What are you referring to? I searched for this and the results were just the CMG story. That wasn’t even proof that the technology existed, let alone was being used.

You focused on the wrong part of my comment. The issue isn’t that you have Google accounts or use YouTube, it’s that you seem to have very little understanding of how much data is being collected about you through these avenues. Instead you focus on some conspiracy theory about phone microphones which is still yet to be proven despite years of technologically illiterate people telling us that “the only way they could have known that is if they were listening to me!!!”. I don’t understand how you get to the point of posting in a niche privacy community whilst still being so completely clueless and misinformed.

Person in a privacy community using YouTube and multiple Google accounts thinks the only way they are being tracked is through phone microphones…you can’t make this removed up.

I agree that this circular echo-chamber effect is problematic, particularly in forums like reddit and Lemmy where early user voting often determines the tone of a discussion. Too many people assume a comment is correct or incorrect based on its score, or the number of similar comments, rather than whether a credible source was provided that supports whatever claim was made. It’s particularly bad in privacy and security communities because so many of the people involved have a higher level of base paranoia that makes them vulnerable to conspiracy theories and misinformation.

No worries, it’s not surprising you thought that because there are quite a lot of people out there like OP who spread complete misinformation about browsers they dislike/don’t use.

You can read this reference to closed source in the most charitable way as alluding to the whole motley of things that render it less accessible.

Not when they use the conjunction “so”. If they’d used “and”, then sure - there could be any number of reasons. Using “so” as a conjunction like that in the sentence gives it an equivalent definition of “therefore”, so it’s like saying “Vivaldi is closed source, therefore it’s harder for users to investigate”, which is clearly an inaccurate statement.

In any case, OP has attempted to shift the goalposts many times in some kind of weird gotcha attempt instead of just admitting they were wrong or worded their argument poorly. If people want charitable interpretations of their misleading or inaccurate statements then they should behave in a manner that deserves them. Going full redditor ain’t it.

(Vivaldi is closed source, so it’s harder for users to investigate).

Please show me where you explained that Vivaldi’s source code is harder to investigate because “users need to download a 2 GB repo” or a “tarball dump”.

Is English your first language? Do you understand the definition of “so” in the sentence you typed?

But that’s not what you claimed. Direct quote from the article (bold emphasis is mine):

Vivaldi users point out that the built in blocker is noticably worse than uBlock Origin, with some guessing that Vivaldi doesn’t fully support uBlock Origin filterlists (Vivaldi is closed source, so it’s harder for users to investigate).

You clearly implied that the reason Vivaldi’s source code regarding ad-blocking is harder for users to investigate is because it’s closed source. This is not true.

This article has some misinformation in places. Like it claims Vivaldi’s ad-blocker cannot be investigated further because the project is closed source, but the only closed source part of Vivaldi is the UI (approximately 5% of the total code). The ad-blocker C++ code is published along with the other 95% of the browser’s code.

Do you have a Google account you are signed in to?

My guess as to the “why” is that it’s just another example of enremovedtification. Podcasts were essentially a bubble that everyone was trying to get in on, but the amount of low quality (not just production but also content) flooding the market devalued it significantly and listeners and subscriptions began declining. Everyone is trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of it now, which means there are even more ads on top of all the ads and cross-promotion that come baked into an episode.

It’s quite funny that updates, in theory, are about making something better yet Windows updates are one of the most consistently cited reasons for people abandoning the OS.

The article is about using your phone as JD…why would you turn it off if you’re trying to show a police officer your ID?

The XDA forums don’t have anything listed for your device. You can still improve your privacy by disabling applications (or uninstalling them through Universal Android Debloater) and replacing them with FOSS alternatives where possible. If you don’t already use F-Droid and Aurora Store (or equivalents), switching to those app stores instead of using the Play Store for everything will help you to change your app drawer over time. Take note of Aurora Store’s privacy report section that lists known trackers bundled with applications, it’s a very useful feature that is often overlooked.

I limit as much as I can through a combination of privacy-respecting apps and fewer apps (if I can reliably use the web browser for something, I will) and then use custom DNS filters (NextDNS) to minimise further leakage. I also disable any pre-installed applications I don’t need (you can remove them with Universal Android Debloater but I don’t need the extra storage space). I also use a VPN at all times.

Mine just plays a jingle lol

If you want to stick with Chromium-based browsers, you could try Vivaldi. I am a Firefox user myself but Vivaldi is my backup browser for those rare occasions where I have issues. 95% of the browser is open source, with the remaining 5% being comprised of the closed source UI. Vivaldi has a pretty reasonable privacy policy, an inbuilt ad-blocker and is a 100% employee owned company. It supports all major operating systems and has a sync feature so you could use it as your main browser across all devices if you wanted.

Signal…what? The Android version hasn’t supported SMS for 2 years at this point.

SMS is less secure and arguably less private.

To me it’s much more of an ethical concern than a practical concern. Digital privacy is a human right (privacy is listed under Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The only immediate ways in which I can uphold this right and contribute to a fairer society is through exercising my right to vote and making ethically superior choices as a consumer. So for me, it’s less about avoiding the government or big tech for practical reasons like surveillance and scams driven by data breaches (though of course these are still valid concerns for many) and more about supporting those who I believe are doing the right thing (or are at least an improvement).

If we don’t support the better alternatives then they will never grow enough to achieve mainstream success and challenge the current establishment. I know some people here hate Proton, but that is a great example of a privacy-focused tech company which has grown significantly because of consumer support - to the point where it has a full suite of products that do a much better job of competing with heavyweights like Google than a tiny, unsupported startup would have had. A company like that might not even have survived without its early adopters, and then the next one to come along would be even less likely to receive investment in the early stages due to the history of failure within the sector. To me, being privacy conscious is all about being part of a positive movement; supporting people and companies that are doing the right thing and refusing to accept problematic behaviours and practices I see in the world.

I know for some people, particularly minorities, privacy is a real world concern and I fully acknowledge that but I think sometimes we do ourselves a disservice by trying to sell it to everyone in such a scary way. Humans are not very good at perceiving or responding to threat until there is actual undisputable evidence of it in their immediate surroundings. So when you tell these people that they’ll lose all their money to scammers or that their government is going to unjustly target them they don’t actually believe you or take you seriously. They think you are insane. The better sell, I think, is to show people that this is a positive movement and worldwide community that they can be a part of.

EDIT: I was going to add this yesterday but forgot. I don’t know if anyone here has seen The Social Dilemma - the big reason that documentary went viral was not just because it gave a very detailed and scary overview of all the problems with surveillance capitalism and the attention economy, but also because it finished on quite an optimistic note. They told viewers “we know this is all really scary for you but we have smart people working tirelessly to change things and build a movement that we want you to be a part of”. It left people feeling engaged, like they still had some level of agency over the situation instead of paralysed with fear and just totally abandoning all hope.