A Collection of Things That Won't Spy On You
Please internet, can I have my data?
In celebration of blocking two million trackers with uBlock Origin, I think that it’s worth sharing a few tools I use every day to maintain my privacy on the internet.
uBlock Origin
The uBlock Origin is a free and open-source, cross-platform browser extension for content filtering—primarily aimed at neutralizing privacy invasion in an efficient, user-friendly method.
I’m not sure how terrible my internet browsing experience would be without this extension, but I don’t want to know. I would not recommend any extension more than this one.
Firefox + (about:config)
Firefox is a “privacy first” browser that blocks ads, third-party cookies, fingerprinting, crypto-miners, and more out of the box. I’ve also hardened Firefox by changing settings in my about:config. This allows the toggling of settings like geolocation, clipboard events, cookie isolation, and more. I follow the guide below when first setting up Firefox, and it has been updated for 2024.
Firefox Privacy – The Complete How-To Guide for 2024
Pi-hole
Pi-hole is a self-hosted DNS server to block ads and telemetry via DNS. It also does a lot more things for routing in my homelab, but that is not the purpose of this post. Upload blocklists to Pi-hole, Pi-hole as the DNS server for all devices, (just assigned it via DHCP), and let it be DNS (in a good way).
Mullvad DNS over TLS/HTTPS
Mullvad is a company that offers many Internet services including browsers, VPNs, DNS servers, and more. One of their goals is to keep the internet able to be free from mass surveillance and censorship. I like Mullvad, and I have seen enough information to moderately “trust” Mullvad. Mullvad is known for claiming that they do not store any logs for their VPN or DNS services. This is the internet, so I don’t know how true that is, but there have been reported raids where police have asked for logs and Mullvad didn’t have any.
Mullvad hosts publically available DNS servers for DNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS. By default, all DNS queries are unencrypted. Turn on Wireshark for a few seconds while surfing the internet and see how horrific it is. These DNS queries are free for an ISP to snoop on. My network allows me to set Mullvad as the upstream DNS server. DNS over HTTPS can also be run directly in a browser inside of Firefox.
Startpage?
Startpage is a Dutch search engine company that highlights privacy as its distinguishing feature. The website advertises that it allows users to obtain Google Search results while protecting users' privacy by not storing personal information or search data and removing all trackers. Startpage.com also includes an Anonymous View browsing feature that allows users the option to open search results via proxy for increased anonymity.
Honestly, all search engines are skeptical. Startpage promises to be about privacy, but who knows? The same goes for Brave, DuckDuckGo, and the list goes on. In reality, the best way to have a private search engine is to run SearX, I just haven’t had the bandwidth to sit and configure it. That being said, Startpage is a good option of the few privacy-focused search engines, and it has much better search results than DuckDuckGo.
Privacy Badger
Privacy Badger is a browser extension that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. If an advertiser seems to be tracking you across multiple websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks that advertiser from loading any more content in your browser. To the advertiser, it’s like you suddenly disappeared.
uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger = Peace of Mind.
ClearURLs
Copy and paste a link from Amazon to your friend and see the absolute tracking chaos in the URL. This happens on more sites than just Amazon. ClearURLs automatically removes tracking elements from URLs to help protect your privacy.
Temp Mail
Tempmail is a free email service that allows users to receive email at a temporary address that self-destructed after a certain time elapses. This is big for making quick accounts for services I don’t want to give my email address to. Without uBlock Origin, this site is full of ads, so be wary. I use the service to avoid being spied on by other services, I am not entirely sure of their practices. For more information, please refer to their privacy policy.
Self-Hosting
More important than any of these applications is self-hosting my services to maintain privacy. Why pay would I pay for cloud storage when I have Nextcloud, ZFS providing redundancy, and backup to a share on or offsite? I don’t want to be tracked while using Reddit, Redlib. I don’t want YouTube ads on my TV, Piped or Invidious. I can host my container images in my registry without sending everything up to Docker Hub. Why use GitHub and GitHub actions for this petty project of mine when Gitea supports the same feature set? For almost every paid cloud service, there is a free, open-source, self-hosted alternative.
TL;DR
I hit two million trackers blocked in uBlock so check out some other privacy-preserving tools I use:
uBlock Origin
Pi-hole
Firefox
Mullvad DoT and DoH
Startpage
Privacy Badger
ClearURLs
Temp mail
Self-hosting