It's only difficult because you're making it difficult. There is a balance between security and convenience, and you choose where you want to land on that spectrum. If that means Google products are useful to you, then just use them.
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
22 points (78.9% liked)
Privacy
32740 readers
3554 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
When your job suddenly rolls out G-Workspace or Office Online without you knowing and you come to work to a Google account with all your personal data, already out of your control, is it really a choice?
Have a job or your data. The stakes are becoming increasingly high.
"If it's useful, just use them" is an option, in some circumstances. In some, unfortunately, that doesn't apply. Is keeping your job a "convenience"?
Don't mean to attack you personally, just want to share my thoughts on the level erosion of privacy to Big Tech.
Don't put your personal info in a work account, regardless of whether it's local or cloud.
Advice that has been valid forever. Don't mix your personal life with work. That includes software, mobile phones, computers.
Do you need to go back? What exactly are you going back from? Is it not serving your needs? There are plenty of alternatives to Google services; I'd be happy to provide some suggestions, if you'd like, having been through this ever since The Snowden Affair.
I don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I do my best to be as private as possible, but if my work or any other external factor requires me to surrender some data, I will probably end up giving in. And I think that's okay.
Allegory of the cave moment.
And why do you need to go back?
I just do what is easy for me, some things are not worth the hassle of switching to a privacy focused alternative.
For example replacing google drive with Syncthing was really easy for my use cases. Gmail was easy with my own domain and a good email service.
Other things like facebook/reddit, banking, telegram, discord, etc.. I don't worry about it because the hassle factor is extreme.
my own domain and a good email service
Sorry for being dense, but how does this work exactly? Do you register your own domain as something like mangopenguin.com and then how do you get email to go through that?
Yep, you can register a domain through a company like namecheap or cloudflare. It's about $10 a year.
Then you just need an email service that supports custom domains, mailbox.org is a good one. Change your DNS records on your domain control panel to point to the servers given to you by your email service, and that's it.
And your outgoing emails aren't getting caught in Google's spam filters & what not?
Make maintainable changes to the services you use and your behavior/habits related to privacy. Go at a gradual pace that won't interupt your daily life.
Worry about things that you can control. You can only do your best. It doesn't have to be perfect. You might not be 100% secure and private, but that doesn't mean you have to make it easy to be tracked.
Start with low hanging fruit and easy changes.
Like switching web browsers; installing adblocking and privacy oriented addons (jShelter is a good one); switching to a more private search engine; setting privacy settings in apps and services; using strong, unique passwords and a password manager; replacing more and more software that you use with FOSS alternatives; use a good VPN.
If you're ready for it, get or build a NAS and self host instead of using cloud-based services. Set up a pihole server for network-level protection from trackers and ads.
It feels like a constant battle. I self host whatever I can and try to keep it simple. Will never be ideal I think. Far too many people and organizations want our data. Just have to take it one day at a time.
self host whatever I can
Do you have hardware in your home or do you have some virtual private server or whatever they're called?