Pages Tagged “Privacy”
Reviews
- Aegis Authenticator ★★★★★ A well-designed 2FA app for Android that lets you organize accounts into groups, can use a password or fingerprint to add another layer of security to your codes, and can easily import from several apps including Google Authenticator.
- Brave (Web Browser) ★★☆☆☆ A privacy-focused browser, but for every cool privacy feature there’s something else that makes me want to firewall the application away from my system.
- A Brief Note on Mozilla and Brave On Brendan Eich’s brief promotion to CEO at Mozilla, the fallout for Mozilla and the creation of Brave.
- Consent-O-Matic ★★★★★ Convenient browser extension that detects cookie consent pop-ups and automatically fills them out according to your choices. Lets you know it’s working without getting in your way.
- Dillo (Web Browser) ★★★★☆ Ultra-minimalist and super-fast browser for web documents (not applications). You won’t be logging into Gmail with it, but it’ll load a Wikipedia article incredibly fast.
- DuckDuckGo ★★★★☆ A private-ish search engine that’s also serving less slop than Google. Disposable email aliases are convenient. The browser extension and standalone browser block known trackers, and the Android app can block trackers in other apps too.
- Ecosia (Search) ★★★☆☆ Non-profit search provider that uses renewable energy and partners with environmental organizations. AKA “the search engine that plants trees.”
- Fossify Apps: Replacing Simple Mobile Tools Simple Mobile Tools was purchased and now does everything it used to refuse to. Fossify is a privacy-respecting fork.
- Fossify Calculator ★★★★☆ Basic calculator, like the cheap 16-key models. No fancy scientific functions, but also no ads, no data mining, and no subscription. And it’s already in your pocket.
- Fossify Calendar ★★★★☆ Basic calendar app that works with your phone’s local calendars. You can do all the usual things you want to use a calendar for on your phone. Doesn’t clutter up your schedule with ads or vacuum up your personal data.
- Fossify Camera ★★★☆☆ Basic camera app with support for flash, timer and video, optional EXIF. Lacks advanced processing like night sight. Images are slightly noisier than Google’s camera.
- Fossify Contacts ★★★★☆ Basic, privacy-respecting contacts app for Android that works with all contacts accounts on your phone.
- Fossify Gallery ★★★★☆ Basic on-device gallery that lets you manage your photos without sending them to a cloud service just to deal with what’s on your phone.
- Fossify Keyboard ★★★☆☆ I wanted to like this keyboard, but I can’t seem to type reliably with it just by tapping on my phone, and there’s no swipe gesture or autosuggest support. It works better at tablet size.
- Fossify Launcher ★★★☆☆ Works fine for launching apps. Widget support needs more work. Does not auto-rotate.
- Fossify Messages ★★★☆☆ Minimalist SMS/MMS app with custom alerts, archives and actions on the pull-down notifications. No RCS support or swipe actions, but does the job without sending a copy of all your messages to Google.
- Fossify Phone ★★★☆☆ Minimalist dialer app for the actual phone part of your smartphone, with basic call blocking. Doesn’t provide all the transcription and screening that Google’s app does, but it’s also not sending your call activity to the cloud.
- Fossify Voice Recorder ★★★★☆ A simple mono recording app where the audio stays on your phone. No ads, no subscriptions, no remotely-generated transcripts, just basic recording.
- FreeOTP (Authenticator) ★★★☆☆ Extremely bare-bones 2FA app for iOS and Android, sponsored by Red Hat. It’s secure, works offline, and doesn’t depend on Google. A decent choice if you start with it, but a lack of import features means switching from another app is tedious.
- GNU IceCat ★★★☆☆ Firefox minus all branding and connections to Mozilla services, plus add-ons to block non-FSF-approved JavaScript.
- IronFox ★★★★☆ A privacy-hardened Firefox variation for Android, comparable to LibreWolf on desktops. Removes Mozilla tracking and services like Pocket. Locks down features that can leak data, but those changes can break some sites.
- The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport
★★★★★
Samit Basu
Starts as a cyberpunk take on Aladdin and gleefully launches into a glorious mishmash of robots, legacies, secrets and political upheaval in a crumbling spaceport slowly sinking into the mud on a backwater planet. - LibreWolf ★★★★☆ Customized Firefox, with an eye toward security and privacy. Follows the stable release channel. Works well most of the time, but privacy features can break some sites.
- Orion Browser ★★★★★ A Mac-native WebKit browser from Kagi that’s more advanced than Safari, slightly cleaner than Arc or Zen, and can run Chromium/Firefox extensions. I may be sticking with this as my main web browser on macOS.
