My privacy journey started with a YouTube video by SomeOrdinaryGamers about the Club Penguin Online doxing situation in 2020. Then, through Techlore and other YouTubers, I learned about private browsers, VPNs, password managers, Linux, FOSS, and more. What made you start?
Online ads, they were so annoying to deal with, I tried Adblock (don’t use it) then ABP (don’t use it) then finally I found UBlock Origin (absolutely use this) and just seeing the amount of unnecessary connections on every single website annoyed me even more. On mobile I used Adaway and looking at the logs for that annoyed me so much I switched to LineageOS.
I “upgraded” to windows 10 and I couldn’t deal with how annoying it was with all the bloatware and random notifications so I switched to linux
Online ads, same here.
Was a small thing, I was vaguely aware of online ads but only at a high level.
Was browsing online for garden sheds then turned the laptop off. Came back in the evening and every single site was pushing ads for gardens sheds.
Did some research and 7 years later, de-googled phone, all social media long since closed, linux (mostly), VPN etc etc.
Not going to pretend I can do anything against state actors (CIA, GCHQ) , my threat actors are businesses, Meta, Amazon, Googlr etc.
Can’t beat them all, but I can make my data exepensive to them at least.
There were some small things that I can’t remember very well (like looking in to lineageOS), but I think the first wake up call to how deep I was in to the google ecosystem was when I stopped my youtube premium account and started looking for alternatives. I found newpipe and got hooked on privacy respecting software like it was a drug. Techlore was a big part from that point on. I watched through go incognito one video at a time while I was at my night job.
For me the question should rather be, what made you never start using privacy intrusive tools. And the answer would be simple common sense. But then again, I’m at an age where I can remember not being able to call someone because someone was using the modem in our house.
Snowden.
Snowden and Techlore.
When I was on Quora one day I saw an advertisement for DuckDuckGo, “Google tracks you, we don’t.” I quickly began researching it and decided I should rip out as much of Google out of my life as possible.
The ads I’ve hated so much teached me about the importance of online privacy.
I feel so proud seeing those billboards as I drive by! Represent! ✊
Mine started with some random guy posting a google doc about how to use uBlockOrigin to not only block ads but also to block 3rd party scripts & frames, and see what all your internet connected to.
After the paranoia set in from seeing just how many connections are made from every single click, I got intensely interested in how much more I could do to regain privacy. It’s been a very deep rabbit hole.
VERY deep. For myself, I realized that when I got into it, I not only began to give less information to companies, but my way of thinking changed a lot, a lot of new skills in setting up/finding alternatives, good projects were acquired.
Yes, totally agree. It was actually a great growth opportunity to start learning new skills and become more self reliant. Now instead of trusting Google or Microsoft with my data, I can trust myself to keep it safe.
Absolutely. Absolutely. For example, at first I heard a lot about password managers, but I was afraid to store all the data in the cloud and not have control over them. But now I use Keepass, all my passwords are in one database and it is saved in many places. My accounts are now protected and I control the safety of my data. Privacy journey is awesome!
