Privacy

31886 readers

584 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

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What steps do you feel like are before a VPN? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Context: my gf mentioned getting a vpn for privacy, and I tried to explain that it "does" help, but it's more like type of windows on a house. It certainly can be part of the package, but it's no where near the foundation.

So i tried to explain the best that i could That if she was worried about online privacy the first step wasn't to mask traffic, but to not submit personal data to anything online like FB, not use Google services that package everything on you together to sell to advertisers, and to limit phone apps to essentials.

But I'm curious on what other steps you guys would consider the "foundation" of online privacy that should be prioritized before a vpn. Any thoughts? Or am I way off base?

Note: this is in context of vpn for privacy. Using vpn to avoid Geo blocking and censorship I see as incredibly valid for those that need it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Just my two cents here to mention that it's necessary to see this as a journey and a mindset, not a single-step or one-size-fits-all panacea.

If she's annoyed of advertisements creeping up, introduce her to adblockers and slowly make her get used to it. If she has shared concerns after seeing her friends or colleagues receive abusive comments on their social media accounts, comment on the dangers of oversharing one's private life and its potential consequences and tangible threats, like medical insurance companies abusing the info, and so on.