Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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Does VPNs even work against Big Brother apps? Using one really protects our privacy? (masking our location) (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by PrivacyWayFinder to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am currently using Proton VPN (free tier) which is set to Always-ON and Block Connections on disable.

Today while I am going through my Gmail security option, on the devices/sessions I found my real location mentioned over there. Even when I use desktop I always connect to VPN.

On this issue I got couple of doubts:

Is this because I am using a free tier VPN? so it's not functioning properly etc...
Else google fixed my location based on my previous location history? I used my google applications without VPN for many years, I am just learning & following privacy tips recently.

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[–] dogsnest 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

There are many ways Google (and many others) know what you're up to and where you are besides your internet browsing history.

It's called metadata, and John Hancock can be proven to have been "in the hood" when the Declaration was signed....

GPS, wifi, cell pings, your neighbours, friends, their histories, their meta.

If you're concerned about hiding your browsing history from a peer, a vpn is fine.

If you want to swat someone, then maybe not.

[–] PrivacyWayFinder 3 points 6 months ago

Thank you for enlightening me.