Hello there! Im looking for increased privacy when it comes to my network connections. So far I know of TOR as an almost absolute bastion of security, but how do I ensure the remaining network traffic is encrypted and private? I know of signal for communication, and I’m aware of VPN’s. However I’m not sure whether to trust most providers regarding government interference as their software often isn’t open source. Is there a federated VPN of sorts, similar to how lemmy and other fediverse apps work?
tor has it’s place. you can’t use tor as your only browser (unless your life depends on your anonymity). There’s mull (hardened firefox) for daily needs or mullvad browser on desktop.
what os are you on?
if you’re on android: I no longer use it, but blokada is simple enough to start with and learn about dns, ip &c. I thought trackerControl too was instructive but you won’t stop there either.
if you’re on a desktop, try piHole instead.
on Mac i’ve found Vallum to be the most efficient. With piHole it becomes redundant.
on windows the best solution was to install linux instead 😅
don’t use your ISPs DNS server, neither google.
read other threads on this community, then follow the links to read from sources instead.
good luck