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“they keep using it thinking it enhances their privacy.”
Can you give an example of stuff people use because they think it will enhance their privacy but don’t?
about DuckDuckGo https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
“We don’t save your IP address or any unique identifiers alongside your searches or visits to our websites. We also never log IP addresses or any unique identifiers to disk.”
Sure, you can’t trust American companies for shit, same goes for Brave and its ecossystem, so if you can’t trust the ToS content, what’s the point of reading it, duh :P
If a company doesn’t advertise itself for not saving logs, having no trackers, not using you to train AI, not selling your data, etc, etc, it’s because they are doing all of that, so it’s also pointless to read the ToS… if they say they don’t save logs, etc, then sure, there may be a point reading to see if there are any caveats, but I trust more third party audits (like Proton and Mullvad regularly have) and the code being open source and reviewed independently.
Can you give an example of stuff people use because they think it will enhance their privacy but don’t?
Because software and services people use because they think it enhances their privacy usually are:
Proton (mail, VPN, docs, storage)
Mullvad (browser, VPN, DNS, search engine)
Tuta, DuckDuckMail, SimpleLogin, addy.io, Mailvelope, Thunderbird
StartPage, DuckDuckGo, Duck.ai, SearXNG
LibreWolf, Tor, IronFox, Vanadium
uBlockOrigin, AdGuard DNS, ControlD, Technitium, Pi-Hole, simplewall, Portmaster
Debian, Fedora, Arch, GrapheneOS
Qubes, Whoonix, Tails
Fediverse instances that explicitly say no tracking/analytics, telemetry/data selling, ads, AI training
Reading the ToS of any of these revealed they in fact don’t enhance privacy?
My main browser is LibreWolf and I have Mullvad for some other accs. I do however have old stuff that turned disposable now, and I decided to let these logged on Brave out of convenience (since to let accs logged on Mullvad or Tor you have to enable history and cookies and it defeats the purpose of those browsers :P)
I’m also using Brave to check some stuff because all the aforementioned browsers break some canvas script and I use those for image effects in my site and I’m trying to fix the script so it works on hardened browsers.
Oh, sorry, if switching instance doesn’t work, here’s the original YouTube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
ps: there is this cool addon that can change frontend and autopick instances for you so you don’t have to get tracked when browsing Big Tech sites https://libredirect.github.io/
My father loves '00s and late '90s RTS games, so I built him a Win7 PC. I got a bit jealous of how tight its running lol
Pre-built systems, though, come with way waaay more bloat. To get a free Windows license included in the product, they shove tons of shit in. My mother had a Win10 LG All-in-One, and I recently reset and cleared it to give to my niece, I had to remove a lot of crap, but it was way worse in the Win11 Dell All-in-One she got to replace it. I’ve never seen anything like that, shit came with Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Candy Crush… and, worst of all: McAfee. This Win11 laptop I’m using right now came with Norton hehe - but those Bing News, Bing Weather, Bing Maps, Bing This, Bing That, all the Xbox stuff, which you need to remove through command prompt, they were in all of them. However, I’ve never tested a Win10 or Win11 that wasn’t on a pre-built device, my guess is that if you bought a license (or acquired some other way, I don’t judge hehe) and installed the OS yourself it is way cleaner… but also surely Win11 is worse than Win10 on bloat.
edit: I had written Avast but it was actually McAfee, it wasn’t even full license and it expired, also it constantly hijacked the browser and changed the search engine to Bing… pure malware behavior, crazy stuff.
It happened a few times to me during major updates, but most don’t restore packages you’ve removed. They do change other things, though.
I recently wrote this small guide: https://fuckbigtech.neocities.org/#06, and I was just about to re-read it to update, for example: Last time I was on Win11, the Windows Update had downloaded the HEIF and AV1 codecs, they were even listed in the app list to uninstall if I wanted, but they didn’t come with the laptop I have now, nor were they added through updating it. I just noticed folders weren’t displaying AVIF image thumbnails after I had debloated (and removed Windows Store). Then I discovered you can no longer download Windows utilities through their site, and it won’t work directly through PowerShell either because all download and installation is forced through Windows Store. I had already debloated extensively, so I decided to just factory-reset the laptop. This time, I downloaded both packages before removing Windows Store. Guess what? Removing Windows Store also removed the packages! So here I am, after another factory reset, leaving Windows Store there, hoping the lack of it doesn’t fuck me in the future lol
fun story: I also discovered it no longer comes with Notepad, Paint and Calculator! You have to download all from the Store, and they integrated with Copilot lol - it did come with Outlook, Maps, Teams and other crap, though… even some hidden legacy Zune, IE and Skype packages…
Every site was breaking, looking like they were fighting over DNS resolving, and I guess that was the problem. Once I removed Portmaster’s DNS settings, they started working together. Well, I have DNS set in the browser anyway, and I’m using Portmaster just to monitor those non-browser connections. Using Windows, it’s crazy that on startup you already have like 9 pages of random Windows processes trying to call home and tell them what you’re doing lol
OP just deflecting and ignoring… here’s the deal about privacy:
If the company doesn’t advertise itself for not saving logs or selling your data: Don’t waste time with the ToS.
They are saving logs and selling your data.
If the company advertise itself for not saving logs or selling your data, but it’s American: Don’t waste time with the ToS.
The government can legally force them into cooperation while placing them under a gag order.
If the company advertise itself for not saving logs or selling your data and it’s not American: Read the ToS if you want, but it’s not important.
You will hardly find anything that is not open source recommended for privacy. Read independent code review of the software and third party audits of the company.