Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!

Should you lean into it harder than you absolutely can tolerate? Probably not.

Let’s face it; there’s always going to be friction until we change how companies behave.

This kind of nonsense is why I bypass the NYT’s paywall, and any other paywall. If I wanted to ever subscribe; this ensures that I will want to subscribe far less intensely than I would have ever naturally done. Probably this ensures the urge to subscribe will be non-existant; and my urge to ‘become a Giant Tool and just crawl their site daily with my paywall bypass’ is increasing at a pace that might alarm some people.

I hear there’s a fork of Signal that doesn’t remove SMS, but idk what it’s called.

Hold it there Privacy Enthusiasts!

Read this first, it explains the learning technology: https://federated.withgoogle.com/

Read the article! The change isn’t live yet…and you can likely disable it once it drops.

“While an exact date is still unknown,” Bard says, “all signs point towards Bard’s arrival in Google Messages sometime in 2024. It could be a matter of weeks or months, but it’s definitely coming.” Meanwhile, what we’ve seen thus far remains buried deep inside a beta release and subject to change before release.

You should be safe if you are the only one with access to that computer.

If you are sharing the computer with another human being; please Unplug your Yubikey and take it with you when you are not using the computer and it is likely that another human being could be using the computer. Just to be safe; Do Not Leave Your Yubikey Plugged In If Another Person Is Using It…unless you’re authorizing them to access something.

Your Yubikey can’t tell who clicked it’s button as it is NOT a Fingerprint Reader.

No!

With anything owned by Meta; you will be required to verify your identity.

PS: It’s quite bizarre to answer directly to someone to discredit, but without giving the opportunity to refute…

It’s called not being a toxic reply guy. You should try it.

I’m going to quote another comment but not ping them; I don’t want to argue with them; but instead provide counterpoints for the OP to consider.

Most people aren’t going to install Signal just to talk to you because it does not fit their use case.

This is false. While it does take more effort; it can be achieved. I can compose an SMS with an install link for the appropriate app-store and in-person assist you and tell you my ID on my privacy respecting apps of choice. Bluetooth transfers and QR codes also work too; so we can exchange other contact details as well.

I’m also gen z and from the US, I go to university, and most people who I know use Whatsapp or Discord to communicate.

Telegram is far superior to Whatsapp and close to Discord in features. Your generation is capable of using it; I see Gen Z on there all the time. Signal closely mimics iMessage in features; and it’s available on both Android and iOS.

Bonus for the privacy-conscious; It has better privacy and cryptography. MProto isn’t the most respected but it’s sufficient for most day-to-day conversations.

This is blatantly false. There are plenty of jobs out there who will hire you and not do something shitty like installing boss-ware on a computer.

If you allow or enable these employers to get away with it; you’re part of the problem. 99.5% of jobs do not require boss-ware to get done properly; and if your immediate bosses or supervisors had no problems with you before…consider it a large red flag. If you’re joining a company and they mention this; consider it a large red flag.

This is blatantly false. Name and fucking shame each variety of software. These cockroaches can’t stand the light of public attention. The more people who know how to spot and identify malicious and suspicious boss-ware behavior, the better. It protects the user to know that the software exists; as they can better be prepared to combat and deter abuses of this software by unprofessional and shitty bosses.

No; it isn’t going to be foolproof. That’s not the intent here. The intent is for everyone to be able to name, shame, and identify when software that their employer is deploying is going to be behaving in a manner that blatantly violates their rights to privacy in a non-constructive way that threatens them.

Any company that does this to it’s employees is dooming itself to failure anyways. A complete lack of trust makes for a very hostile working environment; and it will generally drive employees away anyways.

As an aside; there are USB devices which can act like keyboards and mice; some of which are very clever and intricate. You can use them to your advantage while using work-issued equipment; but keep in mind you’ll need to program it on your personal PC.

You can definitely get creative with some of them and have them simulate the typing and clicking of a lot of different things at random intervals.

If you care about privacy; you tell your employer clearly that you do not tolerate “Boss-ware” or other spyware on your personal devices.

If they give a shit; they will then be forced to issue one that the company owns and manages. If they don’t give a shit; you walk away. Lots of companies will hire you without that crap. Don’t believe people who gaslight you by saying “But every company uses it!” or anything sounding remotely like it.

On a company-issued machine; you tell your employer clearly that you do not tolerate “Boss-ware” that will be used to track or manage your time. Walk away; if they refuse to keep your machine clean of it or attempt to raise any concern that you’re not at your PC every damned moment of your core hours. You have a right to live your life. As long as your immediate bosses and supervisors are happy with the quality and quantity of the work you submit, you’ve done your job. If they are unhappy with the quality or quantity of your work then, they can respectfully schedule a meeting with you to discuss it. The way an actual adult should be treated, and, would be treated in an actual office that observes all standard rules of professionalism. With respect.

TL;DR: Do not accept the implementation of Boss-ware as if the decision was made with any professionalism or respect for you. If they implement it; you leave as fast as possible. Take any friends that you can with you too, if you can.

No; it is clear that you are in fact wrong.

These are intended to be pros and cons.

The wording is intentional; and the processes can in fact be hard if you are not well studied in doing these things.

Privacy Does Not Equal Anonymity.

