Kirix

If you're talking about mobile phones, there isn't much you can do for privacy because they are essentially tracking devices. Mobile OS' like Ubuntu and Replicant are starting points. Anything open source with free software.

biostitute

Okay cool. So how about laptop vs desktop then. If I carry my laptop around is it essentially a tracking device also?

Kirix

Check this out too: https://people.torproject.org/ ~ioerror/skunkworks/moto_e/

Kirix

Well it depends how far are you willing to go for peace of mind. If you have a laptop and run Tails on it you should be fine. If you are super concerned then you can go so far as to take the laptop apart and disconnect the ribbon cables to the camera and microphone (you can do this to phones as well).

Modern laptops have fingerprint readers, 3G/4G wireless too so it's hard if you are very concerned about it.

crusade

Tox is a good replacement for skype, openmailbox.org for email, tor for hiding IP, for OS browse linux distros that aren't ubuntu for one of your liking, for android I can't help.

biostitute

thanks Ill check those all out. Yeah, will have to phase out android..

CrashingAnalyst

I can highly recommend a site called prismbreak (on mob so don't have direct link) which has brilliant options for privacy. Also privacytools.io

Between the two of them you should come up with a solution that fits your needs. The problem is that it ends up being a 'how long is a piece of string' question. For some people a given solution isn't private enough, for others it's way overkill.

Personally I am not too concerned about 'local' privacy so don't encrypt anything or use Tails, but I do care about online privacy. So I use Firefox, with the tweaks and extensions from privacytools.io, as well as using tutanota.de for email. I use duckduckgo as my search engine and https everywhere at least gives me a modicum of privacy.

biostitute

awesome thanks

Stavon

That's a huge topic and way to much for an ELI5. First step would be to stop using Android.

biostitute

"Buy new products" well, that's not an option at the moment. I understand that windows+android have their limits. So your ELI 5 is give up. How helpful. For anyone else interested in contributing, I have firechat and wickr... any comments on those or suggestions for alternatives? What about browsers? I use FF and DDG... I am also concerned about comment boxes tracing back to my IP

Stavon

I wasn't saying "Buy new products", but if you want privacy, you probably shouldn't use an OS from Google.

alternatives to Google drive and dropbox?

Syncthing might work, I don't know for sure though

biostitute

Cool I'll check it out, thanks a mundo. Suggestion for alternative OS?

Stavon

Suggestion for alternative OS?

To replace Android there's Replicant. Ubuntu looks promising. There's also about half a dozen OSes of Freerunner offspring. Sailfish isn't bad eighter.