Tip: if you find yourself using the word “safe”, “secure”, “hacked”, etc in your title, you’re probably off-topic.

Just saw this. Was wondering what others thought. At the border now they are searching people's devices and you have to give them your password or face detention.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/05/world/canada-travel-advisory-us-electronic-devices-intl-latam/index.html

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but I am working towards becoming a professional and having my own business. Unfortunately, I don't think I can use my legal name when promoting a buisness. I have a family member who makes content on YouTube and has their own website where they provide life coaching consultations.

Unfortunately, they have used my full name on their website, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc; and I fundamentally disagree with everything this family member does based on ethical and religious reasons, and I want no affiliation with this individual or their buisness. I have asked them to stop posting my name, pictures of me, etc, and they refuse on the basis that I am their family, and they can post anything they want about me because I am related to them. I have gone on Google to remove my name from the search results, but that's not a universal fix.

I am in the United States, and I am considering using a professional name instead of my own name, and solely advertising a potential business as the business, and not promoting myself as an individual. I hope this makes sense. I don't want to sound unreasonable. It just sucks how I'm not even practicing yet, and my name is found on the site of a buisness I have never had anything to do with, with an individual who doesn't care what I think. What do you think? Thank you.

I mean, the argument is flawed, because people do have things to hide, but as soon as you say “I have things to hide”, they look at you with a weirded out look.

This shouldn’t be the norm.

I am using Futo Keyboard... But to be honest, it isn't as powerful than SwiftKey for example. So I would like to know if I can use a commercial keyboard like gboard or SwiftKey, disable internet permissions and use it the same way than Futo?

Is it viable to be safe with privacy concerns?

I want to anonymously share some files with a community via a permanent link. So far all the services I find require signing up, which is fine with a temp email but then you also need to keep logging back into your account to keep the link from expiring.

On android they have the following default apps categories, what apps would you pick for these?

Browser; Digital Assistant app; Home app; Phone app; SMS app; Default Caller ID & Spam app.

Thx

Recently was gifted a brand new Yubikey 5C from a friend and was wondering privacy-wise what can i do with it if i use mostly FOSS apps & have degoogled most of the services and etc i used to use. Can you all give me some examples of use cases im not sure at the moment what i could use it for.

I really only check 1 email regularly but too many people already have it. I'm not sure how to make it work better cause I've found some places won't take proton mail and honestly I'm kind of confused if I use a fake name with a random account and then wind up using it for shopping with my real name sort of defeats the purpose. . . . Plus if I change the main one I like it would still be a log in for some places which kind of defeats the purpose?

Looking for a google fit alternative, unfortunately, I do use Fit a lot, but just the step count part.

My email is a legit outlook address.
What sorcery is this ? It's terrifying.
Just a year ago I could blatantly create one without doing any of the above.
The only flaw is that I had a reddit mobile app on the same network, but they can't be limiting 1 person to 1 network right?

https://github.com/Anish-M-code/Metadata-Remover , I am one of contributors of this project which helps windows users to clean metadata on images , we have created windows GUI using QT6 my github profile is https://github.com/evil-user , i am tasked with collecting feedback on how easy is this tool to use for windows users and priortise actual user requirements for wellfare of the society , also looking for volunteers who can contribute to this small project thank you

I've created a protonmail account and I moved all my bank stuff to it. But now I'm wondering what else should I move. Amazon is so spamy I'm thinking I keep that on Gmail, but what about other things like streaming services, game accounts, other shopping sites etc? Does it make sense to move them so I use Google as little as possible or leave them so I don't attract spam to my new account?

I've been reasonable careful over the years with what I put out there on the internet, and I've used services like incogni to help scrub days that might be out there, but I'm still curious how exposed I might be. I search for my name, email, phone number, etc., every few months, just to see what a casual search will turn up, but I'm kind of curious what a dedicated sleuth can turn up. Are there any tools that do this, or is this more of a service that you pay someone for, like a pen tester?

"...the law introduces stringent measures, such as criminalizing reporting on data leaks and granting extraordinary powers to the head of the Cybersecurity Directorate – a newly created institution."

When you open links within apps like Reddit or whatever, they typically open in an integrated browser popup within the app itself, allowing you to quickly visit the link without switching apps.

My question is, how does this compare in terms of privacy and security to opening the link in your actual browser, like Chrome or Safari?

From what I understand, when you use the in-app browser, cookies and data are stored only within that window and should be deleted after you close it.

However, if you open the link in your actual browser, cookies and other data remain, potentially compromising your privacy more. (I could be completely wrong on this, so please correct me)

Years ago I attended a meeting at my City Hall. When I signed up to attend online, the text box required attendee personal contact information (cell phone and email address) in order to contact us during the day about schedule changes. The text box explicitly stated that his contact info would ONLY be used for schedule changes. I called the office setting up the meeting and they assured me my personal contact info would not be posted online.

