4 bowls of chili before the interview. And deviled eggs. No words necessary.

Just use an ad blocking DNS. It might not block every other domain from connecting but it blocks most of what you want to block.

Try Phoenix for Firefox https://github.com/celenityy/Phoenix

There is something to be said for making modifications instead of forks so you are never waiting for an update.

Here’s my 2 cents: https://github.com/celenityy/Phoenix

And check the link for feature comparisons.

Sure you can go super private with more inconvenience with Graphene but there is a less drastic compromise. I turn off the advertiser id, block ads via DNS, use DDG and Brave for search, and browse via IronFox and Brave.

That way you keep the convenience of Google wallet and other services without the same degree of tracking and even if they get some info you won’t see the ads.

I’m really anxious about what they are doing to F-Droid though.

I use it but it is slow with notifications and I don’t like the way both sides have to agree to deleting or self destruct messages.

I second Kvaesitso. Great list though.

No. Wife and kids only use the Big tech apps. I think ads and tracking don’t bother them as much as they do me.

I’m shocked and disappointed. But I also moved to kvaesitso when the ad company bought it.

I like heliboard a lot but the swiping is still not as good as gboard

New ubo feature: if page does not grant permission to block ads then entire page is blocked.

When I come across a paywall that is not circumvented by simple script blocking I don’t even bother to try anymore and I remove these suggestions from my feed.

There isn’t an RSS feed for Discover I could just access with a feed reader?

Absolutely. Too bad that even unobtrusive ads still can’t be trusted not to have trackers.

“The growth of dark traffic undermines the ability of publishers to fund the production of quality content, or even operate as a business. We must recognise users are not the main driver causing this.”

“It’s demonetising publisher content at scale without user consent.”

They act like we don’t know what we are doing and want the ads. People who block ads in browsers like ddg and brave choose those browsers for that reason.

I believe that also works in Firefox now

I’m into privacy, but I really enjoy my pixel as it is too. The main concern is my Dexcom continuous blood glucose monitor. It gives annoying warnings about not being tested with the current os version every time I update. I don’t even use betas.

That is tempting, especially if I knew I wouldn’t lose some picky software. I think I’m in a reasonable state of balance between Google and privacy at the moment.

It is my default launcher too but it requires a different mindset if you’re used to arranging icons. You spend more time choosing wallpaper instead of arranging things. Just, tag your apps and search for them. It’s much better than it sounds. And any widgets you want just scroll up from the bottom.

I use Firefox with Phoenix on the desktop so the standard profile is just a little less strict than librewolf and the hardened profile is a little more strict. https://github.com/celenityy/Phoenix

I was using (and really liked) Librewolf until I heard that they were having trouble keeping up with Firefox updates. Now I’m using the Phonenix configurations for Firefox and keeping the FF updates separate from the privacy configuration settings. Avoiding forks lets you get the best of both worlds.

https://github.com/celenityy/Phoenix https://codeberg.org/celenity/Phoenix/wiki/Comparison