Tuta and Proton, which are both commonly recommended, have not released their back-end code (read about it here and here). Proton doesn't seem interested in open sourcing their code, and Tuta has claimed they're aiming to do it in the future (the claim was made years ago and nothing has happened yet). They also both claim to be open source in their marketing.

Is there any alternative that is fully FOSS?

"Mass surveillance had never stopped a single terrorist attack in more than 10 years of operation, in the United States." They even view your porn habits... This was from 2016, think how advanced things are now within the 10 years after this.

Hey everybody. I'm somewhat new to the field of privacy, but I am eager to learn. Right now I am wondering what mobile web browser to use for everyday activities. I'm running GrapheneOS. Options that often come to mind:

• Tor
• Firefox Focus (= Firefox Klar in German)
• IronFox (formerly Mull Browser)
• Cromite
• Vanadium

I feel like I simply don't know enough about the underlaying mechanisms to elaborate which might be better and which might be worse. Feel free to teach me!

“Your kids will grow up in a world with no ‘off the record’,” he writes to any parents reading his post. “Teach them that the best privacy strategy is integrity, living so that being seen costs you nothing. And fight, hard, for a world where the watching goes both ways.”

Police buy robots with chinese backdoors and many more issues

Daniel Berntsson, founder of Mullvad, gave a personal donation of 5 million SEK (roughly 450,000€) in 2025 to Örebropartiet. This enormous donation accounted for 72% of the party’s revenue in 2025.

How does this affect Mullvad’s legitimacy as a company advocating for a free and open internet, while also funding a political party whose agenda seem to contradict these values? The official party website (in Swedish) can be found via the link below.

https://orebropartiet.se/om-oss/

I'm a US citizen living permanently outside the US with a need to maintain my US number. I've 100% degoogled my life with the exception of google voice and I'm looking to fully sever this relationship.

Does anyone have any privacy focused VoIP providers?

Bonus points - what I really actually need is a service that banks are happy to send 2FA codes too (I'm using WF and unfortunately I haven't found a way to get them to do anything but codes via text but they won't send codes to VOIP numbers) If this is a somehow a VOIP service WF doesn't recognize awesome otherwise a cell phone provider would work fine too but I don't want the standard verizon or at&t service as I don't use any data, probably a few hundred texts per month and 30 minutes of WIFI calling.

I understand that GrapheneOS will not require age verification, but what if I'm using a Google account on it? Will I still be able to use my Google account for the Play store on a GrapheneOS phone? (In the US) Thanks in advance

I've been a paid Proton Unlimited customer for several years now and aside from a few small complaints, I'm generally very happy with the services I'm paying for. I agree that there is too much focus on "sidequests" like Wallet and Meet before core products are fully rebuilt and meeting expectations. I agree that Linux versions and some feature implementations are taking a long time. However, I have a fully functioning suite of Mail, Drive, VPN, Calendar and more that meet 95% of my needs. To be fair, I'm sure the zero-access/zero-knowledge encryption aspect makes development much more difficult.

If you're worried about political affiliations/interests, I'll give you that Andy Yen has made a few worrisome comments. I'm not sure what to do there. Assuming there aren't repeat occurrences, I'm satisfied with their statement about the French political figure sponsorship.

If it's the FBI cases and subpoenas, it comes down to understanding the difference between privacy and anonymity, and knowing what strategy is required to achieve actual anonymity.

So why (especially on Lemmy) is there so much Proton hate/relunctancy? Eager to hear some non-biased, fact-driven thoughts here!

• 4 States Opposing
• 23 States Supporting
• 0 States Undecided

https://archive.ph/KdNnr

I've using Mozilla Relay to generate one new email address for every website that I have to register. Lately it seems tho that the big/medium sites are rejecting any email from mozmail.com, some even say "temporary email services are not allowed".

Is this just with the service from Mozilla or is it becoming general practice? Is there any service that is still flying under the radar?

And if not, its existence is highly overdue.

Where tracking of privacy-sensitive activities of individuals in public, traditionally required exhaustible resources (as in agents physically shadowing targets); cameras and other sensors can (and will) track said activities of any individual in public, regardless of being targeted (not that targeting individuals is possible to begin with: only after collection, one can pinky swear not to look at, or discard information regarding non-targets).

The main difference being, one traditionally having effective "expectation of privacy" in public (unless specifically targeted by authorities: having sufficient reason to allocate resources to the individual), but in the context of modern technology we lost the benefit of the doubt. And unless never setting a foot outside again, any arguably more incriminating personal data (naked in the shower versus protesting an oppressive government) should be "expected" to be collected.

