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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 15th, 2023

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  • It can be difficult. I went cold turkey and if people wanted to contact me they either had to SMS me, email me, or install Signal. Most went with the latter over time apart from some older family members that still use SMS. I’m never going to persuade them to change that behaviour and that’s OK. Overall it wasnt too tricky it just took a bit of time.

    I actually ran into more problems with a former employer demanding that I install WhatsApp on my personal phone. That got really messy and stressful.




  • Morning,

    Another Brit here. I went through something like this…

    1. Moved emails from Microsoft and Google to a provider like Proton, Tutanota or Mailbox.org.

    2. Degoogled mobile by moving to LineageOS and replaced apps with FOSS equivalents. Use the likes of Mull, K9 Mail, Aegis, etc.

    3. Started using Signal instead of WhatsApp, SMS and Telegram, etc. Persuading friends and family to install it can be a challenge but stick with it.

    4. Implemented Pihole and unbound to minimise adverts and tracking. Blocked access to the internet for smart home devices (they were in the house when we bought it).

    5. After it came out that MI5 had been working with BT to spy on internet users I started using a VPN almost permanently, then on mobile too (after I discovered EE heavily monitor all mobile data usage). Look at Proton or Mullvad for VPN. I also moved to a small ISP recently after EE took over Plusnet. Maybe look at the likes of Zen and avoid the bigger ISPs.

    6. This isn’t for everyone and I’m not going to be one of those that preach to do it but I got shot of MS Windows and jumped into Linux. I still have a Windows 10 VM for apps I can’t get to run under Linux. Initially though I used the likes of Windows 10 Privacy or O&O Shutup to disable as much of the crap I wasn’t happy with and O&O AppBuster to remove built in apps I didn’t want. I used simplwall to control what app had network access too.

    7. When i eventually got around to changing email addresses for online accounts, I setup temp and burner adddresses (look at Simplelogin or anonaddy). I share my actual email with trusted sources only.

    8. I never use my real personal details for any service, online or otherwise, other than official ones, government, banking, etc.

    9. Bought a little secondhand NAS for the house that I run Jellyfin from to stream music and movies. Cancelled Spotify. Also cancelled Sky and got a freesat box.

    10. Avoid car insurance companies that demand you have a black box. I’ve only been pressure once into having one and I’ve been driving for a while now.

    If you want to mimimise your bank or online shops profiling you, shop in physical stores and pay with cash. Extreme maybe but I know people that do this.

    Finally whilst not explicitly part of my privacy journey, that journey ended up influencing my decision when it came to changing my car. The previous one was newer with lots of connected services, and as I discovered terrible privacy and data sharing policies. The current one is older with the only connected service being the tracker. Like I say, not part of my privacy journey but once I got into that way of thinking, it influenced my decision.