Fast forward 10 years and my name, home address, personal email address and personal cell phone number are all listed on the internet (by accident) and shows up high on Google search results if you search my home address. I called the city and the current lady in charge said "No problem, that will be easy. We'll have it removed" She had someone in IT remove the website and the page did disappear from the web right after we talked but the search results remain.

Google wont remove it because it is a government website hosted by Granicus (public info). Google says the local government has to be the one to remove it. I called the IT engineer who swore he personally removed it and that it cannot be removed anymore than he already did. He aid it's still showing because I keep searching for it but I stopped and that was two years ago.

But it's still there in Google search. How can I tell if my search results are coming up from saved documents in my computer and phone and wife's phone cache or if it's actually still on Google. Why would it still be in Google search results if the IT guy at the city said he removed it? Could he have failed to clear out his own cache on the Granicus website? This has been going on for ten years so I doubt this is a personal cache issue. I don't think the city will do one more thing for me on this. Can I ask Granicus?

Panama and Iceland come to mind, but any other I should check out?

Hi everyone,

I been learning about cookies and there are quite a few different types: zombie cookies, supercookies, strictly necessary cookies, cross site cookies and the list goes on and I have a question:

What cookie would fit this criteria: So let’s say I am using Google Chrome, and I disable absolutely all cookies (including strictly necessary), but I decide to white list one site: I let it use a cookie; but this cookie doesn’t just inform the website that I allowed to cookie me, it informs other websites that belong to some network of sites that have joined some collaborative group. What is that type of cookie called and doesn’t that mean that white listing one site might be white listing thousands - since there is no way to know what “group” or “network” of sites this whitelisted site belongs to?

Thanks so much!

Is there an extension to randomise the ‚default‘ search engine in Firefox/Floorp?

I want it to set the default search engine for every new tab randomly out of all my search engines.

So far I just found two related, but not 100% fitting add-ons: 1 - ‚Meta Random Search‘ Sets meta.softwarejourney.net as default search engine. This page allows to set different search engines and forwards the request to one of them

2 - ‚Use Random Search Engine‘ Start the search by typing ‚rs‘ into the search bar followed by whatever you want to search for. It chooses randomly a search engine to use directly without a page between.

Why I’m not satisfied with the solutions mentioned? First one sees all my requests, because it just forwards them. If I dont wanna trust any website, why should I trust this one? Second one requires to type ‚rs‘ in front of every search and I’m limited to randomise between google, DDG, you.com, Bing and Ecosia. No possibility to add more/other engines.

I would really like a setting directly in Floorp to randomise between the search engine. If it’s possible with an privacy focused extension it would be still okay. Alternating in a fixed order would be fine too, as long as I can choose which engines are allowed.

Thanks for any help or recommendations

I know taking a burner phone is really the major way to reduce risk of data theft, bank account breaches, etc.

But if I stay off wifi and use an international plan/eSim will that eliminate most of those risks while traveling?

I have nearly 300 accounts listed in Bitwarden. I want to cut down my digital footprint. How do I go about deleting stuff as fast as possible, as well as even figuring out what to keep? Do I just have to do it all manually?

I understand why they want to scrub personal information off of the internet. Issue is I have some accounts associated with my gmail and phone number that I'm worried will be uncovered. I.e. a dating profile associated with my number or accounts I forgot about on some lgbt site that I really don't need anyone knowing about. I'm in the US and its fine legally just... worried that somehow my family will know.

Theres like 0 risk that they will find out about every single acc in a privacy sweep right?

I currently use Windows 10, but its end of support motivates me to switch to Linux, which I've been wanting to use for some time. I've tried both Ubuntu and Mint on VMs and I quite liked Linux Mint. However, there's one program which I really need to work and I need it to be quick and effective to set up (so using Linux and a VM with Windows isn't an option). I tried running it with Wine, but it simply doesn't (when tried to do so through the terminal, it simply shuts down after some seconds), although perhaps it's an issue with DirectX or because it's cracked software

So the other option is to switch to Windows 11. However, it seems to be even worse than Windows 10 regarding privacy (and I don't quite like the UI but that's unimportant). Is it possible to debloat it, prevent the Windows Search Bar from automatically searching the web (which is possible to block in Windows 10) and block telemetry? From what I've read, there are methods to debloat, but telemetry doesn't seem to be solvable. Is it so? Is there really no way to do so? How safe is it to get Windows LTSC?

I wouldn't like to have dual boot, not as a permanent solution at least. I also would like to save the hundreds of GBs I have in my computer if I switch to any of these two OSs (which I just mention in case there's trouble in doing that)

I'm hearing your opinions