service, so if you are interested, feel free to check http://decent.im http://decent.im . This is a work in progress on deployment of powerful open source stuff in a supercharged and easily reproduceable way, so no slack killer yet, things are dirty, just a handy tool for me (and few other account owners) to aggregate all one's messaging into one, and very flexible, mechanism.
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- mitm2mitm 10y agoAbout full disk encryption for Windows: what is the safest bet here? I mean, what if a single sector of my disk gets corrupted, will I lose my entire data because of that? What kind of encryption is less prone to data corruption? I'm worried about this. And how about .tar.gpg backups, if I lose a single byte I lose the entire file?
- globisdead 10y agoNice list of browser extensions. Just to add on a few that I use that might not get a lot of exposure but is still very comprehensive Privacy Settings: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-settings/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-setti... Decentraleyes: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...
- amelius 10y ago> you should have all Javascript forbidden Is it even possible to use the web nowadays without JS enabled?
- sudojudo 10y ago| Is it even possible to use the web nowadays without JS enabled? Yes, but results may vary. I can do 99% of my daily browsing without JavaScript enabled, and for the sites where it's needed, NoScript can be told to always allow it (one specific script, or everything on the page). This is why you constantly see NoScript being recommended, it allows you to toggle JS on and off, as needed, which is invaluable. I've been using NoScript for years and how much is blocked never ceases to amaze me. 99% of the script that most sites run has nothing to do with viewing content, or usability, and everything to do with tracking (there are usually multiple instances, sometimes dozens, on a single page; it's astounding). Another nice feature in NoScript that I just picked up on is the shift+left-click option in the script list. This allows me to investigate what that particular script is for, and choose to permanently block/allow it. Very handy, and also eye-opening in regards to privacy.
- Mendenhall 10y agoI assume everything is hacked/unsecure and any information put on the net will be able to be accessed by all sorts of bad actors. I laugh when websites etc ask for a phone number to help secure. My first thought is great idea so now when you get hacked you can give up my phone number too! Internet has been and always will be Mos Eisley spaceport to me.
- jwatte 10y agoTrying to save privacy is like trying to save horses for transportation, or bows and arrows for warfare. We should figure out how to build a society that thrives on transparency instead!
- Machado117 10y agoCan someone explain to me why should I worry about stopping browser fingerprinting? Can't they just check my ip?