- Privacy Badger ★★★★★ Tracking protection add-on for web browsers that also converts embedded media to placeholders and adds GPC support to browsers that don’t have it built in. (It used to detect new trackers automatically, but had to stop when someone figured out how to track that.)
- Safari (Web Browser) ★★★★☆ Dependable web browser built into macOS. Not much in the way of bells and whistles, but it does offer the usual bookmarks, autofill, reading mode, private windows, etc. And it’ll install PWAs on a desktop.
- Scrambled EXIF ★★★★☆ One of those ‘does one thing really well’ apps: It’s a filter that removes all the date, time, location, camera, and other metadata from a photo as you share it from your phone.
- Sly (Image Editor) ★★★☆☆ Simple, friendly, privacy-respecting image editor for Android and Linux. Convenient for most basic photo adjustments, but metadata handling is currently broken, so I can’t use it to just crop photos for iNaturalist. Once that’s fixed, though…
- Tor Browser ★★★★☆ When you really want (or need) to stay private while using the web, Tor is the way to go. Just keep the drawbacks in mind when you do.
- Waterfox ★★★★☆ A Firefox fork aimed at improved performance and privacy, without sacrificing usability. Also available on Android.
- Web Browser Recommendations Vivaldi, Orion, Waterfox and Zen are my current favorites. I want to like Firefox, but I’m not so sure about Mozilla these days. Safari’s OK. LibreWolf and IronFox are good for everyday privacy, Tor for advanced scenarios. Falkon and Dillo are good for slow hardware.
- Zen Browser ★★★★☆ Similar to Arc, Zen has a non-cluttered design that stays out of your way. Unlike Arc, it’s built on Firefox, runs on more platforms, and doesn’t require you to log in just to use it!
Tech Tips
- Alternate Sharing Buttons (Now with Less Tracking!) Sharing buttons that don’t talk to Facebook, Twitter, or even a third party until you actually click on a button! I’m testing SharingButtons.io on one site, and Share42 on another.
- Remove GPS Tags After Taking a Photo Google Photos won’t remove GPS data from an image, but you can easily remove just the location data using a desktop or laptop.
- Toolbars That Phone Home (Obsolete) I installed the Firefox versions of four toolbars and used netstat to see when they connected.
Blog Posts
- The Firehose and the Jetpack
I’ve been meaning to disconnect from Jetpack for a while now. This seems like a good time to do it, and to finally clear out the older Tumblr and WordPress.com blogs I don’t use anymore. Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Usersâ Data to Train AI Tools — 404 Media It’s the kind of thing that […]
- Privacy and Trust: Threads, Twitter and the Fediverse
Privacy has many layers. Keeping cloud files from leaking to another account is one layer. Not data-mining those files is another entirely!
- Machine Translation LOCALLY on Your Computer!
Mozilla and Project Bergamot have released a translation tool that runs on your own device, not sending the data to the cloud.
- Ring! Ring! Who’s There? *handcuffs*
Police from five cities ââ¬â and an LA Sheriffââ¬â¢s helicopter ââ¬â descended on a neighborhood because someone panicked over Ring footage of a food delivery sent to the wrong address.
- Spamfighting vs. Privacy
As a former email admin, I found this history of spamfighting from a former Gmailer fascinating. The implications of widespread encryption are sobering.
- Somebody Hears You
Every time I listen to Vienna Teng’s “The Hymn of Acxiom,” it gets creepier. It’s beautiful, it’s haunting…and it’s all about how big data is tracking…
- Who Owns Your Online Profile? Thoughts on Instagram, Facebook, and Blogging
When you live your online life through a social network, you give up control. If Facebook is no longer around 10 years from now, what happens to all your photos?
- Links: Identity, Kindle, Language, and the Moon
Linkblogging: Privacy in terms of identity. The new Kindle. The future of old-timey language. Geek Merit Badges. The Moon Hoax debunked as a comic.
- Smoking Dutch Cleanser
Here’s something I just don’t understand about the whole electronic eavesdropping controversy. Given that FISA warrants are: Easy to obtain Secret Obtainable retroactively, so you can legally start listening in immediately Why is it necessary to eavesdrop without one? What’s so hard about getting a warrant? While we’re at it, given that the bad guys […]
- We know where your network is
Apparently wardrivers (people who cruise neighborhoods with a laptop looking for open wireless networks) have been submitting their findings to WiGLE—a searchable database and interactive map of wireless access points. Already checked—our home network isn’t in there. (As much as I’ve locked it down, it had better not be!) But they do list several in […]