Review my privacy setup

Privacy
1

Hey there,

I would like for you to rate my privacy and security setup to see if I can improve on anything or if I need to change something.

Internet Browsing

  • Desktop Browser: Hardened Firefox using arkenfox.
  • Mobile Browser: Safari
  • Browser Extensions: 1Password, Bypass Paywalls Clean, Copy Plaintext, Disable WebRTC, Fakespot, LanguageTool, LibRedirect, Privacy Badger, Refined GitHub, SimpleLogin, Stop Mod Reposts, Stylus, uBlock Origin, Violentmonkey.

Online Services:

  • Cloud Storage: Proton Drive (Unlimited subscription)
  • Email Service: Proton Mail (Unlimited subscription)
  • Email Aliasing: SimpleLogin (Premium from Proton Unlimited)
  • Photo Management: iCloud Photos
  • Search Engine: Google (considering Brave Search)
  • VPN Services: Proton VPN (always on VPN)

Software:

  • Calendar Sync: Not sure yet
  • Contacts Sync: Apple Contacts
  • Email Client: Proton Desktop App
  • Encryption: VeraCrypt on all USB’s
  • Authentication: 2FA and Passkeys on all accounts. Using Ente Auth for 2FA and 1Password for storing and managing passkeys.
  • News Aggregators: NetNewsWire and Bulletin (Both only on iOS)
  • Notebooks: Apple Notes
  • Password Manager: 1Password
  • Communication: Signal and WhatsApp (sadly)

Operating System:

  • Desktop: macOS
  • Mobile: iOS

My iCloud is setup with Advanced Data Protection and all accounts that I create are with a SimpleLogin address. I have changed most accounts that I have, except the most important ones like bank accounts, to use SimpleLogin addresses as well. I also have a custom domain that I use for communication purposes and for my own server that I have.

One service that I could not let go was Todoist. I was not able to find a service that was privacy friendly while having most of the features in Todoist. Todoist is a great app for to-do lists, and the integration with other services is great. I have setup 2FA on the account and I have used a SimpleLogin address for the service in case of a data breach.

Another service I couldn’t let go is Notion. As much as there are alternatives to Notion, they didn’t really have the features that I use from Notion yet. Notion is a great all in one productivity app but lacks in privacy. I have done the same thing I did for Todoist where I have added 2FA for my account and used a SimpleLogin address for the service in case of a data breach.

Two services that I can’t find good privacy respecting services for are Calendar and contacts. I use the calendar every day to check what I have to do and schedule events throughout the day. Both Proton Calendar and Contacts are not really well featured compared to other solutions, so I am kinda looking for alternatives. I am curious what people use instead of Proton Calendar and Contacts. For calendar, I am tempted to setup a Google account with either my proton email or my own custom domain simply for Google calendar. Google Calendar is one of the best if not the best calendar solution available in my opinion, and it has integrations with a lot of services. For contacts, there are not many solutions available except for either using Apple Contacts with iCloud or Radicale as mentioned below.

I have seen other solutions around, like setting up Radicale for an all in one solution to calendar and contact sync, and I have been curious how that has been going for some people. I have one question about this, which is, how do calendar invites work in Radicale? Does it send out an email to participants with an invite email with an RSVP, or how does that work?

Overall, I think my privacy setup is pretty good, but I would like to see what you think of it. Feel free to give any feedback to my setup or recommendations to privacy respecting services / products and I would be happy to review them.

(sorry if I went a bit in depth with my setup)

1 Like
2

Looks fine, but for privacy there are way too many browser extensions.
You could delete Privacy Badger and some of the convenience stuff as well to be less fingerprintable.

7 Likes
3

To add on to what @Valynor suggested, the following page from the Arkenfox project wiki can help you evaluate which extensions you do not need:

Here’s another suggestion from the relatively new Browser Extensions page on the site:

Don’t install extensions which you don’t immediately have a need for, or ones that duplicate the functionality of your browser. For example, Brave users don’t need to install uBlock Origin, because Brave Shields already provides the same functionality.

4 Likes
4

I have re evaluated my extension list and removed extensions that I think are not needed. This is my new extension list:

  • 1Password
  • Disable WebRTC
  • LanguageTool
  • Refined GitHub
  • SimpleLogin
  • uBlock Origin

Let me know what you think. I am debating on whether to keep “Disable WebRTC”. It is a great extension, but is it really useful if I always have a VPN on?

