In today’s internet environment, if you want to protect digital privacy, preparing countermeasures for the worst-case scenario is unavoidable.
This article shares five tricks I learned for protecting online privacy while also protecting user freedom. They are provided for reference from simple to easy; some were learned from anti-CCP netizens.
In the context of this article, the order of value importance is: privacy > freedom > open source > practicality > convenience. Therefore, sometimes I will recommend online privacy services that are neither free nor open source, but this does not mean I do not value internet users’ freedom rights.
1. Do Not Casually Use Your Real Email#
When registering accounts, use forwarding to protect your real email address, eliminate harassment, and protect privacy. Apple icloud, Mozilla Firefox Relay, and SimpleLogin can do this. With a third-party forwarding mechanism, use the email provided by these service providers during registration, then forward it to yourself to prevent leaking your real email address.
Do not easily hand over your real phone number. If possible, use virtual numbers such as TextNow for registration more often. Paying is fine too.
Pay attention to whether the personal profile page after account registration displays phone and email information, exposing everything to others.
Use strong passwords when registering on websites (Firefox supports random password generation), and make good use of encrypted password manager software to manage passwords.
Do not give every website account the same name. (Hehe, although I used to use the same one everywhere, now I do not dare.) Do not put numbers such as QQ numbers/phone numbers in your account name. I heard that in China this makes it easy to be doxxed by nasty people through “box-opening” or human flesh search.
Using your real name and photos on Facebook and Twitter is also very dangerous. If possible, I recommend changing your name today, or decisively deleting social media accounts to cut off all paths that leak personal identity.
2. Remove EXIF When Uploading Photos and Videos#
EXIF is a file format that records photo data. It is embedded inside photo files, and some video files may also have this kind of metadata. EXIF states what camera and aperture were used to take the photo. If GPS is enabled when taking photos with a phone, EXIF will also write in the coordinates where you took the photo.
After taking and uploading a photo, image hosting platforms such as Imgur and Postimg.cc may not remove the photo’s EXIF information for you, which can leak geographic location. Therefore, removing EXIF before uploading is an important step.
On Android phones, download Simple Gallery, which has a feature for removing EXIF from photos.
On computers, you can use EXIF Tool to batch remove EXIF information from photos and videos.
Hey, hey, do not be stupid enough to look for websites online that claim they can remove EXIF and then foolishly upload your photos for them to process! When Casually Using Online Conversion Services, Have You Considered Privacy Issues?
3. Depend Less on Chinese and American Internet Services and Seek Alternatives#
China is a country well known for poor privacy conditions; everything is decided by the Party. In recent years, the United States has gradually become like China too. Since the leaks from the Snowden incident, you should have some caution toward tech giants and internet services located in China, Five Eyes countries, and Fourteen Eyes countries.
Internet services include social media, email providers, cloud drives, streaming services, SaaS services, and so on. Before choosing, check carefully whether they respect privacy in terms of data collection, such as ProtonMail; whether the cloud has end-to-end encryption, such as MEGA; and preferably whether the service is built on open source software, such as Nextcloud.
Here are some alternatives to common internet services that violate your privacy. For more services, see the privacytools link at the end of the article.
- Search engines: Duckduckgo, SearX, Startpage, Brave Search
- Email: ProtonMail
- Cloud storage: MEGA, Proton Drive
- Calendar: Proton Calendar
- Notes: Joplin
- Password manager: Bitwarden
- Messaging apps: Telegram, Signal, Elements
- Browser: Mozilla Firefox
- Social media: Mastodon, LBRY, PeerTube
Because of laws such as GDPR, European and American websites are currently gradually reducing the degree to which they violate privacy. Even Google and Facebook, which collect your data all day, provide functions for downloading all your personal data. Later internet services have also begun respecting user privacy. For example, you have the right to request that Google Maps delete personal data. At this point, we should thank EU policy for benefiting the world, right? However! They still track you at every moment in various ways that do not violate the law, so you still need to be careful.
Taiwan is slower in protecting privacy. Registration with some businesses can still easily leak privacy. As for government websites, I tentatively believe that the Taiwanese government will not degenerate into selling personal data. I hope the Ministry of Digital Affairs can take care of this area, though there was a dark web leak before.
