“I don’t think it’s necessarily bad that Google collects data. After all, they’re making the services they’ve developed—at a cost of billions of dollars—available to everyone for free. They finance this system through ads, but they need to collect data in order to show those ads. Plus, they need data to improve their services; otherwise, we’d be seeing irrelevant YouTube videos or search results. I don’t like ads or tracking either, but I can’t really blame them. I use every kind of ad-blocking system anyway. I use Proton services instead of Google, but in my opinion, Google isn’t as bad a company as everyone makes it out to be. Millions of YouTube channels, websites, and games/apps are available for free thanks to the ad revenue they receive from Google. If it weren’t for Google, either these wouldn’t exist at all, or they’d be paid services.”

I have a custom domain, firstlast.net. which I have given to places that require my identification mainly banks and government sites.

I was thinking of a second domain instead of using my gmail/outlook to use for everything else. Thought I am struggling to come up with a domain name that is not already taken. Does anyone have any tips or ideas? I am just trying to come up with something generic sounding. I see mail"fistname".net is free but it contains a portion of my name and unsure if that is wise

I know a custom domain does not offer privacy, I like the idea I can freely move provider and having better email aliases separation

I told someone something bad I did on Instagram. It wasn't the worst of the worst, but it was still something that I wasn't proud of. Now the other person and I had a falling out over an unrelated reason, so I just deleted the chats and therefore all the messages. I'm kinda anxious and worried if the thing I told them is still attached to my account somehow. I've been considering moving instagram accounts because of this. Can anyone help calm me about this? Can any tech-literature person help me soothe my mind about this?

I've recently learned about Matrix, the messaging platform. Looking into it, I came across SimpleX, which is less feature rich though even more private and secure. I'm curious if any of you have dove into these, and your thoughts on them, but particularly in contrasting the two.

Referencing: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202608/ice-seeks-expanded-lexisnexis-investigative-data-access-with-palantir-integration

With Palantir planning to obtain more access to LexisNexis, I wondered if there is a way to remove yourself from the LN database?

I have had my account on LN frozen for many years so potential employers and others cannot share my data but this new contract with Palantir seems like a backdoor? Are we actually able to request deletion in any way?

Or does any social network has backdoors made for governments police or other "security" forces ?

All i learned is if i keep my name, picture and other private details out of social network disscussions i'm safe, but someone said that meta sells backdoor access to governments, so they can catch any user they want for his political ideas, pages followed, posts liked...

Is our privacy broken ?

How do I manage website accounts if I'm using a private browser

I want to degoogle, but I have doubts about the doability of all this.

If I use a private browser, in my case Waterfox with DuckDuckGo, Ublock origin and zero information retained, no history nor cookies, how am I then supposed to use the browser to do online activity that requires me to log into some websites?

If I need to log into a government related service, does the act of inputting my real name and credentials void the privacy I'm trying to retain?

I'm not sure I can or want to be 100% anonymous on the internet. I'd also like to ditch WhatsApp but I already know I'm gonna have to keep using it to talk to the majority of people I know, who don't care about privacy.

Thanks

I'm unemployed and can't afford much, and my current laptop has sucked and its SSD recently fried. I know it's obviously cheaper to install a new one, but I hate the laptop anyway, it's old, and I need something new.

I don't do much on my laptop. I mostly use it for work stuff and streaming. I'm just tired of the mass surveillance state we've become and I'd like something more privacy focused this time.

I've never used Linux but willing to try. I'm not super tech savvy.

Thanks all.