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Oh, yeah, the pounds, shillings and pence system was just epic. One pound (money, not weight) is 20 shillings (because why not), and one shilling is 12 pence (just for maximum confusion). In order to use measurements or money, you need to memorize a bunch of arbitrary conversion factors, which was obviously loved by everyone.
Using a 100% de-googled Android would be best, but it comes with some serious compromise, so this option isn’t for everyone. The second best options are also pretty good and quite practical in comparison.
It really depends on your situation and the kinds of threats you’re trying to mitigate. If you need to have a spyTV, spyPhone, a spyPad or something similar in your life, using DNS filtering may be an appealing option. Ideally, you would have zero iOS or Android devices in your household, but life isn’t ideal.
How about a NextDNS subscription? You can use that to filter out a bunch of creepy tracking, ads and other stuff. Ideally, you would only use devices and software that don’t do any creepy stuff, but the world is what it is, so using a custom DNS is a good idea.
I’m not touching an app owned by Meta. If people want to message me, they can use Signal.
Turns out, this policy has weeded out lots of useless conversations from my life. So, I see it as a win.
Thanks. That was a good summary, and I appreciate that you brought up threat models.
People should think about what kinds of threats are worth their time and money. If that list of threats contains something where a VPN can help, you should totally consider getting a VPN. If your threat model doesn’t include things like that, VPN might not be the solution you’re looking for.
Brining up trust was another good point. People should think about how much they trust their ISP or some VPN company. Obviously, you can’t trust every VPN company out there, but where you draw the line is closely connected to your threat model. For example, if you are a journalist in dangerous country, picking the right company is a matter of life and death. If you are in a safer environment, your threat model is probably very chill by comparison, so you might be fine with some less secure options.
VPN: essential or snake oil?
That’s a fun problem, if you enjoy recreational mathematics. However, if you need to deal with this nonsense on a daily basis, it get’s old pretty fast.