Thanks for adding! Could you clarify a bit on the points so I can better understand where I was wrong at?

Yeah maybe Tor Browser was the better example. Just trying to get the point out lol.

I personally have never used them. I use Proton myself (despite some news) and haven’t had any issues. I’ve heard Tuta is also great but I think one of the cons of privacy mail is that they’re not going to be nearly as polished as the big players like Gmail or outlook.

Great read from Tuta on thia topic. It’s been an issue for a while but Google going full force publicly on it causes this issue to grow greater.

I left a comment replying to someone further down about how this can be at least a little combatted and how it is with browsers. (At least to my minimal knowledge of it)

So from what I understand, theres 2 common ways that browsers combat this. Someone add to or correct me if I’m wrong.

1. Browsers such as Mull combat this by looking the same as every other browser. If you all look the same, it’s hard to tell you apart. I believe this is why people recommend using default window size when using Tor.

Ex: Everyone wearing black pants and hoodies with the facemasks. Extremely hard to tell who is who.

2. Browsers such as Brave randomize metadata that fingerprinting collects so that it’s more difficult to piece it all together and build a trend/profile on someone.

Ex: look like a dog in one place, a cat in another place. They get data for a dog but that doesn’t help build anything if the rest of the data is a cat, hamster, whatever. No way to piece it together to be useful.

In both my examples, there are caveats. Just because everyone dressed the same doesn’t mean someone isn’t taller or shorter, or skinnier or fatter. There can still be tells to help narrow down. Or a cat that barks like a dog suddenly is more linkable to a dog if that makes sense lol.

In other words it still depends user behavior that can contribute to the effectiveness of these tools.

EDIT: got distracted. To answer your question I don’t think so. I think it’s more about user behavior blending in or being randomized. I think the only thing an extension would be able to do is possibly randomize the data but I’m unsure of such an extension yet. These aren’t the only options, these are just ones I’ve read about recently. Online behavior, browswr window size, and I’m sure so much more also goes into it. But every little bit helps and is better than nothing.

EDIT2: Added examples for each for clarity.

I whole heartily agree to a good ole “fuck you”; But I also think that money shouldn’t be a requirement but highly encouraged. I’m a hypocrite for this because I don’t monetarily support every open source I use. However, for the critical open source I use like 3rd party Android OS, clients for apps like Lemmy, etc. I’m more than happy to donate what I can. Hell, I’d donate to all if I had to resources to. I don’t have a good solution but I do think donating (when it can be afforded) should be highly encouraged and something not a lot of people think about/know about/or consider since they may be using it because it’s free to begin with.

I disagree. I hate the decisions they make and personally, along with you, I think it’s idiotic.

But while I hate on them, they will get away with it. Theyre not stupid. The decisions don’t align with its users but it will still work.

Look at netflix raising prices for arguably worse content. Working for them.

Reddit; Charging for the API essentially killing almost all 3rd party apps. Not sure the effect but reddit doesn’t seem to really be hurting. Users want to move but reddit is just too good. I even still use it because the user content on there is amazing. I try to ask all my questions/have discussions on lemmy, but I’m one person. Reddit has infinity more always contributing. I think the management sucks, but the platform just isn’t fully rivaled yet so they can keep milking their audience.

Oh for sure. Fuck these big companies. Unfortunately some offer services that just can’t be beat yet by open source/privacy companies.

Been there lol. I think it’s a common thing for privacy newcomers. Not focusing on threat level and instead trying to optimize every bit. It got me too.

A better way to word this is “Next will be your privacy journey which will send you down an inifinte rabbit hole that you consumes you”.

Lol no but seriously, it’s a fun rabbit hole, but can get out of control if you’re not careful.

Thanks for you detailed and cited response. Very clear!

I’m not familiar with Blue sky, do they advertise as federated or how exactly do they claim to differ from a regular platform like original Twitter?

Adding to this, pipepipe (for YouTube) on f droid is amazing. Not sure where it’s based but they do great work.

Yeah. I’m trying to compromise based on “threat level” but I’m also happy to try a way to f*** over the data tracking/profiling anyway I can. Lol

Awesome explanation. Thank you! I’ve been getting more into privacy and security here and there and I’ve also degoogled with graphene, run brave with strict blocking, VPN with ad blocking, etc. I knew JavaScript could be bad but never looked into it much. I may make that my next endeavor.

Question on that topic, is blocking JavaScript generally advised in browser settings? I’ve tried it once or twice and noticed things like login buttons might not work. Any difference with using the extensions?

Do you know if this is all windows or specific versions/on specific hardware? That’s such a weird thing to have effecting potentially all windows versions. Very interesting though, thanks for clarifying.

I’ve heard PopOS/Linux Mint are great starters. I personally run ZorinOS which is based on Ubuntu. It’s beautiful, had built in customization, and has a free version (I paid for the pro version because I liked it so much and wanted to support it).

You’ll find occasional headaches in all Linux distros just because it’s not windows so compatibility can require work arounds depending what you wanna run. But it’s worth it. Feels so much faster and in your control which is nice. Also if you screw up the distro you can just boot another distro from the flashdrive you used to install in the first place (keep the ISO handy just in case ;) ).

Could you clarify on this a bit? I’m genuinely curious what the update did to the games as many use windows for the same.

TLDR: To make a long story short, Netflix used to be the crown jewel that had everything. Now they arguably have a much worse catalog, for a higher price, on a platform you can’t have your family members share because they live in another household.

I definitely see your point but I can also sympathize with the other point. The way I see it, the market is saturated with streaming services that all get, I assume, licenses to show different shows/movies.

Because of this, consumers are spreading their spending between platforms to potentially watch only specific shows. I would guess that most people really only have a few movies/shows they actually want to watch. The rest being filler.

As an example, maybe people bought paramount+ for Yellowstone. Sure maybe SpongeBob or others that they have, but compared to their entire offering, that’s only a few. Maybe that 10-15 dollars a month makes it worth it but when you keep raising it and offer worse items or cancel actually good shows while keeping alive shitty ones because they’re trending (subjective, I know) then that’s where the anger can stem from I think.