But China is different. There are all kinds of real-name systems. In the past, I even had to send a photo of my ID before they would let me play games. Now social media posts also display IP location. Who knows whether the backend servers might be recording every IP one by one? Zhihu netizens protesting is useless. It is boiling frogs in warm water. They wanted to catch foreign forces, but the IPs posting were all in China. Now websites even have hidden watermarks, where screenshots leak your account name. Too terrifying.
Even America’s Facebook cannot be trusted, much less Chinese internet services. Services from Chinese-funded companies also require special attention, especially APPs. Their permissions are greater than websites, so they are more dangerous. If you can use the web version, use the web version. It is best not to install even a single Chinese APP. Hmm, fortunately I do not play mobile games at all, nor do I use TikTok. There are many websites where you can meet Chinese people, especially pro-democracy people, such as Reddit and Pincong. Why go to Chinese websites to suffer? When browsing Chinese websites, turn Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection all the way on, and not logging in is best.
But from a pragmatic perspective, only people who do not develop toward China can avoid depending on Chinese internet services. Otherwise, the idea of rejecting digital totalitarianism can only be secretly hidden in your heart… while kneeling and earning Chinese people’s money.
4. Self-Host Services and Keep Data in Your Own Hands#
Many people may not be able to do the next few points. Actually, I also find it hard to do them 100%.
Besides seeking internet services that respect privacy more, as in the previous section, trying self-hosting is a more fundamental way to solve privacy problems. People who want to protect privacy should know how to self-host some internet services to replace commercial software, such as gallery, cloud drive, notes, and media server applications. Here are some examples.
Ideally, buying free and open source hardware yourself, pairing it with a Linux system, and assembling a homelab is best. Those with slightly weaker technical ability can also consider buying ready-made NAS machines.
Even if Google and Facebook are willing to let you export data, do not let your guard down. If one day your account is directly banned, you will not even have a chance to download it!
Starting now, it is also a good time to abandon traditional social media and switch to freer Mastodon and Elements.io.
5. Use More Secure Operating Systems and Network Environments#
For phones, I personally do not prioritize recommending iPhone. Even though Apple advertises that it cares a lot about user privacy, using an iPhone sacrifices a greater user right: freedom. Almost half of the services depend on Apple and cannot stand independently. You cannot install third-party APPs, and it is hard to rely completely on free software, so I recommend Android phones more.
For Android phones, regardless of brand, the best approach after buying one is to flash it into a near-stock Android system, such as “LineageOS”, with nothing built in. After flashing, do not install Google Play services, and enable Root at your discretion. I have already discussed some tips for “DeGoogle” in this article.
Apart from Android phone manufacturers willing to respect privacy, such as FairPhone, Volla, and Murena, flashing and de-Googling is the only way out.
Without flashing, Android systems containing manufacturers’ own services are not trustworthy. Even if you buy Huawei or Samsung, it merely adds companies other than Google to monitor you. It is useless as hell.
For computers, I recommend using GNU/Linux. Debian, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux are all fine distribution choices, and here are many options. As for software, since you are using Linux, do not keep installing proprietary software that tracks you, including Google Chrome and Steam. Linux also does not really need antivirus software. Please use free software such as Firefox and LibreOffice to replace past proprietary software, and solve privacy problems along the way. For a list of free software, see Recommended Apps for Linux
For browsers, please install extensions such as uBlock Origin + Firefox Multi-Account Containers to protect privacy.
If you want to thoroughly protect privacy, even network connections should be considered. Using Tor + VPN + double virtual machines to go online is a better approach.
For this approach, you can refer to Program Think’s blog: 如何隐藏你的踪迹，避免跨省追捕[8]：如何搭配“多重代理”和“多虚拟机”
To avoid suspicion of advertising, I will not recommend a VPN from any specific company. You can choose to buy a VPS and set one up yourself.
6. Learn More Ways to Protect Online Privacy#
Please also follow the following organizations and forums that value internet freedom and privacy:
- privacytools.io 正體中文版
- 安全上网相关知识大杂烩 - 品蔥
- 電子前哨基金會 The Electronic Frontier Foundation
- 爭取未來 Fight for the Future
- 隱私服務列表 Awesome Privacy - A curated list of services and alternatives that respect your privacy because PRIVACY MATTERS.
- 去Google化 r/DeGoogle - Reddit
- 隱私權討論 r/privacy Privacy & Freedom in the Information Age - Reddit
