Privacy walkthrough


by Antoine - categories : Privacy Security

Updated 21 December 2022

The following is not exclusively privacy oriented, but kind of security and ethical too.

Desktop

OS

Debian 11

You will never go wrong choosing Linux (or BSD) over Windows or even Mac OS when talking about privacy.

For server purposes, I always go with Debian stable but here, it is a matter of preferences. For the RPM (RedHat) world, Rocky Linux and Alma Linux are both successors of the dead CentOS distribution.

Windows

Microsoft Windows is never the right way when strictly talking about privacy, but it's a desktop meta often hard to bypass for many reasons, especially gaming purposes.

If you need or want to stick with Windows, do it with its LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) version. It is an official stable/security oriented "distribution" of Windows, without most useless Microsoft bloatwares like Cortana. It does only receive security updates and bug fixes.

It's still Windows OS and should be hardened before use. Many scripts can automatize this task.

Using secure and privacy-conscious applications, and controlling what can or cannot send data over internet with tools like Windows Firewall Control is definitely a right step towards privacy.

Mac OS

Just like Windows, Mac OS is highly proprietary, hence user's data should generally be considered compromised. As always, disable all telemetry settings you can find, use dedicated documentation, and set up a firewall control application like Little Snitch.

Browser

Librewolf

For both desktop and mobile, Firefox is the way. Desktop offers many choices :

Browsers to avoid :

Services

Mobile

Cyanogenmod

OS and stores

Stores :

Browser

Mull

Android (through F-Droid store) :

Texting

Internet services


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