5

Edit: I’m assuming that the “it” you’re referring to is the “Disable WebRTC” extension, but with regard to whether disabling WebRTC is useful if you have an always-on VPN:

Here's an assortment of links with information about WebRTC

Accidently forgot to disable WebRTC in Firefox while on a VPN

Arkenfox WebRTC Leak - #2 by SkewedZeppelin

Mullvad VPN or Proton VPN? - #41 by Critical_Crab5543

Also, Mullvad has an article about WebRTC that lays out steps to disable WebRTC in Firefox without an extension (under the “Firefox (desktop) – advanced method” heading):

6 Likes
6

I looked into WebRTC and found out that Arkenfox already handles and blocks it, so I don’t really have a need for the “Disable WebRTC” extension. I have also removed LanguageTool extension as the service is not as private as I thought they were.

7

If your password managers allows it, like Bitwarden, you can create email aliases from the extension through SimpleLogin, addy.io, DuckDuckGo or whatever provider you use.

I have two extensions on Arkenfox, uBO and Bitwarden, but everyone is different and may need more or less extensions.

8

Sadly, 1Password doesn’t have integration with SimpleLogin. Their only integration is Fastmail which you can use to create aliases on 1Password.

9
  1. Minimize browser extensions and look for an alternative to violet monkey.
  2. iCloud can read & access any unencrypted data you give them.
10

I have actually minimised my use of browser extensions to use only these extensions:

  • 1Password
  • Refined GitHub (I use GitHub alot
  • SimpleLogin
  • uBlock Origin

I am curious, why look for an alternative to violet monkey? It seems like a great project that is open source.

11

Just may be good to know for you. You can install languagetool locally and run it from there. That’s what I do myself:

1 Like
12

This looks interesting, I’ll have a look.

13

Sometimes, less is more. I was obssesed with syncing everything, but I discovered syncing a calendar was pretty useless. I discovered because Proton Calendar is so shitty it is unusable so I had to use Fossify Calendar.

Also try out by yourself. Test different search engines, photos manegement, etc. A good test is download the app and try to create an account. If the app is buggy, FLEE, as it will mean it is undermaintained.

14

The thing about me is that a calendar is pretty important in my life. I use it to plan events throughout the day and schedule meetings and events with people. I feel like having a calendar that can be used across devices while being private and secure is important. I have yet to find a service that provides this though.

Proton Calendar is great and solves the concept of a calendar being secure and private, but I found that it is not really consistent across platforms and doesn’t have much features compared to other calendar services.

15

I would NOT trust Apple to store contacts. If you need contacts storage, you can use Proton Contacts. At least do not store really sensitive data in your apple contacts.

Also 1Password looks like shit. It is proprietary (which is really problematic for something as sensitive as passwords). Consider Bitwarden (allows creating aliases from SimpleLogin directly in it + open source) or Proton Pass (built in aliases + free passkeys + open source)

For something like bypass paywalls use user scripts instead of extension to be lass fingerprintable.

Notebook. Consider built in Bitwarden or Proton Pass features or use Standard Notes (now part of Proton)

16

Proton Contacts doesn’t really have many features other than creating contacts manually and storing them. I kinda wish they had a feature to sync contacts from iOS and store them in Proton Contacts, or even sync contacts from Proton and add them locally on iOS.

1Password might look bad since they are closed source, but they are actually a pretty good password manager that offer a user great experience across devices. They have great security and have audits that were done for each client which you can view here. I would also like to note that they are also recommended by Privacy Guides as a password manager to consider using.

I decided to switch to using a uBlock Origin filterlist.

I would much rather a seperate service to notes rather than using my password mamager to store notes in. I am looking into Standard Notes and I may wait a bit until switching to them, since I am intrigued on what the Proton and Standard Notes partnership could bring for Standard Notes.

17

For Calendar, you could try Tuta since they seem to focus more on those “underdogs” product. Haven’t tested myself.

For Photos, I would recommend Ente.

18

I don’t really want to switch to Tuta before they add a few features like conversation grouping in the inbox list and a way to preview notifications. Those are two features I wish they had from Proton.

Ente is another project that I am tempted to use. I currently use Ente Auth as my main authentication app on my iPhone, and it has been great so far with no issues. So, Ente Photos might be the perfect alternative to iCloud Photos, I will look into it.

19

I was suggesting only using it for the Calendar and Contacts

:grinning: