takinbrrrr

You installed that browser extension to make browsing the web more accessible but what you also got was an extension that was reporting on every website you visited and AI chat logs.

https://amibeingpwned.com/ is a service that constantly scans published browser extensions to determine what they're truly doing.

Before you install that browser extension, check their score and determine if that convenience is worth the privacy invasion.

#privacy #security

One reason why it's hard to teach people to value their privacy and take steps to protect it can be observed in the personal health space; just like your health, privacy is something you don't value until you lose it. #privacy

I remember ad blocking extensions being a niche thing. Now realizing that Google going after ad blockers means that ad blocking has gone mainstream - to the point that it’s directly affecting Google. It’s a clear signal that users consider ads as being an impediment to their use of the web and want something better.

#privacy #browsers #google

For the longest time, I had my watch and search histories turned off on YouTube; technically it is referred to as “paused”. It occurred to me that despite this setting, Google might still be storing this data and there would be no way for me to prove otherwise. I (obviously) haven’t fully read the terms and conditions of use for YouTube so it’s hard to tell if there’s a sneaky sentence in there allowing them to do this despite whatever it is they wanted me to believe.

Now YouTube significantly limits the usability of the service if you have your search and watch history turned off and I figured that since I cannot determine for a fact that they honored the setting, I might as well turn the feature back on. I was not ready for what I would see next — YouTube was making suggestions based on things I had recently searched for and seen! What ever happened to “pausing” search and watch histories‽ The only way that this could have happened was that Google never honored the setting! “Pausing” your watch and search histories does nothing to keep Google from storing and then using them to make recommendations on what to show you next.

As we often say, #donttrustverify #privacy

One way #nostr clients can improve #privacy today would be to support the use of proxies (http or socks, possibly with authentication). Rather than reveal the client’s IP address to the relay, the proxy’s IP is all the relay will see.

I thought this could be solved today by using custom relays that are just proxies; for instance wss://my.relay.proxy/nos.lol could just be a #proxy for wss://nos.lol and all nos.lol would see is the IP address of my.relay.proxy but that interferes with #nip65 so it’s better for the client to directly support proxies.

A lot of websites use dark patterns in relation to cookies management, with the majority of them trying to trick you into accepting all of them. It tells you everything you need to know about their sincerity when they say “we care about your privacy”

#privacy #cookies #darkpatterns

This is the most privacy-invasive feature to be added to the major cab hailing apps of recent. I don’t understand how that is supposed to make me safe.

Be careful what you say in cabs; it just might be getting recorded.

#privacy https://image.nostr.build/9b49457b17693f6b8fe05b9a488c900a88de37af28e6c349f7c1fd405acd256f.jpg