Frustration

1 minute ago, Usseewa said:

It seems like there should be something that you can do but ...

 

also couldn't they try to do that with everything else and stuff idk anywa

There are ways to send large amounts of data discreetly, but that's reliant on the server that is sending the data compressing the files not the Tor network, and even that can only get you so far. Simply put information needs a way to travel, and there's only so much you can do. There are some things you can do to decrease your risk of being profiled, such as browsing other sites before and after so that your log in and off times don't line up too neatly with various nodes turning on/off. However there isn't anything you can do if someone controls all of the nodes you're using.

7 minutes ago, Usseewa said:

Very informational, thank you

You're welcome

8 minutes ago, Usseewa said:

Oh, I did have a question about #2 (the 45GB one). Wdym by that?

So lets say that I download a documentary over the Tor network. The documentary is 45GB, that information has to go through each of the nodes before it reaches my computer. So if someone such as the NSA or another government organization in another country has the ability to watch global or near global internet traffic, they can see that this website sent out 45GB worth of data, at say 3:26PM. They can also see that my ISP sent 45GB worth of data to me at the same time.

Now for most users the amount of data moving is small and will blend in with everyone else's. However if you're doing something like downloading a three hour documentary your government is suppressing because it exposes a politician's corruption, if they are paying close attention you might stand out.

10 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

How do I reverse image search with Startpage?

Oh, you mean using an image as the search term.

Doing some research most of my previous browser search engine recommendations don't support that. It's not something I'm super familiar with, but I did find something.

It's called tineye and the fact that I only found out about it because of a Brandon Sanderson site is beyond funny to me

https://tineye.com/

Does this work?

8 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Can you give a blog post on reverse image searches? I know it's not super crazy relevant to the blogs theme, but I only have google as a good reverse image search, and was wondering if you had any recs.

Yeah, Google's web crawlers are the best when it comes to images and it's not close. I'd recommend Startpage.

It sources the results from Google anonymously so the end results should be the same, except for where Google gives more personalized results based on previous search history.

https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/4480404660628-Make-Startpage-your-default-search-engine-in-Firefox

I do end up having to do a lot of "prove you aren't a bot" when I use it, so keep that in mind.

7 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

I use the Firefox VPN for free, which seems a lot cheaper. I don't see how you are getting price points from this.

Ah, I see. There is another.

Mozilla VPN($59.88/yr)

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/

And a built in Firefox VPN(free)

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/built-in-vpn

Looks like the built in one is free, but it's just for the browser, not your entire computer, though they claim to not log your traffic other than the amount of data used and if a connection was successful or not, not the actual sites you visit.

That'd probably work just fine for you.

12 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

What about Firefox's new VPN?

Okay, I got a little more information.

Looking into it Mozilla VPN is a fork of Mullvad VPN https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/resource-center/vpn-servers-around-the-world/

Which is funny because the Mullvad Browser is a fork of the Firefox Brower, so the two of them are doing the spiderman meme

The differences are slight but interesting. Mozilla VPN offers a cheaper yearly subscription than Mullvad's monthy subscription does, and comes with some interesting features if you use the Firefox browser, such as allowing you to use different servers for each tab.

Mullvad VPN doesn't require an email to sign up and allows anonymous payment via cash or crypto, however Mozilla VPN according to some sources I've found is a bit more user friendly, though Mullvad has a greater server selection.

I'd say that ultimately which one is better is up to individual preferences, though which browser you want to use Mullvad or Firefox is probably a good way to pick between the two of them, though any of the other VPN services will work.

20 hours ago, Shatter said:

Sorry about the impoliteness. I tend to get a bit annoyed and grumpy when I see information I believe is incorrect, and especially so for what I believe is misinformation. You have my deepest apologies.

You're good, goodness knows I've said things I regret.

20 hours ago, Shatter said:

Also, when I look at the fines, it seems most of the 4.24 billion dollar fines from 2025 is a 3.5 billion dollar fine from the European Union for illegally favouring its own digital advertising services.

The 4 Billion was more to demonstrate that Google is more than willing to violate the law on a massive scale.

20 hours ago, Shatter said:

Given Google's past history with aggressive data collection and privacy violations, some people (such as you) do not trust their assurances that they keep this limited to user-based consent.

I will concede that you do have some points, but some of your conclusions go beyond what I think is happening.

Do I think Google is all noble? Hell no. But do I think they are harvesting my info? No. Not really.

If you're not worried then more power to you. I hope this didn't come off as "Google is bad and you must switch to one of my recommended alternatives." I was more detailing reasons why I personally don't like them and decided to switch, and to offer some of the information I found to others who might also be interested.

15 hours ago, Shatter said:

Do you have any proof whatsoever that Google accesses Google Drive, Photos, Docs, etc., to take that info and feed it to Gemini?

Because I find that highly unlikely and it stinks to high heaven of misinformation.

You know there are more polite ways to ask me for sources.

I suppose I should start by saying this is starting in the US, and not all of these features are necessarily available(or available for users) everywhere.

1. Photos has an "Opt-in" that has Gemini scan all photos in your album and generate images of you and your friends/family: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/04/20/google-starts-scanning-all-your-photos-as-new-update-goes-live/
2. Photos employs AI moderators that scan your photos and remove anything they deem violates their policies
3. Photos has an AI search feature

So they have an open admission that you can opt-in to having AI train on your photos, as well as two features that are passively looking at them. Of those two the search feature in particular is open about the fact that they do train on your prompts. In order to do that they also need to train off of the photos that you get the results from, which they don't say. Photos is next to inarguable.

Docs is a bit less clear

Google claims that it isn't training its models on them, but I have several reasons to doubt them.

1. They added AI reading of documents, so you can listen to them. 
2. Multiple people have reported that google has locked them out of their documents, with the only explanation that we can find being the content of the documents. https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/google-docs-locks-out-writer/
3. Google has already added content filters to docs in the past.

Google has show a pattern of behavior, that ignores user will and privacy, a short look at their history of fines over privacy law violations will show this. Hundreds of millions of dollars in individual fines, and yet despite this, they haven't stopped.

These two things stand

1. Google used to have a slogan, "Don't be evil"
2. Statement number one is only true in the past tense.

Even assuming they aren't actively training their models on everything right now, they have already begun implementing training on user data, and all signs indicate this will only increase. It takes a single update for an "opt-in" feature to become "opt-out" or even non-optional, assuming Google even honors the "opt-in" which they have proven before they are willing to violate(see below). The largest AI models already have everything easily available, and they are beginning to look for new material. Google is sitting on top of one of the largest sources of human writing, including material that no other AI model has access to.

Do you really trust them not to?

14 hours ago, Shatter said:

Yeah. What you say is either EXTREMELY exaggerated or Google is setting itself up for the biggest class action lawsuit in Canadian history. This would violate the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. 

If you wish to read PIPEDA (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-8.6/index.html)

 

I wish you luck, but I don't think Google is too concerned about the law, or the potential penalties they would face.

That's over a billion dollars just from ignoring privacy laws in the last couple of years. I didn't even list all of them, or their other legal fines for violating laws unrelated to privacy. In total Google was fined almost 4 Billion dollars in legal penalties in 2025 alone. https://proton.me/tech-fines-tracker

2 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

btw @Verdance reccomended stoat.chat to me as an alternative to discord, and since you are the privacy wizard, i thought you would be intrigued.

I barely use Discord, but if I can get time I'll give it a look.

Just now, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Mmmm I see

That's very helpful, thanks!

Whoops, I just edited that I had found one. XD

1 minute ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Honstley i think I'm gonna cave and write my story on a google doc and just keep the sharing to a minimum so Gemini doesn't steal my soul

Up to you.

3 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

I'm using Windows

Ah, I don't think there's a desktop app, just a website you can use once you have a note on the app already.

https://www.protectedtext.com/

But I can keep looking

@CoderDrag0n8 I found it

https://www.bluestacks.com/apps/productivity/safe-notes-official-app-on-pc.html

1 hour ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Ok lets say I want to write a story

I want to be able to write it on my phone and my computer

and I don't want it to be fed to Gemini

Perferably, it would be free.

Would Proton or LibreOffice Writer work better? Or would, like, a note-taking app like Obsidian work better?

Proton docs might be better for that, as it is stored in the cloud(Proton Drive) by default, so you already have a privacy focused cloud storage with it, whereas if you wanted to do something similar with Libreoffice you would need to set up an additional cloud service for that, be it Proton Drive, self hosted or something else.

Obsidian would work, and if you find that better go for it, but it would make it hard to export the story in a document file.

Proton docs has a free version which will cap your storage at 5GB, but that's way more than you should ever need.

