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by itvision·6y ago·view on hn ↗
> How to stay private when using Android

1. Stop using Android.

FTFY

> How to stay private in general

1. Stop using the smartphone - some of its tracking features are near impossible to disable

2. Use VPN or/and TOR

3. Enable either DNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS

4. Never login anywhere

5. Use the most common OS (Windows 10 at the moment) + the most common web browser (Chrome at the moment)

6. Make sure your web browser locale is set to English

7. Set your system timezone to US

8. Make sure your desktop resolution is 1920x1080 and your Chrome and Windows are as default as possible

9. Do not install any additional fonts

10. Install a single extension which hides your WebGL vendor string e.g. WebGL Fingerprint Defender

11. Do NOT visit websites from your country (it's quite easy to match your VPN traffic patterns with local websites visits and de-anonimize you)

12. for each site that you visit: * Clean all web browser data before visiting it * Close the browser * Open the browser again * Open your website

I've probably missed something like canvas fingerprinting protection, JS timings detection, CPU concurrency detection, etc. etc. etc.

TLDR: It's near impossible to browse the web without being tracked if the company which wants to track you has the resources for that. Web browsers and the web were not designed this way.

1 comments
> 5. Use the most common OS (Windows 10 at the moment) + the most common web browser (Chrome at the moment)

Use the OS with built-in telemetry and the web browser that constantly reports your activity to a data harvesting company and which keeps trying to prevent people from blocking ads or limiting data harvesting on the browser? Try again.

Wiping all data in Google Chrome is enough for Google to lose track of you.

Windows 10 leaking personal data hasn't been conclusively proven by anyone in the entire world. There's no evidence Microsoft has ever downloaded a single file off Windows 10 PCs (except for telemetry, e.g. application minidumps, which doesn't uniquely identify you, or contains any of your personal documents). Disabling telemetry in Windows 10 isn't too difficult either.

There's a lot of unwarranted mass hysteria in regard to the most innocuous things in this world which is perhaps an indication that people have no other real worries to attend to.

Even this post about "staying private in Android" is overblown out of proportions. Yes, there are individual apps which abuse your data but you can get rid of them.

Yes, Google assigns a unique identificator to your Android device but that doesn't mean this data is leaked/sold left and right.

And no one is even talking about the fact that US cell operators have been implicated in tracking their users 24/7 and it's not apparent they've stopped doing that.

Your cellphone company (which also serves for most as an Internet operator) is already a threat enough not to use any cell phone at all.

Then there are technologies to break into cellular networks by impersonating cell towers and monitor users against their will and I'm quite sure this feature is used and abused to no end by at least three-letter agencies in the US.

If you're an average American you're passing by dozens if not hundreds of CCTVs daily which are monitoring your whereabouts 24/7.

Privacy in this world only exists for those who don't use the perks of our modern society or who's quite rich and can afford their own island without dealing with the rest of the world.

>Disabling telemetry in Windows 10 isn't too difficult either.

Really? For future reference, how does one do this? Because I was under the impression that it was not possible to disable all telemetry, and that even the lowest "level" of telemetry that Microsoft offers is only available to "enterprise" versions of Windows. At least, that is what the wording used in the Group Policy Editor implies:

https://techcortex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/disable-mi...

https://techcortex.com/disable-microsoft-compatibility-telem...

"There's no evidence Microsoft has ever downloaded a single file off Windows 10 PCs (except for telemetry, e.g. application minidumps, which doesn't uniquely identify you, or contains any of your personal documents)."

If there was, it would be outright scandalous and probably lead into criminal proceedinds. That does not mean anything less than that is fine.

"Disabling telemetry in Windows 10 isn't too difficult either."

It is. Yes, you could use some third-party tools that supposedly prevent it and hope that they a) work and b) won't break anything important.