Firefox or Waterfox instead of Brave. Vivaldi's a good compromise if it has to be Chromium.
this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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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.
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How about Librefox?
I'm on android
Try IronFox or Fennec (Firefox forks), both are privacy focused and aren't bad like Brave.
GrapheneOS has shown FF does have some security issues, so if you prefer Chromium then use either Vanadium (GrapheneOS only) or Cromite.
For desktop I do use Librewolf, and Ungoogled Chromium when a website refuses to work on Firefox.
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I know that brave isn't good, can you just explain why?
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I would recommend moving off of Duolingo if you can. What you move to depends on the language you're learning. They fired a bunch of their language developers and went hard on AI.
I help run a community for Welsh learners and we're finding more and more people coming in with questions about a Duolingo lesson where things are wrong and weird. Plus their business practices aren't great. They realized that they make money from you staying on the app, not learning a language, so your progress is artificial stunted. Plus the complete lack of grammar explanation at all we're finding hurts people more than helps
As a general recommendation, textbooks are so much better.
I also see Gmail. I don't have a recommendation for a replacement as I'm doing my research on it now, but getting away from Google is a good idea
I recently tried duo lingo. I have a pretty strong background in Spanish, but want to brush up. It became apparent very quickly that the app is not about learning so much as keeping you in it. The lessons don't make a ton of sense, and after not using app for a week, it demoted me to just 8 words that you would learn in your first class (hombre, el, agua, tu, etc.). There is no way to skip ahead.
I've already replaced Gmail (I just can't disable it and I need for my school) with Tuta. In addition, I was forced to install Duolingo because of my Spanish teacher (at least it was with a fake email address).
You can acess your gmail account with thunderbird
Can verify, it's super easy to do and I nuked the Gmail app from my phone afterwards.
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Try Anki instead of Duolingo. You'll learn fucking nothing from it.
Also move all the proprietary software into a work profile with Shelter (available on F-Droid) just like I did.
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Remove Netflix, proprietary software.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy
I can't install anything that isn't from playstore.
Why?
Parental controls, newpipe was an exception
Oh, that’s a good start. Teach them about libre software and show them F-Droid. PipePipe works better than NewPipe and you can get it there too. Good luck!
A great step that will solve most of the junk problems that I see, is to move to a custom rom.
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Pretty sure Wireguard is better in most regards than openvpn. But I also have no idea what you use the VPN for, or why not just use Mullvad.
I'd replace the default text-messaging app with QUIK or something (also allows you to block people who you otherwise cant block).
And replace Ace Attorney with Wrath Of The Gods ;)
I use proton and I will play ace attorney 😃
I would see if you’re able to actually uninstall or disable the Google apps. They’re likely to still grab info otherwise
I have already disabled Google Photos, but it still manages to save my photos, and I can't revoke its permission to do so. (C'mon xiaomi, I just don't want to have all my data in the google servers)
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It would be nice to use something like RethinkDNS to block internet connection of these apps you can't disable. You can also config it to block some trackers by DNS filtering.
You could try https://delta.chat/ instead of WhatsApp
Yeah but then im going to to be the only one who uses it lol
Not really imo,
however doing good taking small steps OP! :)
Suggestions I'd make:
- Aim to use nothing/as little as possible from the Play Store (proprietary, often filled with trackers)
- Aim to use everything/as much as possible from F-Droid (open source, no or nearly no trackers)
- Switch GApps for MicroG (The open source implementation of the Google system apps to make things like notifications work, which removes spyware)
- Switch your Xiaomi OS (also spyware filled) for a more privacy friendly OS like LineageOS
I'd suggest LineageOS4MicroG:
https://lineage.microg.org/
It's vanilla LineageOS,
with MicroG + F-Droid pre-included.
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Netflix made the cut?
😞👍 (sadly yes)
Gotta sail the high seas, bud 😉 FMHY and you'll be set.
Thanks
One app you are missing is shelter, Google won't allow it on the play store since it's a privacy app, but it allows you to install the school apps and stuff inside a work container so that they can't access the personal information on your other devices.
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