Becoming Anonymous
This is a 5 day free guide for the average Jane and Joe to minimize the invasion of your privacy when using the internet. It was inspired by this Twitter thread. This guide is the minimum every person should do to claim back some of their privacy while not compromising their use of the internet. This won't make you 100% anonymous, but it's a start. Site made by @surfcoderepeat
Day 1: Google
Google stores your location (if you have it turned on) every time you turn on your phone, and you can see a timeline from the first day you started using Google on your phone.
This is every place I have been in the last twelve months in Ireland, going in so far as the time of day I was in the location and how long it took me to get to that location from my previous one:
Google stores your search history across all your devices on a separate database, so even if you delete your search history and phone history, Google still stores everything until you go in and delete everything, and you have to do this on all devices.
Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lbs in one day?) and income.
Google stores information on every app and extension you use, how often you use them, where you use them, and who you use them to interact with (who do you talk to on Facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time you go to sleep at).
Google stores all of your YouTube history, so they know whether you're going to be a parent soon, if you're a conservative, if you're a progressive, if you're Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you're feeling depressed or suicidal, if you're anorexic…
Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I've requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3 million Word documents!
It includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you've taken on your phone, the businesses you've bought from, the products you've bought through Google, your calendar, your Google Hangout sessions, your location history, the music you listen to, the Google books you've purchased, the Google groups you're in, the websites you've created, the phones you've owned, the pages you've shared, how many steps you walk in a day…
What to do?
- Go to your Google Activity
- Click on Delete activity by and choose all time and all products
- Click on submit to delete all the data they stored on you on all their major apps
Delete "personalized" ads targetting
- Go to Google Ad Settings
- Click on the button to disallow ads personalization
- Confirm
Disable reporting location on your mobile phone
Wether you are on Android or IOS you can go to the settings and disable the location reporting. This will avoid Google and other companies knowing where you are at all times.
Text credit goes to @iamdylancurran that also inspired this website
Day 2: Facebook
Facebook stores what it thinks you might be interested in, based on the things you've liked and what you and your friends talk about (I apparently like the topic 'Girl').
Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you've ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this, it's just a joke at this stage).
They also store every time you log into Facebook, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device.
And they store all the applications you've ever had connected to your Facebook account, so they can guess I'm interested in politics and web and graphic design, that I was single between X and Y period with the installation of Tinder, and I got an HTC phone in November…
With the elections hack by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook it is now 100% certain (if you weren't?) that Facebook stores all your information and lets other companies use it to sell you ads, they also use this information to play with your feelings by showing you information and images from friends or relatives that might trick you into thinking you are missing out on something, this causes depression and anxiety. They are also one of the frontrunners in AI experimentation which is scary knowing their end goal is to make you so unhappy and anxious that you need to be 24/7 glued to Facebook.
You should delete Facebook overall, if don't you should know that all the data they store on you will be used against you and will not ever be deleted from their servers even when you close your account. It was proved that Facebook and Messenger installed on your phone helps them keep record of: All your calls, who you spoke to, all your conversations (even if they were not on Messenger), your location at any given time, what you bought.
What to do?
Delete Facebook forever. It is also proven that people without Facebook are more content with their lifes.
What if I still want to use Facebook
Alright, then… to minimize the data they can store on you:
- Hide any real information like name, birth date, etc
- Don't post on public comments
- Go to your phone and app settings block FB to access your maps
- Go to your facebook profile and settings and see which apps have access to Facebook, revoke access to any app that is requesting access to your private Facebook information (i.e. Cambridge Analytica used a quiz game to get information on users)
- Delete all your photos and videos
- Make your profile private so only your friends can see it
- Delete strangers from your "friends"
Text credit goes to @iamdylancurran that also inspired this website
Day 3: Browsing the internet
There are large corporations like Google and your internet service provider (ISP) that are tracking your browsing history 24/7 and can paint a picture that can be used to accusate you of anything you never actually commited, they also sell your data to the U.S government to keep their mass surveillance program.
How to stay more private when online
- Don't use use any Google Chrome or Chromium browsers, use Mozilla Firefox (faster than Chrome) or Tor browser for full privacy.
- Do not store your cache or history, if you do, delete it by yourself frequently.
- Set the default search to DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn't store any of your data. I've been using it for 2 years. Within 2 weeks you get used to it and the results are almost identical as Google, but they don't store any of your searches.
- If you are a more advanced user, use VPNs. Stay away from free VPNs, use only reputable paid ones.
Day 4: Using email & texting apps
If you are using an email or messaging app without End-to-End Encryption it means the company behind the app and servers has access to read your private conversations.
What apps should you use:
- Delete Messenger and any other messaging app from the major U.S. companies and use Signal or Wire
- Move away from Gmail, Hotmail and similar service providers over to a secure provider like Protonmail
At first it might feel unconvenient to move from the services you are used to but you will soon get used to it, the ProtonMail web and mobile apps have a similar look and feel to Gmail. Signal or Wire are faster and have better functionality than Messenger or WhatsApp, they are also growing with over 500k new users a day so hopefully everybody will move there.
Day 5: You gained some of your freedom back!
Congratulations! By following simple 10 minutes a day tasks for the last 4 days you gained some of your privacy back. This guide was based of @iamdylancurran tweets for normal internet users to stop giving all of their information away to big corporations and governments. Dylan inspired hundreds of thousands to reconsider their Facebook and Google privacy settings, he is looking to do that full time, please contribute to his patreon if you believe in his mission.
Here are nire resources you can check out about gaining back your privacy: