The disconnect blog

DIY Tech Privacy

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Technology in the last 40 years has really taken off and advanced. The internet has gone from sending small bits of information almost as primitive as morse code over a few small networks into a massive ocean of data connected by huge rivers. This has been great for personal liberation on information and powerful tools at our fingertips. However a lot of those early innovators to tech solutions for the people have turned against us to serve other masters, those of corporate and government interests. Google early on had great ideas and was doing remarkable work. The problem was they couldn’t figure out how to earn any profits and during the dotcom bubble crash they had to figure something out. They had a massive amount of user data and figured out how that could be turned into profits. It started off as just a simple ad campaign popping ads based on your browsing into their services. That basic idea is laid out in detail with Shoshana Zuboff’s book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” Google literally invented the surveillance capitalism that now dominates the internet world we live in. I believe a lot of this started off fairly innocent and wasn’t a huge deal. It slowly morphed into what I view as a terrible monster ravenous for all and everyone’s information. It wants to see and know everything about everyone – an all seeing eye and ear. This beast has an obsession with data collection and digitizing everything. This is becoming a one-world religion (see also here and here). Some of these technocrats and transhumanists (actually believe they are creating God or that “Big Data is the new God” (see also here and here). To me this is very creepy and I wanted to opt out of their surveillance and their religion. Not by clicking an opt-out button that does close to nothing in a big tech application, but by not using their solutions – to boycott the beastly monster that has been built up.

I believe the ideal is to just stop using high tech devices in our lives and cancel our internet. But that really is not very possible for many and very challenging for almost everyone in modern society. So the next best solution, as far as I can tell, is to use it in a more private and secure way. I personally did stop using the internet for over a year and it was a very great experience. I recommend doing internet fasts, smart phone fasts, social media fasts, and fasts from other tech for as long as you can – it’s a healthy reset. I’ve come back to it but use it much less than in the past, and I’ve revamped how our household use our tech and how we connect to the internet. To opt out to the extent that we are now has been quite the journey. I’ve been digging into the alternative privacy minded solutions out there. This stuff is pretty fresh in my mind after doing this with our phone, computers, and some friends’ computers – so I wanted to put something together for others who maybe were as lost as I was before going up this path to digital sovereignty. We’ve moved to using primarily “open source” programs vs. “closed source.” With open source programs the code is viewable by anyone so people can and do go into the code to see what it is doing and why. This gives the community who uses the tool reassurances that they truly do respect our privacy if they say so. With closed source programs the code is a magical black box where we have to trust the company’s program actually is doing what they say it does. I’d recommend using open source programs wherever possible to support the transparent and honest spirit behind the idea.

I’m not going to go into elaborate details on why you might want to put effort into using these products. If you think “big tech” is a great thing and you love all their data-minig, surveillance capitalism ways, and profiling you and your family then this is not for you. If you love your phone and the apps spying on you (see here too), you probably don’t need to read this. Continue supporting the richest corporations and give them all of your data to help them build their empire and our digital prison system (see also here and here). Realize as you use big tech solutions you are not the customer, the companies they sell your data to are. But if you do find all of that stuff a bit much and an overreach into our lives – this is for you.

You can be more privacy oriented with your tech without spending much. A lot of the solutions are free, and if you can do it yourself, you’ll save a lot. Much of this takes very little time at all – setting up a new email account can be done in less than a minute. Hopefully all of my time and research can pay off by helping others quickly apply the solutions to their own life and technology. I’ll be talking about my recommended programs and hardware to jump away from the data mining and surveillance capitalism platforms into something more secure and privacy oriented. I highly recommend getting your email, browser, search engine, and VPN secure ASAP. Those are quick and easy fixes that will patch up a huge amount of the data mining that is happening in your life. After you get these basics down you, can put more efforts into more advanced things, like putting on new operating systems.

If you want to understand a bit more of the details on what the problems are here is a list of books you could read to further your understanding (* = Favorites):

Despite being excellent at pointing out the problems, these books are rather short on practical, doable solutions (especially on our tech), so I came up with some on my own. It hasn’t taken long to get used to these alternative solutions. And now it makes me wonder why it took me so long to migrate over. I much prefer these things to our old Apple phone, Windows OS, Google Search, Google mail, and so on. I find these not only viable but superior products all things considered. I could go on and on but the intent of this write-up is mostly to point people to solutions, not dig into the endless problems. You can do your own digging and read some books listed above if you want some of that info. Below are some of the better solutions I’ve found while trying to end my marriage with the big tech surveillance capitalists.

One common excuse I hear from people who don’t like surveillance capitalism but don’t want to put effort into change is something like this: “Tech changes so fast we can’t keep up with it.” Meaning even if I do adjust they will probably find ways to data-mine anyways, or something like that. That is only partially true and only over longer periods. It’s sort of a cat-and-mouse game with big old fat cats (big tech) trying to suck up the data of the little people (us mice). It doesn’t matter how big that cat is, if you can find a different route to your cheese (internet websites and such) that is too small (secure) for that cat to fit – you can get that cheese. That may change with digital ID’s tied to internet access at some point (hopefully not). But for now and for as long as most people have been using the internet the change is relatively slow. Proton mail has been around since 2014. We could have been avoiding Gmail data-mining for 12 years of email service if we were an early adopter. Mullvad VPN has been out since 2009 and Nord since 2012. Those who have used either of those properly could have a very small profile in the surveillance capitalism world. And 256-bit AES encryption has been around over 25 years now. That encryption could keep even the most advanced militaries at bay, and even higher encryption is available. So in my view it is long overdue that people just start working on applying the solutions already here, instead of waiting for laws to change for the better or just giving up.

Contents:

  • Email
  • Browser
  • Search Engine
  • VPN (Virtual Private Network)
  • Cloud Storage
  • Phone OS (operating system)
  • Phone Hardware
  • Computer OS
  • Computer Hardware
  • Phone Service
  • Various Programs
  • eReader
  • Why not just download the internet for offline use?
  • Gaming
  • Privacy Banking
  • Solutions for the tech illiterate
  • Smart Appliances
  • Artificial Intelligence

Email

  • Proton Mail – This is a good one because of ease of use, free and paid plans (no name or number required - recently activation requires secondary email occasionally but they use a few different activation methods)
  • Tuta Mail – free and paid plans (no name or number required)
  • Mailfence – free and paid plans (only one that requires second email to activate and displays your account name in emails)
  • The most secure option is a DIY email

Keep in mind the content of the message is encrypted but the metadata is not, so that can be revealed to the company and leaked to third parties or data breaches. With Proton Mail and Mailfence “subject-line” is considered metadata; others might have this flaw as well. Just something to consider. I think it is worthwhile to use multiple mail services, especially from the free accounts. Zoho mail recently dropped their free service – it’s pay only now. We had an account so we’re grandfathered in. That shouldn’t be a huge deal to you; I trust these services mentioned above more than Zoho. For one thing, Zoho is not open source, which adds a level of distrust to me. All of these are open source except for some of their back-end, which shouldn’t cause any security issues on the encryption side. All four of these services are solid choices for now, unless further details or adjustments come out proving otherwise. These all use end-to-end encryption which should keep all prying eyes out. That is unless you have a major breach on your personal device or someone gets into your email account due to an easy password. It is a very smart practice to use a password manager to keep that from happening. With that you can have very complicated password difficult to break through but you don’t have to memorize them all. Nobody has accused me of being smart, them are fighting words… I’ve still neglected this practice (I’ll figure it out sometime and join the smarter crowd.) However I often use pretty good passwords for things that matter to me. It is recommended to use 3 or more unrelated words with numbers and symbols mixed in for a decent and somewhat rememberable password if you aren’t using a password manager. And please don’t use any of these passwords.

Browser

  • TOR – works on computers (laptops/desktops of all kinds) and phones
  • Librewolf – computers only not a phone browser
  • Vanadium – installs with GrapheneOS (operating system for phones)
  • Brave – computers and phones
  • FireFox – computers and phones (I’d recommend LibreWolf, FireFox has gone downhill imo.)
  • Bromite – phones only, works on Android and GrapheneOS
  • Snow Haze – a decent option for Apple iOS phones because there is no Bromite
  • Firefox Focus – another okay choice for Apple iOS phones

You may want to read up on these and compare – even try all or many of them out to see what you like. If you don’t want to spend all that time, that is understandable. For the average user I’d suggest having two separate browsers per device. Use one that is less “hardened” and more user friendly strictly for websites you are going to log into and want “cookies” to save your preferences and such – my favorite for this one on the computer is Brave. In this you can save your account login and login to buy things and stuff like that. On the other browser use it strictly for researching, searching around, browsing, and such. Think of the second one as your private secure browser; do not log into anything with it, instead switch to your login browser. I’d suggest using Librewolf as your secure browser, unless you want to take it a step further and use TOR. We use Librewolf as our login browser and TOR as our browsing browser for more security. Feel free to do such a thing, but you might find TOR more restrictive and challenging – that is why I don’t necessarily recommend it for the average user. With Librewolf it is advisable to add extensions to make it even more secure, this is a must on FireFox in my view, and not a bad idea on Brave as well. With TOR it is not all that advisable, because it is likely the most secure browser and adding extensions could potentially add vulnerabilities. On Librewolf we use these extensions: uBlock Origin (comes preinstalled usually), Privacy Badger, and Decentraleyes. There are more but those are what I would consider the top extensions that will add privacy and block unwanted ads but not hinder use. NoScript is also good, but you will notice website issues and might be turning it on and off again so be warned. We also like Video Download Helper and Dark Reader, but those do not help with security, they are just a couple we like. You can add the extensions by clicking the puzzle piece on the top right side of your browser in Librewolf. Then simply type the extension name in the “find more add-ons box.” After that you can click on the extension in the list and then install on the next page. If you are using a different browser then just search on how to add extensions if you can’t figure it out. Be careful, don’t just add any extension that sounds good – many will decrease your security and privacy.

On the phone I’d recommend Brave as the log-in style browser if you are using Apple or Android and Vanadium if you’re using GrapheneOS. Then for your more secure browsing browser (I like saying that), then I’d recommend Bromite for Android and GrapheneOS, and TOR if you want to step it up a notch in security but lose some usability. Then for Apple’s browsing browser I’d recommend Tor but if you want something less hardcore Firefox Focus or SnowHaze.

Search Engine

Open Source (recommended)

Closed source but good privacy policy (be more vigilant with VPN) * Ecosia – attempting to be eco friendly with their infrastructure * Freespoke – this one works pretty great for comparing tech * Kagi – Pay to use only * Mojeek * Qwant * Startpage * Swisscows – also has an email service I haven’t looked into much

The reason so many search engines are listed here is because I find all to have flaws; I don’t love any of them and bounce around some over time. Also it seems to me many people have different personal tastes in a search engine. So I recommend playing around with them uncommitted at first and settle into your favorites over time. You can use most of these just by going to the site and start sending in search queries.

VPN

  • VP.Net – can’t log your traffic even if they wanted to, only one like it – no free version
  • Proton VPN – only one I’d use as a free service, only one device for free.
  • Mullvad – high quality and has passed all independent security audits – no free version*
  • NordVPN – another good choice and has passed all independent security audits. One great feature about this one is you can buy a subscription box or key online or retail stores even with cash. With this option you can keep your identity more private from NordVPN adding another layer of privacy protection. – they also have no free version*

*Mullvad and NordVPN often have free trials, but not an ongoing free service.

Basically a VPN (Virtual Private Network) can mask your identity to a decent extent. As you turn on your VPN it will encrypt your data and send it through their servers, so your ip address will show up as that from the VPN server. This is a necessary tool in my view if you want to utilize the internet but limit data-mining and surveillance. You will notice that the web will act a little differently as you make these adjustments. Using TOR and/or a VPN can make it so websites block you from entering. To me that makes me want to not use their site – mostly I avoid those websites. Sometimes there are exceptions and I will turn the VPN off or switch browsers to use that site. It’s not a bad idea to temporarily turn your VPN off while in your “login” browser mentioned in the browser section. For example if you are using the internet to do online shopping, turn off the VPN then log into your shopping account. This will make for a smoother experience and won’t flag your account for authentication and such. After you are done shopping and checking your login marketplace or whatever else you do, close the browser and turn your VPN back on. Then switch to your browsing browser to explore the internet without the spying eyes trying to pry data from you. This is most appropriate for accounts that need your location, since the VPN will make it look like you are in a different area in the world (wherever the server is located). If you forget and leave it on, it’s not a big deal – but you might notice problems here and there. We have our VPN on our computer on close to 100% of the time while connected to the internet, and the phone closer to 80% of the time. It’s a good idea even if you aren’t browsing the net to use a VPN – it can shield a lot more of your traffic besides browsing. You’ll figure it out as you play around. Some VPNs are extensions built into your browser itself. In that case, it will only be active as you open your browser – Internxt and Proton have this – the others might to; I have not used them all. Though I do like having the VPN running outside the browser so it’s working on more than browser traffic.

Be very careful with VPN’s, many are just spying software. The only free one I trust at this point is Proton. All of your internet traffic will go through it while turned on. So do some reading up on any you are interested in (especially outside this list) to gauge your level of trust. I’ve read that many of the free VPNs out there were created intentionally to spy on you and collect all your data. Check out this article to learn a little more about VPNs.

Cloud Storage

  • Internxt – free and paid versions, free version is only 1GB. They also have a “temp email” service. I do not recommend buying the extremely “too good to be true” discounts you can find online from third parties. You do not get all of the security features and sharing options with those deals. Many of the bad reviews about this service are based on people who did such a thing – you aren’t getting the whole package with those crazy cheap discounts.
  • pCloud – no free versions (free trial though). Additional costs to get zero-knowledge encryption which is standard with Internxt and Proton Drive.
  • Proton Drive – the free version has 2-5GB

To me the great benefits of cloud storage are for collaboration purposes and having your data while out on the road. If you are working on group projects and need/want to share information and projects cloud storage is great for that. Also if you are out on the road a lot and don’t want to lug around external storage or bring that on a flight across the world you can leave it on the cloud and access it almost anywhere. I think it wise to keep personal and private data offline entirely. Just have 2-3 higher quality external hard drives to redundantly store that stuff on. Why risk giving your private family pictures, videos, and diary with third party corporations? If you have 10 terabytes of pictures and don’t want to have so many external storage devices – maybe you have too many pictures… We certainly have too many, and we never look at them. I think this digital world has turned not only big tech into data hoarders, but everyone.

For the most part cloud storage services actively scan your data. They typically do not sell that information to third parties but keep the information in-house. They do things like scan your pictures to feed into their facial recognition software, enhancing their own products. Also they might be scanning for illegal, copyright materials, or anything that might void the contract – so they can keep money and close your account, which would be most saddening with lifetime accounts. In any case, it is creepy to me that cloud storage uses people’s personal information for their own reasons without really letting their customers know easily. Even if you do not believe this based on what big tech says, there are many accounts of data breaches with cloud storage and they want you to back up your own data. I’d recommend moving over to a more private drive service – there are many more than I have listed, but these are some I’ve used or know someone who is using while having a good experience. I think Internxt is pretty neat; they’re newer to the privacy world and are trying to stand out some. They have great features for the price at this time – the price I’d imagine will go up as they become more refined and have a larger customer base. Internxt uses a newer “post-quantum” encryption. It might not be as amazing against normal technology, since it’s more equivalent to 128-bit encryption (which is still good). However, if quantum computers take off, it might make 128/256-bit AES encryption obsolete. So they’ve added a new type of encryption that has a good possibility to function well against that kind of computing power. It’s interesting stuff to me and might be something to consider while making your mind up. Both pCloud and Proton (might be 128-bit AES on Proton) use standard 256 bit AES encryption which is solid.

Phone OS (operating system)

  • GrapheneOS – free and not too difficult to install for a novice.

I highly recommend switching to a GrapheneOS phone. If you currently have a Pixel 6-10 phone, you can install this right now. It will work with all the normal phone service providers. If you do not have a Pixel 6-10, I’d recommend getting one once you are ready to find a new phone. In my view (and most it seems) Apple is better than a Google phone for privacy and security. Also in my view, there’s no rush if you just got a new phone or whatever. If you are in a rush, you can often sell your new phone for a good price – if it was a good one then you could sell and switch to a Pixel for GrapheneOS. It truly is not that hard to get this installed. If you are scared, find someone who is decent with computers and phones and have them help you out. If you do not switch to GrapheneOS soon, just start doing what you can to increase your privacy on your current phone. Such as using a private browser, a VPN, private email, and getting rid of apps that spy on you.

Here is a little tip from a new user. After GrapheneOS updates sometimes our phone will not connect to the data side of our phone service. It looks like it’s connected but the internet does not work. If your phone does this as well, just turning it off and on 1-3 times has always fixed it. Not a huge deal if you expect it, but at first I had no clue what was going on. This doesn’t happen every time, maybe every 3 or so updates.

Phone Hardware

GrapheneOS works on Pixel 6-10 and the Pixel Tablet (Tangorpro), though they recommend Pixel 8-10. We use Pixel 8 since it is a good balance of security, modernity, and repairability. We bought a used “refurbished in great condition” phone on Ebay for about $250 and installed GrapheneOS ourselves. We were thinking about Above Phone for a while, but the price is just too high for us. If you are totally scared to do it yourself maybe go for that, more details at the bottom of this write-up. The Pixel 8 is a great balance right now in price, repairability, and it is still getting updates for security. If you don’t plan on repairing it yourself and have the money a Pixel 9 or 10 isn’t a bad choice. If you find a great deal on a Pixel 6 or 7, or already have one that isn’t a terrible idea either – just realize there may be more security vulnerabilities but it shouldn’t be drastic. It may come to a time that the newer Pixel phones will stop being GrapheneOS compatible, I’ve read they are planning to make it that way – like Apple phones. So just be aware things may change on this in the future. My dream world would be the GrapheneOS team works with a hardware company to start making their own ultra-secure privacy phones (open source easy to repair and modify hardware) and make an even better OS for it. We can dream anyways, but for now Pixel 6-10 is your only choice for secure phones in my view. The other competitors aren’t nearly as solid.

Computer OS

  • Debian – This is a very common choice for medium to advanced users. It is secure and responsive, but somewhat more challenging to use and get set up.
  • Mint – I started with Zorin and moved to Mint. Zorin is a bit prettier, but Mint has been easier overall and more stable.

  • Zorin – Much easier than some versions I’ve tried and looks great. I’ve moved to Mint because it has functioned better for me overall.

  • If you are looking for a more hardcore (and one of the most secure) versions look into QubesOS and Tails. Here are even more options.

Understand that there are a lot of “flavors” or distro’s (distributions) in the Linux world. And there are many fanboys who claim that their choice is by far the best for whatever reason. Feel free to dig into that massive world. It’s pretty neat. There are also other operating systems that no one talks about, but none are as user friendly and functional as some mainstream Linux choices. I’ve only given a very limited amount in the list to help keep it less confusing. If you are new to all of it I would highly recommend Linux Mint. They have two main lines and I’d recommend the 22.3 Ubuntu based line. I’ve tried the LMDE 7 line which is Debian based and it is pretty good. I’m using Mint LMDE 7 right now but will likely switch back to Mint 22.3 (Ubuntu) in the not too distant future because LMDE 7 is giving me minor problems and annoyances that were not in 22.3 and earlier. In not too short of a time all of these numbers will change with updated versions, but Mint will likely have their Ubuntu and LMDE line for a long time. So just go with the newest version and you should be in good hands.

Both Linux Mint and Zorin were extremely easy to install, it was the best experience I’ve had installing an OS. You can create a bootable USB drive (4-16GB depending on distribution) and even try the OS out before you install. After you boot into the USB drive you can play around with it some and see if it functions on your computer. To do this you might need to get into your BIOS by pressing an F (Function key) at the top of your keyboard. Each computer is somewhat different but at startup right when you turn on the computer you often will see “press F2” or F9, F10, F12, or something to get into setup, startup, BIOS, or Boot Menu type of message. You may need to find your boot menu to adjust priorities and such. The websites of the distribution (Mint, Zorin, etc.) have instructions with more details. But you need to be able to boot from USB to do such a thing. You also need to create the bootable USB for this to work. I use belenaEtcher to create the bootable USB which is easy to use. Keep in mind belenaEtcher does not work for every flavor of Linux but it does work great with Mint and Zorin. It is also recommended to do an integrity check, which is also easy once you get the hang of it. This just makes sure that your download is not corrupted or a hacked version with malware and such.

Something else great about Linux Mint and Zorin is that they make it very simple to “dual-boot.” During the install process you can choose to keep your current operating system like Windows 10 and have Linux at the same time. Then you can choose between the two in the start up “Grub Menu” on which one you want to log into. This is a great option for those who need Windows for whatever program that is on Windows only, or those who are nervous about the switch. You will want to have a decent amount of free space to go this route. I’d recommend something around 100GB or more for both operating systems. You can also have two hard-drives if you have the space. With this you could go Windows on one hard drive and Linux on the other. If you are doing this it is ideal to have Windows installed first, then install Linux second. Windows does not want to share, but Linux is fine being a second install and can partition your drives after Windows tried to dominate your machine. Hope this all makes enough sense. Read more online with install guides with whatever Linux you pick to use. There are many third party write-ups easy to find through your chosen search engine. Try stuff like “How to install Linux Mint on my Dell whatever model of computer” and so forth. Or more basic “Install guide for Linux Zorin.” Or things like “How to make a bootable usb stick for Linux Mint.” I’m not trying to make a comprehensive guide to all of this here, just a helpful tool to get started.

Basic Install guides: * Linux Mint – alt 3rd party guide * Linux Zorin * Linux Debian – [alt 3rd party guide)

More details on “Integrity Verification” and another guide from the Linux Mint Team. I use this QuickHash-GUI on Linux to do my integrity check. I use the SHA256 check and compare to the distribution website for their hash number. But feel free to figure out what you think is easiest for you. So far I have never seen a problem, if you can’t figure this all out early on you will likely not have any issues if you download from a reputable source. Even when I’ve downloaded from third party places like “Internet Archive” they have passed integrity checks.

Computer Hardware

The basic idea is that 3 years old and older technology but not much older than 10 years is the sweet spot for easy Linux install. But there are many exceptions, it’s smart to look up whatever you are thinking of using to see if others have installed Linux successfully. Lenovo laptops typically do well with Linux, but there are exceptions. Most of the companies out there selling secure privacy laptops with a type of Linux on it are refurbished Lenovo machines in great condition. I think that is smart for the user to do as well, you can find computers in great condition with a nice price tag gently used or refurbished on Ebay and other sites. We have a Lenovo Thinkpad P15 (Gen 1) and an older Dell Latitude E5270 running Linux and both were purchased refurbished – they work great (except the Dell at the moment, hopefully temporarily – we literally cooked it on accident). Acer, Dell, and Asus have many models that work with Linux. From what I’ve gathered Lenovo and Asus are likely candidates. Although many HP Laptops do work I’ve had the most problems with them. It’s smart to double check before buying. The models at the beginning of this section people have had success with. These same brands are similar in the desktop world. I’ve had an easy time with Lenovo and Dell but harder times with HP (they have been older machines though). If you build your own desktop make sure the Motherboard, CPU, and Video card are all compatible with Linux – those are the components with the highest potential issues. If you already have a computer you can just try it out, make a Bootable USB drive and see if it will boot into Linux and how well it runs before installing. That is a good sign, but not 100%, sometimes things look good and you can start running into problems later – so it’s still a good idea to check if your hardware is Linux compatible based on other user experiences. Remember to back up anything you find important before trying all this out. At this time it is advisable to avoid Linux with the Snapdragon cpu. People are having some success but it is still being worked out. They will likely work in the not-to-distant future – which will be cool, they are great with power consumption making for a long battery life.

Phone Service

  • Efani – if we weren’t so cheap this is who we would likely use.
  • Silent Link – if we didn’t use much data this is who we would likely use.

If you like to save money just go with what you can find for the best deal. Then use your VPN to privatize most of your data. But if you can spend more those above are some options. At any rate drop Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile if you can, they are heavy data miners and overpriced.

It is difficult to truly recommend much beyond this. We do not use these but would like to. The price is just too high with all things considered. So if you are like my family and want to save money it is reasonable to use the “Mobile Virtual Network Operators” or MVNO services available (like USMobile, Mint, Tello, Red Pocket Mobile, etc). We have been doing this for close to two decades and it has saved us a lot of money over time. These are services that are third party and share the same network as the big carriers. With that there is much data mining taking place, that is partially why most are so cheap – don’t think of them as private. But if you use good practices like grapheneOS, don’t download spying apps, and use a good VPN, you will block most of the data mining that takes place. You can go further by not using the phone for the majority of your calls and texting as well. Instead use Signal and other encrypted messaging and voice apps to do your communication.

Various Programs

There are a whole lot of choices in open source software that respects your privacy. If you are using a GrapheneOS phone and have F-Droid and/or Droid-Ify installed as your “app store” you can browse through many. Those teams screen the apps and only put up open source and free-to-use options. They also give you a warning about why you may not want to use it if they do have some privacy concerns. With many Linux operating systems come with a “software manager” so you can browse through many options for your computer. From what I have read the main Ubuntu distribution (not third parties like Mint and Zorin) has the most programs in their software manager that cause security breaches, so be careful there. It is reasonable to double check online anything you install by searching things like “does such-and-such app data mine?” or “does whatever-program respect privacy and is it secure?” and other such things. If you really want an app on your GrapheneOS phone that is not on the open source app store, look around for “APK” files, and default to downloading them from the primary website if possible. That is how we had to install the Signal app, TOR, and Brave on our phone.

Here is another idea to consider brushed on earlier. We use Signal for quite a bit of our “phone calls.” Going through Signal or other secure apps that have a call feature will help secure your call from your phone service provider. Signal can (and has) supplied the metadata of calls and chats to law enforcement when asked from what I have read. But they cannot send the encrypted content since it’s end-to-end encrypted. There are apps that are peer-to-peer with no central server that are even more private. There is no central server collecting metadata to be leaked. SimpleX and Jami are a couple like this, I’d really enjoy trying those out but I don’t have any friends using such a thing. It is difficult enough to get people over to the mainstream Signal app.

eReader

If you like to read I’d recommend getting an eReader. There are many choices out there but my favorite is the Kobo Clara. I have the Kobo Clara 2E and I was able to get it working without registering by giving it the wrong credentials to my hotspot. With the newer version that my wife has she couldn’t do that and ended up registering it. We found out later that there is a fairly simple hack to bypass the registration linked above. The reason you might want to do such a thing is to stay private, no one knows who has that device if you never register it. If you love to have your device connected to all your accounts and synced or whatever else happens with those things then you might not want to do that. But if you are of the mind that you should be able to download books and put them on whatever device (eReader, laptop, phone, computer) you want then you may want to go this route. Anyways it’s just another thing to consider.

Just a little side idea. Many authors who self publish gift their books on the internet for free. They ask for donations and sell the book, but you can download their pdf, epub, movies, and more for free on their website. It’s more profitable for the writer for you to just download the file for free and give them a donation for the cost of the book. If I were to start putting content on the net this would be a reasonable approach in my view. Gift the content, and accept for donations from anyone who finds it worthwhile. Here are a few examples:

The point here is to look around and see if there are other venues to get your media and e-books. I believe this is a more clean form of economy. Gift content and ask for donations.

Why not just download the internet for network hosting or personal offline use?

Another great option for private internet use for you and friends is to just download the entire internet and share it offline! Well, you probably don’t have enough space for all of it, and it seems to just keep growing, but you can get some of it anyways. Because my family has limited internet use I’ll often just download articles and go over them later when I have the time to. I’ll download tutorials and helpful articles to troubleshoot problems when I’m away from the internet as well. This is probably less of a thing with most people, but it’s still something to consider. If anyone plans on moving off-grid or dropping the internet someday (wouldn’t that be nice?) you can store up a lot of data and put it on external hard-drives and that sort of thing. It might be a useful thing for personal, friends, and community use later on. I wish I did more of that when I had great internet years back. If you just want to save a single webpage I find “print” (usually ctl+p) then “save as pdf” works pretty great. A lot of sources try to sell Wikipedia, why do people love CIA propaganda so much? Here is a link to the transcript of the Wikipedia creator on Tucker Carlson. You can download Wikipedia yourself if you want to, here is a tutorial.

Gaming

If you want to protect your young kids from being data-mined stay offline. Don’t put games on your smart-phone for them. Although on GrapheneOS you can get games through F-Droid and Droid-Ify that don’t spy and data-mine. On Linux you can game as well through the software manager. You can also install Steam on Linux to expand gaming potentials – but some in house data-mining will happen there. Steam has a huge library of games and much of it can be played offline, you can even play windows games through a tool called Proton. Some online gaming can be done through a VPN to mask your IP address. For our kids we bought used Nintendo DS handheld systems for them to play on. They’re offline, and used, so data-mining doesn’t happen. When they outgrow those we’ll probably try the Nintendo 3DS since it’s fairly easy to repair as well. We’ll likely skip the Switch and Switch 2 because those are very challenging to repair. If our kids want to continue gaming much after the 3DS there are handheld PC’s install SteamOS – Linux base) and the Steam Deck to play games on which are also not too bad to repair. We like handheld stuff because they use very little power, which is a huge benefit when being off-grid with a small solar system. It is advisable to avoid online gaming for your health, especially for the young children. I’d recommend, if you want your kids to continue staying primarily off-line, leading by example and only game off-line as well. However I’ve done my fair share of online gaming years ago. I get how much fun can be had, I also know how addictive it can be. Life is much better without it, go outside more, build stuff, do real stuff – it’s great.

Privacy Banking

Well, I’m at a loss here. I don’t think privacy banking is a thing. I’d suggest using the bank as little as possible (maybe even get rid of it?) buying local and giving/receiving gifts, barter, gold/silver, and using cash as much as possible. Living in a city makes this much more possible. For online transactions don’t think of Venmo or even Bitcoin as a privacy option. The Bitcoin thing has been overtaken and is not private, if you want details on the subject I hear the book ‘Hijacking Bitcoin’ by Roger Ver is a great one. I hope to read it sometime, but I’ve listened to the guy through interviews a bunch. If you want a more secure option there are vendors who will accept Monero which is a lot more private, there are others worth looking into (click here). I’ve not done it yet so I can’t give you many details. Read about how to make private and secure purchases and keep it secure. There is a chance that it will be quite difficult to have the initial purchase of a privacy coin completely private, but the use of it can be more private if you are careful. It seems smart to me to do all you can in all of this. The more resistance or friction that the people put up against the NWO technocratic agenda, the more freedoms we may retain as things come about.

Solutions for the tech illiterate (don’t worry you aren’t alone, you still have options)

  • Above Phone: These guys will sell you pre-configured phones and laptops with great service and support. If you want a polished product with a bit of assistance this is a great company to go with, but you will also be paying a premium price. If you have the money it would be worth it to buy their privacy suite at about $100 per year. Then you don’t have to figure out a lot of the the other things I’m trying to help you with (VPN, email, chat, search engine, and more). This is a great product for those who are scared and tech illiterate. If you have very little clue of what I’m talking about I’d recommend going this route.

  • Mark 37: These guys will sell you pre-configured phones and laptops with decent service and support. The prices are a bit cheaper but it is a little less robust of an operation than Above Phone. If you think you want to save a little money and have the bulk of the work done for you I recommend going that route. If you get a good bit of what I’m rambling about in this write-up, but don’t have the time or care to figure much out on your own this could be a good option. However you really can save a lot more with DIY than paying people to do this for you. If you are nervous and do want a little help this is a great source.

Of course there are other options but these are two I’ve looked into a good bit. You can find interviews with the creator of Above Phone to get to know more of the details on what they offer, he’s a cool guy in my view. If you know me I would be happy to help you with this stuff. I would do it for you entirely if you have the time to visit and bring your hardware with you. If not I’d be happy to help you over the internet and phone as you do it yourself if you need some guidance. You could even order the hardware and have it shipped to me and I can get the main work done for you to pick up or have it shipped to you. I’ll have a harder time with desktops with our limited power and don’t really want to deal with shipping one. But if you brought one I’d be happy to work on it at a neighbor’s house hooked to the grid. If you don’t know me find a nerdy friend or relative to help you out. They might love to help as well, and it might motivate them to get more privacy oriented if they aren’t already.

Smart Appliances

It seems appropriate to just make a mention about smart appliances. If you want to be more private in your life I would avoid adding any of this. The IoT (internet of things) is attempting to revolutionize the world by connecting just about everything to the internet. This is more about surveillance than convenience, even with those smart meters being put up everywhere. It’s just another thing that can spy on you. Also it adds vulnerabilities where hackers can infiltrate your tech. It also adds another level of complexity to your appliance, something else that can break and need repairs. I am always confused when I go into a person’s house and see their smart appliances doing odd things and trying to connect to my own hardware if I have it with me.

Artificial Intelligence

The last thing I want to bring up is AI. I do not use any online AI tools except for some search engine AI assistance. It really can speed up some answers using the assist tool on some of the search engines. I find chat GPT, Grok, Gemini, and other big AI very creepy. They regurgitate official narratives and to me are just propaganda tools. Chat GPT and Gemini for left leaning propaganda, and Grok for right leaning… great options guys. They are also data-mining all that you feed into them to help refine their product and profile their users. If you are trying to be more private I do not recommend using online AI tools. I do use AI from time to time locally, which means they are not gathering any data from me and don’t know what I’m using their AI for (“what is the best way to deal with hairy palms that leak a cheesy substance?”), which is how it should be in my mind, it’s none of their business what we are trying to figure out online – except that is exactly what their business model is based on. If you want a private browser and search engine, you probably want a private locally run AI tool. There are various approaches to accomplishing this but the easiest I have found is LM Studio and JAN. LM Studio is faster for my computer and works noticeably better but it’s a closed source program – which I don’t love. JAN is open source and I hope it’s functionality gets better or if I get a better computer hopefully it will run better for me. I’d recommend trying out JAN first to see if it functions fine for you. If not LM Studio is a good product right now (early 2026). As they are a closed source program they might go in bad directions at some point, it seems good at this point with privacy. Also as an AppImage on Linux I can continue using old versions if they spin off in a data-mining direction.

A side note, I’d only recommend using AppImages from trusted sources. They can contain malware and should not be your default program type on Linux if there are other solid options, like .deb files and packages from your software manager. If you do use Appimages and want to install them more thoroughly into your machine AppImage Launcher is my favorite tool for this, GearLever is another option if you have troubles figuring out AppImage Launcher. GearLever can be installed from the Mint Software Manager easily, just search for “appimage” or “gearlever” in your software manager then click on the GearLever picture and finally click install. GearLever is more user friendly, if I remember right it deletes your old AppImages when you upgrade any AppImages. With AppImage Launcher you need to manually delete the old AppImage when you upgrade which can be mildly annoying. They do this so you can easily roll back to the outdated AppImage if you have any issues with the new version.

With LM Studio and JAN programs you can run many different LLM’s from various creators. There are over 2 million models you could install (hardware depending) from the “Hugging Face” community. Most of them are official narrative type models and some may be highly offensive, people do silly things with this stuff. My favorite model is made by Mike Adams the “Health Ranger” with Brighteon AI. You can try it out online and download the model on his website BrightAnswers.ai or get it from Hugging Face. To run a model locally it is recommended to have a decent video card with as much VRAM as possible or at least a decent cpu and a good amount of system RAM (16GB+). We run it on our mediocre laptop and ran it with 16GB of ram, we upgraded to 32GB and it runs better. Our laptop only has an Intel GPU that doesn’t help a lot. So when we run a query we have to let it sit and think a while before we get answers. Our friends computer runs it amazingly fast with their GeForce RTX 3060 with 12GB VRAM – otherwise their computer is fairly dated and not too amazing. If none of this makes sense to you, go ahead and try it and see if you can get it to work. You may have to play with the settings and lower the context to get it to run, if the model will not run you likely have the “context length” too high. It could be other settings, but lower the context length first and see if it will work. The higher the context length the “smarter” it will be though, so realize if you upgrade your machine you could get a more intelligent response from your LLM. It can only load so much of its potential data into your RAM at a time is my basic understanding of why this needs adjustment. The better your GPU is capable of running LLMs the faster your answer will come, the more RAM and VRAM you have the more of the context you can load into the memory for more intelligent responses. Also if you have a long conversation with the LLM it seems to slowly get bogged down, I’m guessing because the memory is overloading. So eventually it might give you an error. If you clear the chat and reload the model you can continue on. The better your machine the less problems you will likely have. But Above Phone is getting Enoch running even on their Pixel 9 and 10 phones. I think you have to request them to install it if you buy their phone, it might not be default. Something like all of that anyways. You don’t have to understand all of this to have it function, I sure don’t understand it all and mine works decently lol. Even the guys who are creating AI don’t understand (andhere) it all, it really might be coming in from another dimension – aliens or demons. We might all want to be careful. In my view the local models are the way to go, it’s like having a borg cyborg in your house but disconnected from the hive, stripped of its weapons, has been reprogrammed with helpful knowledge, and has no arms and legs – a helpful chat borg-bot. Still kinda creepy but likely not a major threat…

I also use a version of Qwen and I’ve tried other models, most of them I dislike. I love the Brighteon AI (code name Enoch) for all sorts of Q&A, it is my default model. It’s trained on off-grid living (it helped me build our solar system), gardening, alternative medicine, healthy meal planning and recipes, ingredient details, and much more. But I really hate it as a “proof reader,” it tries to change the writing way too much. It wants to make me sound like a super learned professor, and I’m not. So if you want to fool the world into thinking you are smarter than you really are it might be a good one for you, haha. For me I do like the model of Qwen that we have (Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct-Q4_K_M) for help in scripting, code, and english grammar assistance. For grammar you can specify “focus on grammar while reserving the tone, flow, and structure” if you want it to have a very light touch like I do. Then I like to pay attention to what I keep messing up and I’m slowly getting better at writing because of this. My wife has done most my editing and she has helped me greatly over the years, but I still mess up quite a bit. Right now with our slower computer with AI, it is much faster when my wife does the proof-reading and editing. I hope over time I can use these tools to help her out and eventually maybe I’ll get good enough to not need much aid.

I think AI is a very likely candidate for the ruination of mankind, even if it doesn’t get to the “singularity” point and begin making killer robots or something fun like that. It really seems AI will take over the job markets. Especially when AI agents are refined and LBM (Large Behavioral Models) for robots take off. But even more fundamental than all of this, I think human cognitive ability is decreasing every generation in my lifetime and many decades before that. Part of the reason is our crutch on “intelligence tools” things like calculators, spell checker, and search engines. As we stop studying and thinking while crutching on these tools, our brain is used more superficially. As a result of this we are losing our deeper thinking abilities and critical thinking skills. There may become an exponential loss in brain ability as AI takes over our research, development, memorization, navigation skills, creativity, and basic digging for information. The trans-humanists don’t think this is a big deal, we just have to join the hive-mind borg and get implants to “stay competitive.” So although I’m not a huge fan, I do find it a useful tool and use it in a very limited fashion. I would be very cautious to rely on it for too much of your activities. I think it is much wiser to use it offline only, this will likely limit your use and it will keep you from being data-mined and profiled by these AI companies. Good luck! And I completely approve if you avoid AI like the plague, hats-off to you!

Download the PDF version here. Feel free to share with anyone you think would be interested.