Unless you’re from the USA, the land of free SMS. You probably use a messaging app like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram. Why? You get cross device sync, newer features, you can ditch phone numbers as identifiers, privacy controls, stickers and emojis Does Privacy = Security? A prime example of this is ‘WhatsApp’. News and media websites keep using that buzzword ~ End To End Encryption and say your messages are secure....

I posted recently, on my Mastodon account. As you can deduct, I’m a big fan of the fediverse and I blogged about switching to the fediverse a long while ago and it’s going great. Wait? why not Twtter?, YouTube or XYZ? Any social network is only as valueable as their users - Network effect. Post content to PeerTube a week or two before it goes to YouTube, post to Mastodon and use IFTTT to auto fetch the RSS feed and don’t look back on Twitter....

China; heard about China in these recent days? The app bans and censoring websites of Chinese origin under the so called name of national security and privacy of Indian citizens? Parker Coffman on Unsplash While ironically the Government relies on American services and #BigTech giants like GAFAM YBSLE - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 Google, Apple, Facebook (Instagram and WhatsApp), Amazon and Microsoft and they don’t face the ban hammer because of their countless privacy violations....

Alexander Andrews on Unsplash The quickest way to reach me? ~ polarhive.ml/contact I use my device more like a portable computer What I mean by normal calls is heading to your phone app, dialing a number and hitting the call button I have the phone app disabled on my phone Airplane mode turned on and no active SIM card. Before you think of it, I DO NOT use proprietary apps like - Instagram, Discord, WhatsApp Facebook or any app that needs a real, active, phone number to login to new devices....

Unblock domains, access websites freely and securely This article is a quick how to guide on circumventing censorship online. What is Tor? Tor is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. The name is derived from an acronym for the original software project name “The Onion Router”.[7][8] Tor directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network consisting of more than seven thousand relays[9] to conceal a user’s location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis....

Without the big 5 tech titans. Utilizing FOSS/Libre software Andrew Guan on Unsplash Here’s what’s different from your average expectation from a phone It runs Android, but without pinging Google or the big 5. No ads, spyware, lag or battery draining apps. No locked Google apps, none of the ad infested Facebook apps or random Chinese CM apps - Tencent, WeChat or TikTok. They are tuned to make you feel addicted and blind you into not even looking at any of the better alternatives....

Imagine Instagram allowed users to follow and like someone else’s Tweets through the Instagram app or follow their favorite YouTube channel with their Instagram account. You can like posts follow Pixelfed from your Mastodon account. You can watch a PeerTube video on Mastodon like and comment with your Mastodon account that’s the beauty of the Fediverse. This is federated social media, best implemented by the ActivityPub protocol Mastodon, PeerTube, Plemora, FunkWhale, WriteFreely, Pixelfed and many many more you can discover...

Facebook has info on every single internet user, yes including you - unless you don’t have friends. If you have friends, family who use WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Facebook or an app or website running Facebook’s tracking pixel then it is sharing your data to Facebook. A rouge ISP, phone MIUI/Samsung OneUI/OnePlus, or even your workplace knowingly or unknowingly shares your data with F A C E B O O K...