Archon of the Valley

Honestly, Bluetooth sucks. I’m incredibly sick and tired of everything trying to use ancient technology for far more than it was ever intended. Besides, it never works the way it should anyways.

It IS. It’s a fact. You can run the tests yourself.

Because it objectively IS. It passes privacy tests in so many areas where others fail and I’m not just talking about those privacy test sites, I’m talking tests we can run ourselves. It’s fine if you don’t like Brave but don’t let your emotions get in the way of the fact that it is, by default, the best option for privacy out of the box. Sure, you CAN harden Firefox or use Librewolf but even those don’t always succeed in passing those tests like Brave does.

Best weather app I’ve used. FOSS but unlike most FOSS weather apps, it doesn’t FEEL like your typical FOSS alternative.

The AI is intrinsically linked to the search engine if I’m not mistaken. Brave has AI built into their search engine and their browser, but it’s very well done and pro-privacy.

I’m sorry that not everyone from my instance believes that Firefox is the only option 🙄

Better privacy, better UI not cluttered by excessive and unnecessary options, and a fantastic feature set… but I’m referring to their search engine in this context.

Yeah, and? It’s one of the best options for privacy. I’m referring to their search engine though.

They have a search engine…

I’m happy to stick with Brave. Far superior to DDG in literally every way.

Based. This is something I may do down the road since it may be the only way I can get my friends and family on Signal.

I know Futo has an app called Circles which is designed for things like that and staying in contact with family without social media. It’s supposedly E2EE and controlled by the person hosting the circle.

I haven’t used it yet for myself so I can’t say whether it’s good or not, but it sounds like something you might be interested in.

Congrats on the newborn, by the way!

Don’t go the fingerprint route if you care about your rights in the US. Biometrics, for some bizarre reason, don’t fall under the fourth amendment.

I’m not an expert but the way I see it is this: if you’re tech-savvy and use common sense, they’re not necessary, as a 2FA app with TOTP along with random, strong passwords should be enough. I still use both for most things, only securing more sensitive stuff with a physical key.

However, having one definitely can’t hurt, and if you’re passionate about cybersec, it’d be kinda strange if you didn’t have one.

Kotatsu and Mira, both on F-Droid. Kotatsu makes it easier to read manga without a subscription and you can add your own DRM-free manga. Mira is similar but adds anime and K-drama streaming as an option as well.

Even though I am subbed to Crunchyroll, having an option to watch if I have to cancel to save money, that’s very helpful.

I’d argue that randomization is more effective than making everyone look the same. It’s less noticeable when the fingerprint is randomized.

No, I’m talking about running it through test sites. No other browser outside of the Tor Browser is able to pass fingerprinting tests as consistently as Brave, in my experience.

First off, if you’re concerned about ISPs selling your data (couldn’t exactly tell if that’s a part of your concern), switching to private DNS provider and enabling DNS over HTTPS/TLS can significantly cut down on that, since most of what ISPs sell comes from DNS requests. That being said, they can still tell what sites you visit if you don’t use a VPN/Tor, but they’re less likely to care unless you’re doing something illegal.

In terms of your obfuscation plan, I’m not sure that’d do much; if anything, it’d make you stand out more. A bunch of random traffic, even tweaked to fit your browsing habits, probably would look suspicious on their end and it wouldn’t actually hide or disguise anything.

So ideally, you’re just going to want to figure something out to set up some sort of VPN at some point. Switching DNS providers might be a bit of help in reducing sale of your traffic data, however. My recommendation is Quad9 but any privacy-friendly provider is fine.

I’m skeptical of any supposed privacy advocate that refuses to recommend Brave. It’s no Tor Browser but in my own experience and tests, it consistently wins over just about everything else outside of Tor Browser.

Anyways, it recently added a forgetful browsing feature. What I do is have that toggled on by default, turning it off on individual sites that I want to keep logged in. Ultimately, this is better for privacy AND security, since it’d limit the damage of a token stealer.

Another option might be Librewolf if you absolutely can’t handle a Chromium-based browser (I also take issue with that approach but that’s a different topic for a different day). Firefox but more private than default. Waterfox is also an okay option nowadays, since they’re now independent from the hostile takeover that they dealt with for a while.

Overall, for my own setup, I use Brave for ~70% of my browsing, with the remaining 30% split between hardened Firefox (with BetterFox) at 20%, Librewolf at 8% and Mullvad at 2%. I only use Tor Browser once in a blue moon for sensitive subjects that could financially impact me, like medical sites, insurance research and so forth.

Good. No one should be trusting that gremlin at all.