Need to use these for work relations. Unfortunately huge breaches in privacy so I was wondering if it’d be okay if I used them in tor browser or there’s some better way to use these without giving away too much.
It’s quite useless to use Tor to be anonymous and then to log in in any service tied to your identity and be deanonymized instantly.
Not the use case for Tor.
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hmm u are right but what about the trackers and location tracking? that worries me. I know I will have my real name attached so there’s nothing I can do in this case…
If you just want the general fingerprinting protections of the Tor Browser but don’t need the Onion Routing itself, then use the Mullvad Browser. (Make sure to not change any settings, same reasoning here applies as with the Tor Browser).
Otherwise yeah if your real name is already attached, the Tor network will probably not gonna make a big difference. It probably won’t hurt, either, as long as Meta doesn’t decide to ban you for it and you don’t mind the slower speeds.
If you need to hide your usage of Meta services from your ISP for some reason and there is a VPN provider that you trust more than your ISP, then using said provider’s VPN service might be advisable. (This is not a flat-out suggestion to use a VPN. Just in case where the VPN provider is actually better than the ISP you’re connecting from.)
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I agree, if your concern is location and tracking in general a vpn with mullvad browser should be pretty good. However, if you need to use social networks for work maybe the best would be compartmentalize your work related stuff separately using a specific browser just for that and don’t worry too much about tracking which is an inevitable part of using socials.
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Facebook once had its own .onion address. Not sure if its still up or if the subsidiaries have their own tor .onion sites. AFAIK, its just Facebook. I’ve used it once and its slow AF
What would you gain from using TOR in this context?
TOR is first and foremost and anonymity network, not a privacy silver bullet. It isn’t a perfect analogy but using TOR with a service that you sign in to with your real information and identity is sort of like wearing a ski mask through a border checkpoint but handing the border agents your real passport.
I think a more constructive approach is to take a step back, and instead of asking “should I use tool X?” Begin by defining your threat model and what specific problem you are trying to solve that led you to consider TOR. Then once you’ve articulated this, you can start thinking about/asking about what tools might help you achieve that.
Its very hard to give a good answer to these 'should I use x" questions without knowing the goal or the threat model.
As far as general prevention of tracking and profiling with social media services , there are many ways to mitigate the harm to some degree:
- Don’t install/use the official apps on your devices
- Use a 3rd party privacy respecting app, or use a well configured web browser with a good adblocker.
- If you can’t avoid using the official apps, try to use them on a separate device, separate profile, and with the minimum permissions necessary to work. Also use a device wide or network wide content blocker to block connections between the apps and tracking/telemetry subdomains where possible.
- Consider using a separate browser or browser profile specifically for these Meta services
- Set your expectations realistically. If you must use these services, the best you can do is limit (not eliminate) their invasiveness and compartmentalize/wall off these services from the rest of your digital life as you can. Unfortunately both Instagram, and especially Whatsapp are well known to make this deliberately difficult and frustrating to achieve.
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