What started you down the path to privacy? Was it a particular event, article, podcast or something else?

  • Vej@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    One day I was on a website at 2am that blasted an advertisement for TIDE DETURGENT at full volume. Then I found out about AdBlockers, then how creepy advertisement were.

    Then Snowden happened.

  • Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I used to relied a lot on Google. Google drive , google photos , google everything. After reading this article . I decided to self host most of online life and use privacy and security tools as much as I can.

  • Fubar91@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    My Runescape account was hacked when i was younger. They got in via a dataleak leaking my email credentials. At that point i was already into computers more than the average person, so it kinda was a kick in the butt that pushed me to pursue better security practices, which opened up the rabbit whole into data privacy for me. Rip my mith armor from 2006 lol.

  • Jessvj93@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Wanted to see if I could get my phone to show me ads for Tamale pots, a food I don’t make nor know how, and also not something that’s not commonly bought outside of holiday times. So I talked about it for days/weeks, not a single typed word, then one day I was seeing them on Facebook. Deleted my facebook, Instagram, installed app cloner to scramble my phone model/gps/location/google analytics ID, got mullvad vpn, and adblockers + uguard. App cloner also let’s you isolate apps and force them into a sandbox where they can have fun with my fake data.

  • B0NK3RS@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    It has just been a gradual change but having children is also a big part of it. I’m in my late 30s so feel the early part of my life compared to now are complete opposite ends of the privacy scale…

  • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I got into piracy because I was 11 and wanted to edit videos

    I got out of piracy when I got software through work and streaming made things convenient and fair.

    Now I’m thinking of getting back in because things are no longer convenient nor are they fair.

    [Edit] oops, we’re talking privacy.

    Well I started my privacy journey this year when too many services I used changed their policies for the worse

    • Anonymouse@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Ironically (or not), mine began with piracy. When I was little, I had no money, but I had a computer and lots of time. I figured out how to get games and apps that I wanted and a part of that was covering your tracks.

      Fast forward to college and learning about Linux. It blew my mind that you could do something like apt-get install doom and then there it was. No piracy necessary. I dove head first into FOSS.

      Then along came Google with lots of free stuff. Great, I thought, but this was different. I think I knew that they were harvesting and selling your personal data, but it was free so I let it go. One day, I was on a site and there was an advertisement for something very personal that I had been referenced in an email. The thing is - this was at my work computer which I never used my personal credentials for.

      I started noticing things following me around the internet and got creeped out. I started reading about what’s really happening and got very uncomfortable. That’s when I started focusing more on keeping a clean profile.

      • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I can’t switch to Linux until it supports software I need (the FOSS alternatives aren’t there yet) but I do hope I get the opportunity soon. I ran Linux on my laptop in college and loved it

  • nick@midwest.socialEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Mine started when I switched teams and ended up in an infosec org at work. Being around a bunch of privacy and security minded folks really taught me a LOT.

  • macattack@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Someone online introduced me to redirector. I saw it as a tool for efficiency and redirecting my internet consumption when I was mindlessly surfing the internet.

    Then I came across libredirect which was less-customizable but had built-in redirects towards privacy-focused front-ends for popular websites.

    Then I made the exodus from Reddit and the resulting communities tend to have a greater focus on privacy and security.

    Then I switched from Windows -> Debian and that’s all she wrote.