This is utter nonsense. First, let me point out that this is an ad for Surfshark, a VPN company. They’re trying to sell you their service by scaring you.
Second, their methodology is absolutely useless, it’s an easy and very common way to come up with a clickbait article like this. They’re just looking at app store permissions, and assuming the app with the most permissions is bad and the one with the least permissions is good. Which is utter nonsense, it might be that the apps with more permissions NEED those permissions because they have more FEATURES.
I could make a “language learning” app that ONLY asks for the audio recording permission, and then sell audio recordings of my users to the highest bidder. But Surfshark would praise my literal spyware as “privacy-focused” because it only needs one privacy permission!
The way to ACTUALLY do this properly would be to fully audit each app, find out WHY it’s asking for additional permissions, go over the full privacy policy, and do some packet captures to figure out when the app is phoning home to send data, and what servers it’s connecting to. Contact the app owners, ask them why exactly their app needs each permission. Consult some experts.
But that’s too hard for Surfshark, they just want to write a scary article so that they can sell you a VPN that doesn’t really make you safer on the internet.
EDIT: You know why I dropped Surfshark? They started bundling a “virus scanner” in with their “privacy-focused” VPN client. So my “privacy” tool wanted to scan all my files all of a sudden? GTFO.
Yeah a lot of these little VPN companies are getting bought up by larger companies with unknown investors, it’s kinda worrying. There’s one company that owns ExpressVPN, PIA, and CyberGhost now: https://www.kape.com/our-brands/
Kape Technologies (previously named CrossRider) has a pretty sketchy history of making adware: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/06/09/from-israel-unit-8200-to-ad-men/?sh=7c46d70e26e2
You don’t use Mullvad for their performance, you use them for their insanely paranoid security and privacy practices.
And for the record, I was never impressed with Surfshark speeds. I dropped them when they bundled a virus scanner into their VPN client, that’s sketchy as hell. I don’t want my VPN provider scanning my files.
You are incorrect. Look through their blog archive (scroll to the bottom): https://mullvad.net/en/blog/
They’ve been posting steadily for over a decade, maybe the posts just got more popular this year on whatever sites you browse
You’re not wrong, BUT that’s why Mullvad offers other forms of anonymous payment, the flexibility lets you be as paranoid as YOU want to be. You can pay in Bitcoin, or you can literally mail them an envelope of cash with no return address. Amazon scratch cards are just the most convenient option, and as always, you trade security for convenience.
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More control. I can make a homemade PFSense router that gives me enterprise grade features like VLANS, VPN options and advanced firewall rules.
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Performance. A dedicated AP from Unifi or Armada is more powerful and stable than most consumer wireless routers.
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Price. Building a decent setup yourself actually pretty cost effective compared to high-end consumer routers.
It’s DEFINITELY NOT for everyone, but if you’re a nerd with some networking skills and time to spare you can make a baller enterprise-grade home network for under $300. My budget setup made from used components blows any $500 “premium” router away.
It only uses Sync if you set up a Mozilla account. If you prefer not to do that, you can still set a Primary Password and the passwords will remain local on your machine, encrypted: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-firefox-securely-saves-passwords
If you’re not a power user, then it’ll probably work fine for several years. And it will be cheap and easy to replace the battery in 3-5 years when it starts to degrade, or replace the screen if you drop it. Not sure if a full 10 year lifespan is realistic, though.
And you’re right, the price is high, but it’s not supposed to be an affordable phone. The stated goal of the Fairphone is to be better for the environment and better for people than most other electronics. So, they have to do things like use sustainable materials and source parts from places that treat their workers well. All of that means that Fairphones will NEVER be as cheap as other brands. Because doing things right costs more.
SMS is INCREDIBLY insecure, and it doesn’t surprise me that they dropped it. It risks giving a false sense of security to anybody who doesn’t understand encryption (like, you know, your parents). They’ll think that any conversation in Signal is secure when most of them probably aren’t.
Signal isn’t “yet another new app”, it has been around for a decade and it continues to be the gold standard for E2E encrypted messaging. The fact that SMS still exists and people are stupid enough to use it does not mean Signal needs to maintain a feature that made their product inferior.
Yeah, they put spyware on minors’ laptops and then act all surprised when shit like this happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District
Don’t tamper with hardware that somebody else owns. If you get caught, you could be fined a lot more than 50€ and expelled. School administrators often like to “make an example” of kids that they think are “hackers” even if you’re just booting Linux from USB. They don’t understand the difference between that and real hacking, so don’t risk it.
You can only achieve true privacy on hardware that you own. A cheap laptop to boot Linux isn’t a bad idea.
Sounds like this is for any loyalty cards with a barcode that you scan in a store. So if you’re in the US, a lot of grocery stores have these, and some other businesses like Starbucks. Similar to Stocard: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.stocard.stocard