What underrated privacy apps do you actually use?

I’ll approach this a bit differently as all the great apps have been mentioned.

Greyscale mode

Maybe I’m being esoteric here, but I think this a great counter to addictive usage habits for a device. Our privacy is often compromised by our habits, and social media relies on color and dark patterns to keep us in their data collection machine.

I find that leaving my phone or computer in greyscale makes me rethink how I use my screened devices. It’s easy to say “use your phone less”, but it’s harder to do it consistently.

Also, any good RSS feed app (Feeder is great). It’s shocking how many people use Reddit as their only source of news.

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Now I’m wondering if there’s an app, widget or android shortcut to alter greyscale mode as I wish. I’m if there isn’t one already it should be somewhat simple with some “ChatGPT” to setup something like this.

Front-end for Twitter (Nitter)

VLC

LibreOffice

Shutter Encoder

Servo Bowser (similar to Ladybird)

Sumatra PDF

DeepL (translation app)

Unison, an extremely underrated tool to sync files across devices over SSH/SFTP. I have very little need for cloud backups with this setup. Of course off-site backup is important in case your house burns down.

QOwnnotes, hands down the best note taking tool out there

Radicale as CalDAV server, plus Evolution (Linux) or aCalendar+DAVx5 (Android) + Tailscale, for free self-hosted personal calendar and TODO list.

No longer in use but really easy to use self-hosting platform https://freedombox.org/

I personally have installed theses on my phone :

  • Rush, an app to get lyrics for songs. Can detect currently playing songs from notifications automatically
  • Daily You, take a photo everyday of yourself with a short description so you remember what you have done every day
  • Quillpad, my note app. Syncs with Nextcloud notes so really practical to use
  • Thumb-Key as my main keyboard (yes it is weird) and HeliBoard and I want to allow other people to type on my phone
  • OSS Document Scanner & OSS Card Wallet, really cool replacement for Adobe Scan here
  • Find My Device with my self-hosted server, but you can the flagship instance which will be already better than Google’s service
  • Buckwheat, really simple budget manager. (you set an amount and a period and you can then add expenses. you can export to csv to track an actual budget)
  • Stratum for 2FA
  • Etar as my calendar, the prettiest I found in my opinion
  • Bura as my weather app
  • Moshidon for my Mastodon Client, slighly better than the official app
  • Amarok to hide apps
  • Shelter to better manage the work profile
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On Samsung, you can set an accessibility shortcut to greyscale mode and screen dimming. My old Samsung showed this as a tiny icon on the navigation bar.

On my current Graphene Pixel, I put “color correction” in my quick actions when swiping down. Same with the extra dim function for dark rooms.

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Apps/software:

  • CoMaps: Offline maps
  • torsocks, Orbot: Route connections by other apps/software through Tor
  • KeePassXC, KeePassDX: Encrypted password manager
  • CryptPad: Online encrypted collaborative documents
  • offline text editors: Write notes without sending them over the internet
  • NewPipe, Invidious: Download Youtube videos for offline viewing

Other tools:

  • Faraday bag: Block electromagnetic emissions to/from electronic devices
  • wristwatch: Get the time
  • pen on paper: Private notes
  • paper books: Private censorship-resistant reading material
  • shredder: Secure paper document deletion
  • cash: private Untraceable censorship-resistant payment system
  • door, curtain: Hide what goes on inside your house
  • clothing, face mask, cap, shades: Protection against biometric surveillance
  • handbag, backpack: Hide what you carry
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can you point me to a resource that explains all this to a noob? <3
or maybe you can explain to me? thank you so much!

You actively use servo?

URLCheck , i set it as default browser so I can check, scan and cleanup the links before I open or share

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Not on option currently for /e/OS :sweat_smile: at least not a convenient way, and I’m fine with that.

edit: found an app called Gray-Switch (Grayscale) com.vegardit.grayswitch that does this :slightly_smiling_face:

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I use iCanSend for file transfer

Most of the time, I develop my own apps when I need something, it’s quite quick to do it with Claude (such as a flac to mp3 converter, a music player, stegano tools etc.)

PiHole - Block ads at the network level

Halocard - Private virtual credit cards directly from Visa without any bank

Thorchain - Decentralized protocol to swap crypto tokens from one wallet to another

What’s the connection between that ID check and privacy?

Not sure where your photo is from, but I am yet to find a reliable virtual card provider that offers complete anonymity. Legitimate ones that abide by KYC and AML laws must verify everyone’s identity. At least with independent providers, you know your transactions aren’t visible to, or being mined by, a bank. Just imagine how much data they must have and where it must come from, for Chase to launch an entire business dedicated to transaction-based marketing: https://www.chase.com/mediasolutions/home

I don’t have much free time at the moment, but I’ll write down a short tutorial on how to set up rDNS in simple and advanced mode in the next 2-4 weeks. In the meantime you could try searching for RethinkDNS here and in the GrapheneOS forum.

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-KeePassDX

-AuroraStore

-FDroid

-Markor

-RethinkDNS

-Simplex

-Privacy Cell

-Logcat Reader

-Metadata Remover

-Extirpater

-Croc

-Activity Launcher

-WiFiAnalyzer

I know you are probably not on GOS, so you might be interested at looking into cromite too. Its similar to vanadium. Though downsite is I think you might need to build from source.

The most underrated privacy I I use?

WebApp!

The less Apps you install the better (not only private, but also security wise).

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Somewhat less known ones:

Fawkes [Windows] (for photos, not sure how well it has kept up with machine learning though).
ImagePipe [Android]
OSS Document Scanner [Android]
URLCheck [Android]
AirGuard [Android]
Urlquery [web]
SealNotes [web]

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