1 hour ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Also: I can't get SafeNotes to work

What OS are you using? Because it only works on Android

35 minutes ago, Verdance said:

Hell nah

never have, never will. 

Good, good.

Just making sure.

36 minutes ago, Verdance said:

Been okay

reflecting on 2.25 month old mistakes

its supposed to communicate acceptance and peace, hence why the fingernails bother me more than the scars

Glad you're doing better

@Verdance are you okay?

And are you considering suicide?

3 hours ago, Ink and Embers said:

I haven't switched browsers yet but I plan to try Brave at some point!

I've loved Brave, and it's my personal recommendation to my friends and family as it requires almost no changes to your browsing habits.

2 hours ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

I would personally recomend Firefox (purely for my deep hatred of chromium) but I understand that brave does mostly remove all the bad parts. I just don't like that a company's whos whole shebang is no google tracking uses chromium and is, in the end, subject to whatever google does or does not decide to add to chromium. Also I use DuckDuckGo with an adblocker

Brave doesn't run an unaltered chromium, and they already disable or outright remove parts they don't want. So should Google add something to chomium to let them track users(again) they aren't bound to include that in the Brave browser. 

Not to say that means that Chromium based browsers are the right choice for everyone, just that it might not be the weakness you imagine.

Now personally I don't like that 90% of all web browsers are chomium based, which is why I use Mullvad for some of my more private things.

I'm also really excited for the Ladybird browser project as it will be entirely new, separate from both Chromium and Gecko.

30 minutes ago, Ink and Embers said:

Fairly good! Still getting used to it, but compared to Google there isn't a noticeable change in quality

Yeah, I think habbit is what keeps most people with Google.

Have you switched web browsers?

20 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

I've been using Tor and Orbot to circumvent my school wifi to use steam and play Minecraft.

They work very well, but, as Frustration mentioned, they're not convenient for everyday use

That's definately one of the perks. Though I think a VPN would be faster for you.

What is Orbot by the way, I've seen it come up a few times but never found an explanation.

6 hours ago, Ink and Embers said:

I've started using Ecosia inspired by this!

Awesome, how are you liking it so far?

Updated this with some new information

On 4/27/2026 at 9:45 PM, Verdance said:

You left out safari 

this likely exposes my massive ignorance 

Sorry for the late answer.

Safari is alright if you use iphone(though I highly recommend Brave over all other mobile browsers).

On a computer I recommend using one of the browsers listed in my last blog over Safari

Pretty much, yeah

Forgive me for the late reply, but I cannot stay silent

Yes, Medieval helmets did have large amounts of padding. Not in the way the Hollywood shows them off, but like motorcycle style padding. Linen was layered on top of itself repeatedly until the helmet fit snuggly over the person's head.

Now brute force was still effective, there's a reason maces existed after all, but our ancestors were well aware of the threat that blunt force impacts had.

5 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

I've found this really helpful, thanks! 

You're welcome!

6 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

(Still not moving to brave thou. Cause of chromium)

Entirely fair, and honeslty I don't love that either.

I'd probably move to Mullvad if it weren't for a few small things I can't get past.

11 hours ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Ya know, Duck Duck Go has a browser. What level would that be?

So unlike most of these, I haven't used the DDG browser. What my research indicates is that it doesn't block trackers or ads the way all the other browsers listed here do.

I'd give it a level 0.5, but the devs seem to indicate that they are moving towards a level 1.

You listed some other questions on the other blog, did you get answers to all of them?

On 4/13/2026 at 10:44 AM, Qianweilian said:

Why not write down your passwords? Unless your house gets broken into, it's probably one of the more secure methods. While you will want multiple copies in case of fire, it is secure from most technology breaches.

If you keep it at home it's probably fine. If you bring it with you, you risk losing it.

1 hour ago, Usseewa said:

So... what about password managers?

Depends on the individual one. If they are stored only on your device it's probably fine. I don't trust them, but it's up to you.

1 hour ago, Usseewa said:

Nice bloggy.

Why thank you.

1 hour ago, Usseewa said:

I was thinking about "de-googling" but never really did any steps to so it.

I'm working on that myself. I estimate I'm about 90% of the way there. I highly recommend. Not only is my data more private, but my general experience has improved.

My next entry will go over a few easy steps to take in that direction.

1 hour ago, Usseewa said:

Also I think open-source isn't always more trustworthy, cuz if it's not big and no one looks at it, yk?

There are some downsides to it, as it does in theory make it more vulnerable as well. It's one of the trade offs.