So because "privacy" is historically tainted with said demoralization, any efforts to defend "privacy" in "public" (where one can truly no longer have expectation thereof) are doomed to fail. Therefore I wish to have a term, without ambiguity introduced by any subjective matter (that is "expectancy": the individual's versus a typically biassed judge's); one that makes no distinction between personal data being collected in private, or in public.

I've been donating $5/month to Signal forever. In 2022, I switched from my previous donation method (Patreon? can't remember) to donating via the app so I would get the badge.

Recently, Signal has started offering $1.99 for 100 GB of backups. Has anyone who previously donated like I have "upgraded" to this plan? Did it replace your existing donation or was it added to the donation? Did it affect your badge?

I've searched but I really couldn't find anything on this. I feel like the Signal Foundation might have done a better job communicating how this would work to their most loyal supporters. 🤷🏻‍♂️

A post just in case nobody knows about it. This isn't a conspiracy post, it can be done, the video link is there by Cyb3rMaddy to explain it more thoroughly. It isn't new tech, it has been around for more than 10 years. It is just crazy to think that somebody can somehow tap into it, maybe your ISP. Who knows how this is being used today. Since there are no cameras on routers, it is unregulated. Your ISP can theoretically use your home Wi-Fi router to track your movements. By analyzing how your body and walls disrupt and reflect wireless signals a technology known as Wi-Fi sensing, AI models can map exactly where you are, what you're doing, and even your posture. This is wild to think about, I am guessing regular people don't know this, but it can happen. Since this can be done, somebody can use it against you. It can even detect human breathing rhythm and heart rate. Sitting at home and unaware. Your cell phone can be used as an Wi-Fi access point. Another example is your smart fridge that has Wi-Fi, it does send back data to somewhere anyway. Like when you run out of food or something. I would never get one of those, personally. I totally understand those people that just want to move to a cabin in the woods somewhere.

Title. I've used forever, suspected they're not great, but recently saw just how awful they truly are having partnered with Allstate and their data hoarding practices. The app hasn't been granted permissions but that doesn't stop them into uninstalled.

I need another foss or crowd-sourced fuel price app. A couple mentioned in online articles I can't find shit on like Fuelmap, Stationpass, etc. Nothing in F-Droid but auto mando? Doesn't quite fill the need.

Do Americans really want this crap? I can't believe that we don't hold our governments accountable.

At this point, I think I'd switch to a flip phone.

Maybe I'd use Signal from my desktop and my contacts might actually download and use it .

Boy, the good ole days are gone when it comes to Windows. I am posting just to help anybody that doesn't know. This is like a creepy wire tap. If you are actually using Windows 11, make sure to disable and or reduce telemetry in Windows 11 (Privacy). If that actually helps, I am sure there are more ways they send data back but the video link is a simple how to for the telemetry. Here is more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtg_s1GQiMU

Ive been using Signal for a while but always had a thought that i should move away from it. Ive looked into XMPP and had some questions.

Does the provider matter, what one?

Once i join a provider, am i restricted to their groups only, or can i join groups outside it?

Can i private/direct message users without setting up my own private provider?

Im sorry if this is not the place to ask, or if my questions are dumb, im just confused how the whole XMPP thing works since i dont have anyone to test it out. Thank you.

I'd wish to be as private in my digital surrounding as possibly. That sometimes means being judged for many things, having to deal with misinformation, false assumptions and the classic: Dumb people who just don't accept things.

While I have lost many contacts of people (or just any withstanding contact to them) and online friends in my digital viscinity, I have heard a lot of downright bull.

Including that reacurrant phrase of people saying: "Why do you want to be more private, what do you have to hide?" And this sentence just bugs me - partly because of the unwillingness to learn and the misinformation (propaganda) companies like Meta share through things like this. While finally deleting my instagram account, I stumbled upon this. (picture) Notice how the title is:

"Privacy on Instagram"

And from the next sentence onward it's just talking about

"safety and security"

of data.

The thing that many people don't get, is that I do like my data with me. And even if my criminal slate is empty, I do not need companies like Meta (and pretty much EVERY other company through selling data) to know all of that. At this point they know more about me than what my dog knows of me.

Yeah, it just pisses me off. Thanks for letting me share a peace of mind.

P.S. I just realised that some of the help center links have NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS.

I made an extension that bypasses online age verification

To show my stance towards online age verification, I made a small (literally, less than 10 kilobytes) add-on that will completely skip ageverif.net's verification prompt. (Only that site (for now?))

With more and more data breaches going on it's important to protect yourself by not sharing unnecessary data, and to show how broken some age verification platforms are!

It's #opensource too! https://github.com/helloyanis/agechecker.net-bypass (more info on why I do it is in the readme)

@privacy

#ageverification #firefox #hacking #web #cybersecurity