There is this common narrative I see all the time, implying that we as individuals are empowered to choose and manifest our own destiny, and this comes up often in privacy discussions.
Don’t like Facebook’s privacy nightmares? Just don’t use Facebook!
Don’t like personalized ads? I remember a popular post on reddit saying “if your ad interrupts my YouTube video, I will hate your product”.
Don’t like Google chrome hegemony? Just use Firefox!
And while I agree that we should strive to do that, the battle doesn’t end here. Facebook has shadow accounts for people who never signed up. Google chrome keeps it’s hegemony despite people on the Internet advocating Firefox day and night. And ads continue to be extremely profitable despite you “hating the product” because it interrupted your YouTube video.
Even worse: even if you “hate the product”, you now already know it. You now know they product exists, and possibly whatever they wanted you to know about it. The reality is that these companies own your eyes. They control what shows up on your screen. And even if you hate it, they control what you end up learning.
the reality is that our individual resistance is very far from enough
I am not saying it is completely futile. It is a step in the right direction. But the only effective solution is organized action. We, alone, cannot achieve much. Unless we organize our resistance against privacy violations, we will continue to live through this privacy nightmare.
There are definitely some steps you can take for your personal privacy. Get a phone with GrapheneOS, use LibreWolf as your browser, switch from Windows/Mac to Linux, use a DNS filter like NextDNS and try to communicate with people over Signal. You can also use a reputable VPN like IVPN or Mullvad and switch away from Google/Big Tech services (Google search -> DuckDuckGo, Gmail -> ProtonMail, Microsoft Office -> LibreOffice, Google Drive -> Proton Drive, YouTube -> Odysee, etc.)
Is IVPN and Mullvad better than ProtonVPN ?
They allow for anonymous registration without an Email address. They just give you an Account ID. They also allow you to sign up via Tor. Mullvad even has an onion site.
Just chiming in, that the biggest selling point of Mullvad (and IVPN also, I think) is the possibility to pay with cash-by-mail or with crypto. Also, Proton has an onion site, too (at least I used it for ProtonMail, not sure if it’s for Drive too).
Proton has an onion site for Proton Mail, (not sure if it’s for Proton VPN as well) but it’s a huge pain in the butt to sign up for an account. They often require email or sometimes SMS verification. Also, they redirect you back to the clear web page for the sign up process. It’s less than ideal. I use Proton Mail and I pay for it, so I also get Proton VPN but it only use it for torrenting. For all other things I use IVPN and I’m pretty happy with them. Customer support is great btw.
With the verification thing on Proton, there is a button which allows you to bypass it.
Edit: at least there was when I created mine
If there’s verification that you can just bypass by clicking a button it’s not a very effective method of verification xD
I agree. I was also confused back then. Because of this, I tried creating an account yesterday and found out, that verification is in fact needed. But I simply used one of the disposable email services and it was done. No need for a phone number.
Sometimes, when signing up over Tor, they don’t allow email verification and require a phone number.
I personally feel like Mullvad provides a better, faster and cheaper service than Proton. However, Proton has other very interesting products such as ProtonMail, ProtonPass and Drive. I’m interested in all that, so I ended up moving to Proton.
I don’t have a single bad thing to say about Mullvad, excellent service and pricing policy.
What about reading an article that has a Facebook share button or independent trackers? Using your credit/debit cards, buying anything online. There’s a million ways to track people’s habits
If you have an adblocker, you can block the Facebook embedded spyware and other trackers. You can use Monero, a privacy-focused crypto currency to anonymously buy a prepaid credit card, and then use that to make your payment.
Can I? Most places don’t accept it, or any cryptocurrency for that matter. It’s just not a viable alternative currently.
The more people use it, the more businesses will accept it. There’s a list of businesses that accept Monero: https://monerica.com/. Maybe Monero is not a viable alternative today, but the situation might change, once we live in a cashless society. Until then, use cash or Monero. You can also anonymously get prepaid credit cards and gift cards at Cake Pay or Coinsbee.