Let me suggest Magic Earth.
Has live traffic updates, uses OSM database, amazing UI with tons of features, can work offline by downloading maps, and very privacy respecting (feel free to look through their privacy policy it is very short and simple). Only downside is it is not FOSS, but I tried using Organic Maps and then OsmAND for almost the past year and gave up because they just are too much of a downgrade from Google Maps both in terms of UI and traffic updates, whereas Magic Earth feels like the perfect compromise.
I would just leave it running all the time as it does give a privacy boost by masking ur approximate location and not letting your ISP spy on you. If you are going to do things like torrenting or visiting websites the government won’t like, at LEAST use a different browser that is hardened (let’s say you use basic firefox for regular browsing, use Mullvad browser or something instead for that specific task), or just straight up use TOR if what you are trying to do won’t require that fast of internet speeds. If you are solely worried about the VPN IP address, you can just switch to a different server to a different country.
If your Proton password EVER gets compromised your entire online entity is leaked now because they have access to not only your email, but every single password and other email that you use. While this is not common, you have to keep in mind that this can lead to years of headache and unrepairable damage to whatever it is about your online identity whether it is your health, finances, political activities, etc.
However, Proton Pass as a standalone product is excellent. I just would not use it with my main protonmail account, and instead create a completely separate account just for Pass. Good OpSec will always save you when you least expect it.
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/
It is pretty much a file that goes into your firefox root directory and makes a ton of changes to hidden settings that hardens it and improves privacy and security.
I’ve watched this video and it is a very flawed video.
Somewhere in the video he mentions something along the lines of “I’m not really worried because I’m not doing anything illegal” essentially implying if you’re not doing anything illegal then you got nothing to hide, which has been debunked many many many times.
If you want more rebuttals to this video check out this video by Top Spark: https://youtu.be/mScd7BUo86o
Again, worst case scenario and you are just back to square one. If you are trying to do illegal activities or hide from the feds in general, no amount of VPN (even self hosted) would prevent that. You would need to start using TOR and breaking into a whole different level of OPSEC than the average Joe trying to get some more privacy in his day to day life
People always say don’t use a VPN because you have to completely trust the VPN provider. Firstly, there are various trustworthy and reputable VPN providers. Secondly, if you do end up using a shady VPN, you are really just back at square one because it’s not like your ISP isn’t siphoning all of your data anyways. Edit: typos
I watched this video as well and I wanna say I 1000% disagree with “liking the ads and targeted search results” or when he said memorizing passwords (thats why password managers are a thing). Because this is just sucking into the consumerism defeatist mentality of giving away your rights and power for a little bit of extra convenience because as we have more and more technology we become lazier and lazier as humans.
I do however agree with the points he brought up about data breaches and obviously the worst offender of all, government mass surveillance and censorship, but I feel like he didn’t dig as deep into those topics granted he isn’t Mental Outlaw or Naomi Brockwell. And excluding data breaches and government surveillance, there are still issues with lets say freely giving your location data to everyone such as selling your location when you were at an abortion clinic while u live in a state where abortion is now illegal. The government does not have to surveil you anymore when the corporations do it and the government just buys the data off of them.
I understand all the downsides of RCS. I am not saying I will drop everything and proudly use RCS, but the fact of the matter is it is a massive improvement over SMS in terms of privacy and security and just quality. I want to know how I will be able to do this using Google’s Messages app on a currently deGoogled phone running GrapheneOS, while providing the least amount of data possible (ideally would like to avoid installing sandboxed Google Play services)
I believe no. I’m running Firefox with arkenfox user.js and when I take this test https://www.bromite.org/detect it shows a new and different fingerprint if everytime i close and reopen the browser. Feel free to try it for yourself.
And while Brave may be private from outsiders, it is far from private from Brave Software themselves and I wouldn’t trust them if I was honest with you. If you want an alternative chromium based browser, check out Vivaldi. They don’t have aaaas many privacy features built in as Brave does but you can still get very private and obviously tack on Ublock origin and a customized DNS block list like you normally would with any other browser. And they are significantly more trustworthy than Brave
This video by Mental Outlaw is very helpful on debloating and despooking Windows 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhitETZb8s0&t=0
However, these are just bandaid solutions, and are best used when you really need Windows for whatever reason, whether it is for work or school or just certain software that does not exist or have an alternative to on Linux.
If you would like to switch to Linux, check out Linux Mint. It is the best version of Linux for beginners, and you can honestly use it without ever having to touch the terminal if you don’t want to do any mildly advanced stuff. I would also heavily recommend you dual boot Windows and Linux Mint, rather than completely switching to Linux Mint, OR, try Linux Mint in a virtual machine and get used to it before you wipe your Windows installation and replace it with Linux Mint completely.
Magic Earth has public transit data. https://www.magicearth.com/feature-availablity/ Scroll down under transit to see if yout city is on the list