I can confidently say that my awareness of digital privacy is way above the average.
I know the risks and what I must do to protect myself.
The question is, am I good at following my advice?
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1.
De-Googled my life
My digital privacy hypocrisy hit me straight in the face on day one.
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Despite knowing Google’s data obsession, my Gmail account was still my main door to the internet.
I already had aProton Mailaccount which I generally use for communications that need an extra layer of security.
But, hey, do not all my emails deserve the same treatment?
Check all the tips and tricks ofsecuring your smartphone.
Proton makes switching all your messages, contacts, and calendar appointments from Gmail super easy and straightforward.
All in all, it was worth the hassle knowing all my files are now encrypted and secure.
If you didnt know already, now you do itsData Privacy Week(January 27 to 31)!
Proton doesn’t offer a privacy-first alternative to Google Photos (yet?)
The success of Google equivalents such asProton Docsmakes me hope a solution is down the line.
If you hadn’t guessed, I said farewell to Google Docs as well.
My research on the most private andsecure web browsersled me toBraveandMozilla Firefox.
I went with the latter as it uses its own Gecko engine, while Brave is based on Chromium.
De-Google means everything, I couldn’t risk it.
Fully open-source, Firefox boasts customizations that allow you to choose your level of privacy.
After installation, however, it suggests downloading web app extensions like PrivacyBadger for exactly that.
I couldn’t hope for a smoother experience switching my digital life from Google Chrome to Firefox.
I knew the tool for the job avirtual private web connection (VPN).
A VPN is security software that encrypts all the data leaving your gear when you browse the web.
It scrambles the communications into an unreadable form to prevent third parties from accessing their content.
At the same time, the VPN also masks your real IP address for extra security.
That said, on desktop, I had a few instances where I couldnt access some web pages.
Likely because these websites detected I was using a VPN, meaning I had to either switchVPN protocolor provider.
At least, in the past, I may have done exactly that.
There was just a problem now the data I willingly shared online.
That is how we can exercise our right to privacy and opt out of invasive data tracking.
Clicking “enable necessary cookies only” for every web page you enter can be a pain.
However, this minimizes the chances of advertising companies profiting from your data by building your digital persona.
What I found very disappointing, however, was coming across aprivacy paywall.
I found some inessential permissions I didnt grant by heading to parameters and tapping Privacy & Security.
These included granting full access to contact lists and photos to Goodreads.
I then turned on the App Privacy Report option to help me stay on top of granted permissions.
Seventeen apps, all of which have since been removed to avoid the risk.
To do that, I turned to a security software that does this within a few clicks.
Already having a Proton account, it made sense for me to chooseProton Pass.
The provider made the process straightforward.
Bottom line
After living a week on a restricted data-sharing regime, I won’t go back.
I’m sure I’ll see further benefits of this over time too.
But this is a marathon, not a sprint.
It would take time to adjust, but it’s worth it.
TechRadar created this content as part of a paid partnership with Surfshark.
The contents of this article are entirely independent and solely reflect the editorial opinion of TechRadar.
