Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox.

How about you show you respect user privacy by making it an opt-in…?

Feels like no matter where I turn, even the “privacy friendly” options turn away from privacy eventually.

It’s not free, they ask you to buy credits. I didn’t buy any so don’t know how much they cost, but just mentioning to make this clear.

I assume anyone who’s set their profile to private without sharing apps, external links, etc, and only go to private servers wouldn’t have much to worry about against this scenario?

Oooo I don’t know how I missed that one. Nice, I’ll have to check that out, thanks!!

If you self host nextcloud, another option is to put the rss feeds for your favorite podcasts into the news app. I listen to all of my podcasts through that.

However… I’d totally be interested in a better self hosted podcast app that allows me to see a record of everything I’ve listened to, while also allowing me to download the episodes to my phone, lol. That’s the only reason I’m stuck on the news app still.

How did I not know websites did this. Here I was always trying to guess the urls a few times before giving up lol. Today I learned…

Thanks for the extension suggestion too!

I wish there were some descriptions per provider with the ratings. Mullvad gets constant tests by third party against their network and has proven many times they have a no log policy that’s working, yet they got a 4 out of 5…

With only numbers and generic descriptions that don’t quite match the truth, feels like this sheet is a little misleading. Also, I find it ironic that it’s on Google sheets.

I tried Jellyfin so that I could move away from Emby, but the deal breakers for me were:

• No way to view my music library in folders (I organize all my music by genres)
• Terrible performance on Samsung Tizen (my primary tv)
• Can’t stream custom music radio stations by their m3u files

Other things that I didn’t like:

• Doesn’t save the filters I selected when viewing the library previously
• Doesn’t have as much working plugins on home assistant (this may have changed by now?)

I truly do want to go to Jellyfin, but the biggest deal breaker of them all is the lack of support getting it to work on the Samsung TVs efficiently. Perhaps someday it’ll change, but at the moment, I’ll probably stick to Emby but keep an eye out on updates :)

This ^ I start by blocking any new device to the network, even if it needs internet access (e.g. a new mini PC or something) and monitor for odd activity. If the device needs internet activity and has shown no signs of trying to phone going to something suspicious, I grant it from there (note my devices are under constant monitoring though). If it doesn’t need access (tv, home automation, printer, vacuum, etc) it stays where it’s at.

But yeah agreed completely. I avoid all IoT that won’t work without a third party cloud or internet access. Using Nextcloud (which does my rss feeds too), HA, pihole, and Emby (also blocked from internet access via firewall rules) for me. Also a few apps I created for myself for things where there weren’t any useful or good FOSS alternatives for.

Got mine connected to the network so I can take advantage of a local install of Emby, but blocked from Internet access, and every time it makes a DNS request (still blocked, but logged), it’s added to a personal hosts file for the entire network just in case the kill switch doesn’t work for some anomalous reason

Agreed! I tend to see what he can offer on regards to privacy for real life stuff like home address, data broker scrubbing (his extensive lists I mean), etc. But when it comes to the technology portion of it, I go with what I prefer, albiet I still hear what he has to say in case he introduces me to something I didn’t know about before.

I’ve heard and seen folks say rooting Android is a huge security risk and adds an attack surface, but haven’t seen anything to support the claims, really. Yes it’s less secure for the average person, who doesn’t know anything about security, to root an Android, but to say it’s completely insecure without any supporting explanation (not you in particular, just in general when this is said) doesn’t help. I like to imagine it like installing Linux and being told to trust the distribution you installed, but they disabled root and removed sudo because it’s insecure.

The reason I root is actually for both security and privacy. Without it, I can’t use custom firewall rules to restrict apps and system processes from reaching out to the internet or local network devices (AFWall+), have a local hosts setup (Adaway), run a VPN to my home network (Wireguard), and monitor all app network process calls (PCAPdroid) at the exact same time. It also prevents me from being able to create custom cron jobs and custom system changes I need that have only root access.

Being that I am also home 95% of the time with my phone on my person at all times, physical attack surface is less concerning for me, too.

With that all being said, the (assumed) excuse that “malware” is the security risk with root makes no sense to me because whether or not I have root access, phone malware probably doesn’t need it in most cases since they’re exploiting non-root things so that they can target the majority, not minority. Not to mention I rarely ever even install apps on the phone and most of my web surfing is done on my laptop, not my phone.

Only 2 problems I have with Graphene personally is the need to give Google money, which the irony is just too much, and no option for rooting. Otherwise it seems like a pretty good OS overall. In the meantime, while I wait for those options to be more flexible so I can have full control, I just use a rooted lineage os with all the extra Google stuff (ntp, DNS, etc) stripped and replaced with my own self hosted systems.

Also wish it was open source, but I do trust it. I tend to run Wireshark initially on all new closed source apps I install and obsidian feels truly trustworthy from my perspective. And the power behind it, while keeping the files super simple, is amazing… Combine it with syncthing and it’s a win!

I personally prefer NoScript not for just the privacy stuff, but for the security of knowing that an accidental click to a malicious site using some zeroday JavaScript exploit won’t kick in like it would, had it not been default blocked.

My NoScript profile is also fairly populated with things I’ve trusted over the years, so it’s really only new websites that require JavaScript that I have to worry about.

Maybe just me being over cautious, but just keeps me at ease, personally.

I forward all router logs to a syslog server which then parses and alerts me of “unknown Mac addresses” joining the network as soon as even one log shows up. If you have a syslog server and some way to index/parse those logs, that’s one way to do it

Text wall is too much to even try to read, but if this is what I think it is, I’d recommend for folks to buck up and go manual on data removal. Unless you want your info exposed even more, of course.

https://inteltechniques.com/blog/2023/09/19/the-dangers-of-data-removal-service-doxxing/

Just ran a Wireshark on it for 12 hours. The only thing it ever does is a frequent ping to their home site, but includes no useful data other than an IP address if you’re not on VPN. I wouldn’t worry about it personally. If it’s a big deal, DNS block darkreader.org or block pings to it through your firewall… Chances are it’s just to download the latest css rules when they have them or something.

I always recommend Amcrest for anything related to cameras. Idk about the doorbell since I don’t have that specifically, but the cameras are completely local (no cloud server acting as the relay) and no sign up required unless you use their home app (I use the view pro app to avoid signups).

Reolink doesn’t require signups, but their cameras generally require internet from my experience, as they use their own cloud servers as relays, which would mean they can’t work offline like you’re wanting.