Yes; having anonymity does confer some level of privacy, but it is not the only means of having privacy.

Now let’s peek at the advantages:

• You own the domain.
• You can host your own mail exchange (MX), configure it the way you want and host it anywhere that will permit you to send and receive emails. Point the DNS record(s) at whatever MX server(s), that allow it, that you want. Personally I use Tutanota for my inbox and SimpleLogin for my junk aliases…
• You have control over where your mail gets routed. By DNS records; you can do a lot of things and point your emails in directions that avoid restrictive networks or unwanted relays as well as securing that route too; ensuring that no one can quietly redirect your mail elsewhere. I use Njalla for my domain.
• You have control over who hosts your inbox. This allows you to swiftly change mailbox or hosting providers without losing your long used email addresses.
• You aren’t sharing a domain with many users; which usually means fewer issues with email deliverability due to spam and abuse. Once your domain gains a positive reputation as a small-time email provider; most email services Will accept sent emails even if junk filters do not. Your recipients have an easy way to whitelist your entire domain.
• Your email will receive less spam overall.

Some disadvantages may include:

• Your domain will be aggressively filtered as junk by most Aggressively Configured Junk Filters.
• Your emails may be occasionally rejected by certain email providers with aggressive anti-junk configurations and applications deciding who they will receive from at the MX level.
• Your emails may be easy to snoop on at the network level; as they will have an identifiable domain on the envelope and will be primarily routed to a specific host. This is problematic if you or your mailbox provider don’t force remote mail servers to use TLS encryption.
• Your domain may be abused or spoofed for spam if you do not configure your DNS and MX settings correctly. (Use DKIM so remote servers can tell if another server is spoofing your domain)
• You will be 100% responsible for all mail that is sent; or appears to be sent by your domain name. This includes all spam that spoofs your domain name; therefore you must USE DKIM to mitigate it.
• You must properly configure everything. If you misconfigure it; the remote servers will notice that and REJECT all of your emails that are sent out.
• You may need to maintain your own MX (mail server) and host that if you choose to do so. This comes with additional performance and administration burdens. Double them if you allow anyone else to use your domain as an email address; because you are now responsible for their conduct as well.

Telegram is legitimately bad, it’s only saving grace being that it is STILL BETTER THAN DISCORD! It’s main “Sin” is rolling it’s own Encryption Algorithm; which has been proven to be less than 100% airtight and secure.

Sadly your average user does not care about privacy above all else. They only care about privacy in as much as it can factually and emotionally affect their daily lives. TL;DR: You have to incentivize them to care, and they will often refuse to move, or outright dislike a platform, if a specific feature they love or depend on doesn’t exist, even when it is 100% not critical to the application’s function.

I genuinely hope they get this finished sooner than later.

Did you check the preferences on the instance and change the default engine selections? You can check the engines and de-select engines that are turning out to be unreliable with results; which should result in fewer errors.

I recommend finding a different instance then. Not every instance is going to be great at it, and you do have to do a lot of fiddling around with preferences and be-bopping between various instances when the current instance is timing out.

…Or you could just hit F5 and try your search query again. For some reason that seems to work sometimes. It is possible to configure an instance to not get slammed; and you can host one yourself too

I suspect that maybe you were exposed to a certain post over on lemmy.ml @ local link: https://lemmy.one/post/657560

I’d invite you to read through my comment deconstructing the silliness of that entire post…the accusations and links are highly flimsy and poorly support the assertions being made. https://lemmy.one/comment/708741

I won’t deny that it’s likely that DDG isn’t as privacy focused today as it may have been when it was initially founded; but I haven’t seen anything on the fediverse compile enough reasons today that would support the panic I’m seeing over it if you just look into what few sources are quoted and being used and assess critically what might be going on.

That being said…

I do recommend SearXNG. Highly.

The metasearch engine that SearXNG offers usually works well and allows you to pick, choose, and sift through the various search engines and even define and create new ones you can use for yourself so that you can easily search whatever you need.

Searx instances in general are kinda like email providers too; just find a good one for yourself and start using it; no real account is required…just find one that works for you and set up your preferences and all.

I do not recommend Kagi! Kagi is a paid search engine. In general I do not consider their paid service to be better than Searx and would not recommend using them. Usage of a paid service requires creating an account…and we all know where that garden path lies.

Based.

Currently rocking a modern Firefox 113 build with the following privacy enhancing addons:

• CanvasBlocker - to increase fingerprint resistance
• Multi-Account Containers - A critical multi-container account plugin
• I don’t care about cookies - Bypass nag screens about cookies.
• LocalCDN - A much more functional alternative to Decentraleyes which actually does benefit privacy
• Temporary Containers - A critical plugin I use to enforce fresh “containers” for certain kinds of browsing. Works with MAC as well; allowing me to isolate critical SNSes and such from just any random old site I visit.
• TrackMeNot - Search Engine Privacy tool; set on a very slow; non-default interval. This injects some “background noise” of activity into search queries and browsing traffic.
• uBlock Origin - Absolutely Essential Adblocker. This addon shoulders a large load of the blocking and filtering work.
• Allow Right-Click - Essential tool to break websites’ habit of interfering with my right to use my browser’s functionality.