Midlife Crisis

David Vávra · September 1, 2024

Recently, I got a bit insane. Maybe even unhinged. I honestly don’t even remember how it all began but one day I just woke up and got the sudden urge to care more about not giving away my data freely to every big corporation on the internet. I don’t think it’s that much of a weird concern, but it’s definitely one leading to a big rabbit hole. And boy, I do like rabbit holes.

Does this data collection matter, on a personal scale? No, it probably doesn’t. All of our data is being gathered and resold (or JUST disclosed to advertisers) and I’m not a special boy thinking mine are more valuable than other people’s.

However, it’s just making me uncomfortable. And frustrated. And honestly, a bit angry. It nibbled more and more on my brain, that I had to at least start making small steps.

I don’t think a midlife crisis should look like this. I was promised that I’ll buy a cabriolet, visit a… disco place, be creepy to girls in their early 20s and start wearing weird hats. But I guess this is me now, for the next 2 months or so.

The following words should have a warning - I have no idea what I’m doing. I have just a small degree of understanding of how we’re being tracked everywhere, either by Google or Facebook or other million sites. Also, I’m not willing to go to extremes - I’m not moving off the grid, I’m not exclusively using Tor, etc. But I do believe that baby steps in the right direction can make a difference. At least for the peace of my mind. So as it’s very apparent from this post, this is all just surface level and the result is something like this:

Enigma

Elephant in the room

One of the last drops was when I wanted to try another search engines - since I do believe Google Search is just an ad cesspool - and news broke about Reddit closing off its data for search engines which won’t pay. And who has enough money for that? Google, of course. Which might not sound like a big deal, but Reddit is a huge part of the internet now and closing it off is another blow to any potential Google Search competitors. I know this is as much on Reddit as on Google, but it just monopolizes the internet in general.

So let’s try to deGoogle. I’m aware, I’m not able to escape Google entirely, but I can try to mitigate its grasp. So, the normal sweep - I moved my mail to Proton, since I do believe they have everything in a big secure impenetrable mountain like in Stargate. Except it’s located in Switzerland.

Search engine? Well, I’m still looking and the Reddit situation doesn’t make it easier. I’ve tried Brave Search (which is decent), DuckDuckGo and in the near future I’ll check Kagi.

As for a browser, I don’t use Google Chrome for years, but hey, have you heard the great news about ad blockers being at risk because of the extension platform Manifest v3? Yes, I’m aware it’s not YET affecting all Chromium browsers but my experiments with them end with this - I permanently moved to Firefox. Or better say to Floorp, which is based on it. And also has a name which I think sounds like a moving Gelatinous cube, so my DnD heart approves.

EDIT: As I was writing this, a new Firefox based browser appeared - Zen. It focuses on vertical tabs and out of the box feels better than Floorp, while still being open sourced.

Alright that about covers it, right? Some privacy extensions and we’re done! I should watch some video about it on YouTu… Oh no, YouTube. Well, since there is no alternative to it, let’s just hope my other track blockers will take of it. But I’m not happy about it.

What else?

Uff, that’s the basics covered, great! I’ve also moved my backups and everything to NAS, so nobody can spy on photos of my cat. And bother me with One Drive / Dropbox or whatever subscriptions.

Now I just turn on my VPN, and I’m a GHOST while surfing, the invisible enigma of the internet! Except for all social networks. Oh, and my smartphone - which is ironically Pixel 8 from Google. It’s only a matter of time till I install GrapheneOS on it and then turn back since it’ll probably be a big bother.

And there is one more elephant in the already crowded room. It rhymes with billows and recent news about some of the fantastic AI features are not filling me with joy either.

So yes, the next post will be about Linux. I told you I went unhinged.

Twitter, Facebook