Let’s talk about a topic that I consider super important: our own digital practices with regards to privacy and data protection. This is, of course, related to my previous post on LLMs.
The usual disclaimer: What I discuss in this post is my perspective only, It does not reflect the position of the Learning Technologies department, or any other part of the College.
So here we go: as you may suspect, I highly value my privacy and what happens to my data online. I am not naive. I always assume that if I am online, I am in public. I am also highly suspicious of Big Tech, and that drives how I organize my workflow, and which tools I use.
Storytime Again…
Years ago, I used to be on Facebook (I may have bumped into some of you there), but, as Meta (as its parent company is now called) became a bad actor, I decided to be more careful. And boy, I thought I was so smart. I used a bunch of tools to protect my privacy so much so that I never saw an ad on FB. I also limited the visibility of my posts, and as some of my friends remember, I was extremely trigger happy with the block button. I never played a game on FB. I limited my use of the app, and used my browser instead. I thought I was reasonably cautious. I was wrong.
After the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco, I decided to take a closer look at what data Facebook had on me. So I requested my data. When I received that file, I was horrified. Facebook had about 20,000 data parameters on me, That made my decision. I left Facebook (I was never on Instagram) and never looked back.
But that was ok, because I was very active on Twitter, even though I mostly used it for professional purposes. But I did have a pretty active account, for a nobody. Well, y’all know where this is going. Elon Musk bought the platform. I was out before he brought back the Nazis. I manually removed all my followers and unfollowed everybody. I deleted all my tweets (I have no illusions they are archived somewhere). And that was it.
This is also the time around which Google went bad. No surprise that all three companies decided to invest heavily in their own LLMs.
And it is also around the same time that the documentary The Social Dilemma came out on Netflix. If you haven’t watched it. you absolutely should.
After that, I resolved I would be far more careful about my digital environment.
That being said, I think I would consider myself Extremely Online, but I pay attention to my digital hygiene, and I think y’all should too. I have shared some of my ideas on this before, but I thought I’d do it more thoroughly here. My criteria for choosing apps and services: privacy protection, servers outside the US, in regions (like the EU) and countries that have strong privacy regulations.
Bottom line
So What Do I Do for…
Social Media
I belong to the one platform that is not corporate and does not steal and store my data. That platform also does not allow ads, toxic bots, or Nazis. I have a few thousand followers there and follow a few thousands. That’s more than enough for a vibrant and fun feed. I set up my posts to automatically delete after 3 months, because nothing I post is that important. My account is hosted in the Netherlands. My host does not collect any data from me.
Messaging
Signal, of course (even though it’s hosted in the US, but they don’t keep message threads). What else.
Personal Email
Absolutely no Gmail. I want a provider that does not “read” my emails, I want end-to-end encryption. I use both Proton and Tutamail. Both are located in the EU.
VPN
Most common VPNs (Nord, Express, especially) retain and leak data. I use Proton VPN.
Search Engine
Absolutely no Google. No Bing either. I use Kagi, and it’s absolutely the best. I can filter out AI search results, so I get real results. I know it’s not free but neither is Google. You just pay with your data and privacy, Kagi does not retain any logs of my searches. And their logo is a dog. What more does one want?
You can see some differences here:
I don’t really use it, but a lot of people already know Duck Duck Go (which is based on Bing). If you use it, I would suggest using the no-AI option, noai.duckduckgo.com. Qwant is also a good alternative for privacy and no AI.
Browser
I mentioned before that I prefer to use apps in my browser rather than download an app that’s gonna take my data. When was the last time we all looked at which apps have which permissions on our phones? Exactly.
Anyhoo, absolutely no Chrome. Firefox used to be good but decided to go all in on AI, so that’s that. What then? Firefox is open-source, which means other browsers can be derived from it. I use such a fork (as these derivations are called): Waterfox.Waterfox gives me all the control I need for privacy and none of the AI Firefox now uses. It plays well with all my browser extensions (more on extensions in a sec), and is super fast.
If you really can’t live without a Chrome interface, then use Vivaldi. Vivaldi is based on Chromium, so it will look very familiar to Chrome users. You’ll be able to import all your info currently stored in Chrome (bookmarks, settings), but Vivaldi is private, and recently made the decision not to use AI.
Be definitely do not use the new AI browsers unless, you’ve got money to lose to prompt injection.
Browser Extensions
As you know, browser extensions are apps that extend the functionalities of your browser. Everyone should use an ad blocker. I use UBlock Origin (Google removed it from Chrome).
In addition, I use Privacy Badger (from the Electronic Frontier Foundation) to block trackers.
Next, I use consent-o-matic, an extension that automatically fills the cookie pop-ups that are so annoying and a form of malicious compliance.
Last, I use Sponsor Block to get rid of all the ads in YouTube. And yes, Youtube is an unavoidable cesspool, but at least, I can limit the damage there.
Blocking all the bloatware makes your browser work way faster. It makes such a difference that every time I have to use a public browser without these protection tools, I’m always like “wow, this is what the Internet actually looks like? That’s awful”.
Cloud-Based Storage
No more Dropbox for me. I need a lot of storage (what with all these video files) so I’m always stuck with a paid plan. For the same annual amount I used to pay Dropbox, I got a lifetime subscription from EU-based service pcloud, which provides me with an encrypted virtual drive.
Office Suite
You didn’t think I’d use Microsoft product outside of work, or Google docs, did you? I use LibreOffice, of course. I’ll note that there are YouTube video tutorials on how to make LibreOffice apps save files in MS Office formats, and customize the app interface so they do look like MS Office 365.
This is not perfect, of course, but all this makes life online way healthier. In other words, you don’t have to go live in a remote cabin in the woods to protect your privacy. You can still enjoy the fun parts of the Internet. But it is worth doing a bit of investigating when looking for apps, in order to find the most ethical ones.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
