On February 24, 2015 12:35:12 PM grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote: --snip--
In other news... http://motherboard.vice.com/read/looking-up-symptoms-online-these-companies-...
Pissed off yet? Or still a sheeple?
I am plenty pissed off; have been taking action for a while now. I take more steps than many people to try to block a lot of this data spying and siphoning (for which a few of even you have teased me!), yet I know it's never enough. I have de-googled my phone as much as I possibly can. I use no google products, have never used the google play store nor associated a google account with it (F-Droid & sideloading ftw) and use DDG or ixquick for search. I use a good firewall and limit which apps can have root. I use Ad Away and have modified my hosts file to block/loopback every analytics and tracking URL I can find, anything to do with google or Assbook (and many other popular sites that I personally do not use), all social media and sharing buttons, even gravatars. I monitor logs to see what inter-app calls are being made. I use FOSS, change app permissions and recompile .apks so they don't use permissions they don't need/shouldn't have. Always blocking images in email is handy to stop web beacons. I never click on links with a bunch of tracking info or when I can't see the exact target. I don't use social media of any kind. I don't allow Flash (ever) nor JavaScript or cookies except when temporarily necessary on sites I trust (my credit union and email provider), use private browsing with Flash/plug-ins disabled by defult and clear everything upon exit. Use HTTPS everywhere possible. Block or spoof my browser string, don't allow referrers...and probably more things I'm forgetting. Like proxies. No, I do not notice any appreciable delays as I browse; most pages actually load faster without all that tracking crap. Yes, it means I can't access some sites. No, I don't care that my browsing experience looks more like 1995 than 2015. I prefer it, actually (and I have no flashing .gifs or 'punch the monkey and win!' banners, but I do miss the dancing baby ;) ) While that is much, much more than the average person does (even amongst some cypherpunks I know), it's never enough. My only alternative is probably ditching the damn phone, and I have considered it more than once. What about you (plural)? What are you all doing to make it a little bit tougher for these bastards to track you?