Hello! Since I'm unable to find a public searxng instance that could work for more than a week and sadly cannot selfhost one, I'm looking for a replacement. I so found Swisscows, that promise to be privacy respecting, but here on lemmy didn't find any opinion on it. Do any of you use it? Why or why not?
I'm also considering Qwant and Mojeek.

Right To Repair Advocate Louis Rossman recently announced the release of FUTO, a Text To Speech App that respects your privacy.

After having played around with FUTO on my GrapheneOS Pixel, I can honestly say it's nice to have. Using the Openboards Keyboard, I'll admit that the one thing I missed about Gboards was its text to speech capability, but I refused to use it because it logs everything said into it.

IMHO, the team that developed FUTO have created something truly special here, and I'd recommend anyone to at least try it out.

There is a one time $10 payment, but the developers have basically made this more like an opt in donation, as you can just click 'I Already Paid' and utilize the app regardless of whether you paid or not. If you try FUTO out, and like it, maybe throw them a few bucks.

Here is an invidious link of Rossman talking about FUTO and its features.

Summary:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report finding that federal agents are using face recognition software without training, policies, or oversight. The GAO reviewed seven agencies within the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, and found that none of the seven agencies fully complied with their own policies on handling personally identifiable information (PII), like facial images.

The GAO also found that thousands of face recognition searches have been conducted by federal agents without training or policies. In the period GAO studied, at least 63,000 searches had happened, but this number is a known undercount. A complete count of face recognition use is not possible, because some systems used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) don’t track these numbers.

The GAO report is a reminder of the dangers of face recognition technology, particularly when used by law enforcement and government. Face recognition technology can be used to facilitate covert mass surveillance, make judgments about how we feel and behave, and track people automatically as they go about their day.

The GAO recommends that the federal government immediately put guardrails around who can use face recognition technology for what and cease its use of this technology altogether.

https://t.me/privateyourtech/372674

I see a lot of people, including friends and family, sharing URLs rife with tracking parameters.

I feel alone in making sure that I'm sharing the cleanest possible URLs to others. For example, checking if the URLs are shortened to hide plenty of tracking params.

Just need to vent, thanks for reading.

Edit: adding some context for future references.

By using url tracking params, tech companies can track who shares the content and who clicks on that specific shared urls. A simple but effective tracking method.

Try sharing Instagram post or YouTube video from the apps.

Instagram adds 'igshid=' . YouTube adds 'si='.

If you share the same IG or YouTube content from different accounts. The 'igshid', 'si' value will be different.

This can be used to tag who shares it, and who clicks on that specific url param value.

TikTok hides a ton of such params behind shortened url. Try expanding tiktok shared urls.

If you use android, use this app to expand, analyze and clean up urls https://github.com/TrianguloY/UrlChecker

If you use Firefox (you should), install ublock origin and add this url tracking filter maintained by adguard: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AdguardTeam/FiltersRegistry/master/filters/filter_17_TrackParam/filter.txt

Basically title...I'm wondering specifically if my chrome/userChrome.css is increasing my chances of getting fingerprinted/tracked/etc. I can't find answers on DDG or on Arkenfox's GitHub, so I'm probably good, but what do you think?

i use windows because its the only os i know how to use. i want to get into things like torrenting because free stuff is cool but im afraid to. ive heard of tails os, a os that boots from a flash drive, is that worth checking out or should i stick with windows?

what is your advice? what should i do?

Preferably one that doesn't censor search results. Like DuckDuckGo, apparently

I filed a GDPR deletion request with Twitter a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a challenge to find a way to contact Twitter (for anyone who wants to you can do so via: https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/en/default_reporter.asp) - but I finally succeded. I did not simply wanted to deactivate my account I want all of my data to be deleted as is my right through the GDPR.

A couple of weeks later I received message saying that my account had been deactivated and that I should not log in as this my halt the deletion. Today (one and half months later) I tried logging into Twitter and found out that my login email is still registered).

I filed a new complained but wanted to know if anybody here has had their data successfully deleted? Twitter makes it deliberately hard to do so and this might be a violation of the GDPR.

I've noticed that there are a few fake websites hosting modified versions of libretube. These modifications are likely malware and are dangerous.

Please make sure that you only get your apps from trusted sources. I would recommended a F-droid but I'm sure there are other options.

This law allows the NSA to "accidentally" collect american communication and the FBI to access the "incidental" communication without a warrant.

It is set to expire in December 2023 and will likely be renewed if there isn't much public pressure.

Here's something that appears slightly unsettling to me these days.

Recently I unsubscribed from a bunch of email-newsletters from Tech sites (which used to end up in my inbox at a regular interval) - and instead switched over to an RSS reader (Feeder from F-Droid), and added the feeds from as many of those Tech sites in my reader as I could.

My whole point for doing this was to ensure that I follow stuff on my own terms - and also I get all the feed in one place (one app) instead of those newsletter emails taking me to their individual Tech Sites.

And in spite of being old school, I always thought RSS to be cool tech, just like Radio!

Some of the tech sites I subscribed for newsletter are Android Authority, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, Engadget, TechCrunch, TechRadar, PC World, Mashable,.. You get the idea.

What I am noticing is that most of the feeds from these sites are blatantly "Promotional" in nature - e.g.

• "The best robot vacuums for hardwood will keep those floors looking spiffy"

"The best home security camera ahead of Prime Day"

"Get a Microsoft Office lifetime license for/an all time low price"

"The best T-Mobile deals of October 2023"

"Best early October Prime day tech deals"*

....and don't get me started about ExpressVPN sponsored posts...

Unsurprisingly, I do see that almost all of them carry sponsored/affiliated links.

Seriously ?? I can't focus on just the tech news, and avoid these promotional BS ?

Would love to hear if anyone else experienced this, and any workaround there might be.

Warning to all Brave Browser Users

Blocking variations.brave.com which is used for A/B testing could potentially break Brave's functionalities. For me did Brave's "forgetful browsing" feature broke which seems to be disabled by default if you block this domain.

#brave #bravebrowser #privacy @privacy @privacyguides

Basically title, but I don't want an iPad because of my "open source mindset" ik it sounds cringe but fr I hate Apple's philosophy and I don't want an iPhone to sync every shit. Also I'd like to have a tablet that doesn't all my data to some big corporation (like Xiaomi or Google), and I don't know where to start to find it. Do you have some tablets to suggest? Budget is around 300/400€. Thanks to everyone who will respond ✨

cross-posted from: https://kerala.party/post/347631

which is more effective, useful, and efficient?

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/3983399

I use chatgpt with chat history & training setting turned off. After September 25 update, it has been difficult to use on that mode. It automatically refreshes the page 5 minutes after I visit another tab or app. I had to enter the commands again. I think this is intentional to force users to turn on data history setting. Has anyone experienced the same?

@Joe_[email protected] wrote:

Today I found out that google docs infects html exports with spyware, no scripts, but links in your document are replaced with invisible google tracking redirects. I was using their software because a friend wanted me to work with him on a google doc, he is a pretty big fan of their software, but we were both somehow absolutely shocked that they would go that far.

I want to switch to firefox because extension support but i currently use samsung internet and the look of firefox (nightly) is just not for me. Any recommendations?

Hi, I'm looking a privacy friendly e-mail provider that accepts Monero. Most are accepting credit card only which looks suspicious to me. Thanks.

can you recommend any (opensource or trusted) android apps to check who's using your wifi? or any cmd prompt code to search on the desktop?

a small doubt: can anyone hack your computer through WiFi? If so, How to prevent that (or) How to take measures after you think you been hacked?