My privacy journey started with a YouTube video by SomeOrdinaryGamers about the Club Penguin Online doxing situation in 2020. Then, through Techlore and other YouTubers, I learned about private browsers, VPNs, password managers, Linux, FOSS, and more. What made you start?
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Online ads, they were so annoying to deal with, I tried Adblock (don’t use it) then ABP (don’t use it) then finally I found UBlock Origin (absolutely use this) and just seeing the amount of unnecessary connections on every single website annoyed me even more. On mobile I used Adaway and looking at the logs for that annoyed me so much I switched to LineageOS.
I “upgraded” to windows 10 and I couldn’t deal with how annoying it was with all the bloatware and random notifications so I switched to linux
This is a bit personal, but after I lost my job a couple years back. I was missing work because my newly diagnosed illness was getting worse. Got fired in the parking lot (over the phone) of the doctors office that prescribed me the medication that would allow me to go back…was scrolling reddit later that day and saw an article that insurance companies could start denying coverage based on google searches alone, internet searches are not protected by HIPAA. That kicked me right in the gut. I promptly started figuring out how to be more private in the digital space. Haven’t looked back!
Getting into technology in general and realizing just how powerful data made me start caring about these things. The constant abuses coming to light over the years have just reenforced my convictions.
Truly awesome speech about why privacy matters. Link.
Mine started with some random guy posting a google doc about how to use uBlockOrigin to not only block ads but also to block 3rd party scripts & frames, and see what all your internet connected to.
After the paranoia set in from seeing just how many connections are made from every single click, I got intensely interested in how much more I could do to regain privacy. It’s been a very deep rabbit hole.
VERY deep. For myself, I realized that when I got into it, I not only began to give less information to companies, but my way of thinking changed a lot, a lot of new skills in setting up/finding alternatives, good projects were acquired.
Yes, totally agree. It was actually a great growth opportunity to start learning new skills and become more self reliant. Now instead of trusting Google or Microsoft with my data, I can trust myself to keep it safe.
Absolutely. Absolutely. For example, at first I heard a lot about password managers, but I was afraid to store all the data in the cloud and not have control over them. But now I use Keepass, all my passwords are in one database and it is saved in many places. My accounts are now protected and I control the safety of my data. Privacy journey is awesome!
