How privacy conscious is the MX community?

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Adrian
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#21 Post by Adrian »

For privacy conscious, don't forget the DNS provider, they know all the sites you entered into the address bar... What DNS resolution servers do you use?

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wulf
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#22 Post by wulf »

Adrian wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:30 pm For privacy conscious, don't forget the DNS provider, they know all the sites you entered into the address bar... What DNS resolution servers do you use?
I use ORSN and Watch DNS via VPN

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azrielle
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#23 Post by azrielle »

I fail to see how open source software is inherently any more secure than closed source. ANYBODY can insert a backdoor. I, like my POTUS, am a pragmatist. Which is why I like MX. And Win7SP1 with updates turned OFF, and the PAID version of Avast! I detest Chrome. Much prefer Opera. And Otter over Vivaldi. Agree with Eadwine Rose about the big fish' interest in lil' old me. And if they are, I'll be taking a few of them with me.
Lenovo T430 i5/3320m 8GB MX17.1/Win7SP1 180GB SSD/128GB mSATA
Lenovo X230 i7/3520m 12GB MX17.1/Win7SP1 500GB SSD 480GB mSATA
Lenovo X131e i3/3227u 8GB MX21Xfce/Win7SP1 500GB SSD
Lenovo 11e Celeron n3150 4GB MX19/Fedora30Games 128GB SSD

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Mauser
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#24 Post by Mauser »

azrielle wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:34 am I fail to see how open source software is inherently any more secure than closed source. ANYBODY can insert a backdoor. I, like my POTUS, am a pragmatist. Which is why I like MX. And Win7SP1 with updates turned OFF, and the PAID version of Avast! I detest Chrome. Much prefer Opera. And Otter over Vivaldi. Agree with Eadwine Rose about the big fish' interest in lil' old me. And if they are, I'll be taking a few of them with me.
Because with open source that back door can be found and removed. With close source you don't know how many doors it has and what else that can be wrong with it.
I am command line illiterate. :confused: I copy & paste to the terminal. Liars, Wiseguys, Trolls, and those without manners will be added to my ignore list. :mad:

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mystic
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#25 Post by mystic »

wulf wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:41 pm My efforts on privacy for myself is mostly about browsing the web without being inconvenienced by unwanted adverts or overlays or the other plethora of annoyances that have come to blight internet usage. To that end, I customise the configuration files of the browser and use extensions such as Ublock origin/Umatrix etc to limit and control how a given webpage displays. I'm also mindful that there are some devious people out there that like to hack others, so I do what I can to make sure that my connection and pc is secure. I do use open source software wherever possible, but I have a couple of apps that aren't, which I have confidence in, having used them for some years without ever hearing of, or discovering anything untoward. Using social media means abdicating a lot of your privacy in order for it to work as intended, so I don't use it. I doubt that true anonymity is achievable anymore. If a person was doing something nefarious that warranted the attention of the security services in a western country, I feel it's fairly likely that person would get busted sooner or later.
My main browser which I use for shopping,banking, emails, forums has privacy addons like ublock origin too. I use the Tor browser without ad-blockers when reading articles from website which are advertiser supported such as engadget,phoronix or watching youtube videos. I feel its a reasonable compromise.

Also the use of Flatpaks is really great as sometimes I need to run proprietary software such as zoom.

alexjack
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#26 Post by alexjack »

azrielle wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:34 am I fail to see how open source software is inherently any more secure than closed source. ANYBODY can insert a backdoor. I, like my POTUS, am a pragmatist. Which is why I like MX. And Win7SP1 with updates turned OFF, and the PAID version of Avast! I detest Chrome. Much prefer Opera. And Otter over Vivaldi. Agree with Eadwine Rose about the big fish' interest in lil' old me. And if they are, I'll be taking a few of them with me.
I also like W7 and run it on one machine. But, in the not too distant future it won't be practical to run windows 7. When your fancy changing your hardware and you find that Microsoft have blocked W7 from receiving any updates when installed on new hardware. Closed source just means that you're open to abuse in a few different ways such as the computing things in your life can be made obsolete before while they are still serviceable. Apple seem to be the worst for this. The level of abuse varies a lot, but open source is a big step to minimize it.

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azrielle
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#27 Post by azrielle »

I have had Windows updates turned off since the Fall of 2015, effectively making MY installations of Win7 "unsupported". With the continued annual purchase of Avast for security, I have had ZERO problems. ALL of the applications I use are not connected with Microsoft in any way (other than a Corporate Edition of Office 2007). Therefore, I frankly doubt that my win7's will be any more obsolete in 2021 (after micro$hit's support has "officially" ended) than they are now.
Your point about new hardware is valid. HOWEVER, from gen 3 to at least gen 6 of the Intel core i series processor family saw only incremental improvements that didn't warrant replacement of my 3rd gen uefi OPTIONAL systems. They're still running strong, especially after I replaced all of their mechanical HDD's with SSD's.
Lenovo T430 i5/3320m 8GB MX17.1/Win7SP1 180GB SSD/128GB mSATA
Lenovo X230 i7/3520m 12GB MX17.1/Win7SP1 500GB SSD 480GB mSATA
Lenovo X131e i3/3227u 8GB MX21Xfce/Win7SP1 500GB SSD
Lenovo 11e Celeron n3150 4GB MX19/Fedora30Games 128GB SSD

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Adrian
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#28 Post by Adrian »

I'm sorry, but not having Windows updates enabled is like riding a bike standing on your feet on the seat without a helmet. They constantly discover security issues that are patched, bad people simply read security notices uses proof of concepts to write the malicious code and target people like you who don't patch. It's like having a cure for a disease, not taking the medicine and going in the neighborhood that had an outbreak. If anything you should not be proud and encourage other people to do it, and "but nothing happened to me" is just chance.

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azrielle
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#29 Post by azrielle »

I have found that the so called "Security Updates" from Microsoft included a truly annoying amount of nagware to update to Win10. After awhile, the nagware turned into "forceware". I had more to fear from Microsoft than from hackers.
Having to spend half my meager Internet bandwidth researching which updates are OK and which are bad, as opposed to doing nothing except continue to trust Avast, was and still is a no-brainer.
Lenovo T430 i5/3320m 8GB MX17.1/Win7SP1 180GB SSD/128GB mSATA
Lenovo X230 i7/3520m 12GB MX17.1/Win7SP1 500GB SSD 480GB mSATA
Lenovo X131e i3/3227u 8GB MX21Xfce/Win7SP1 500GB SSD
Lenovo 11e Celeron n3150 4GB MX19/Fedora30Games 128GB SSD

alexjack
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Re: How privacy conscious is the MX community?

#30 Post by alexjack »

That's the problem in a nutshell. You've been forced down a particular path, with some risk, because ultimately MS controls Windows. Don't you need to connect to MS to activate a new install? What if MS stop running product activation for Windows 7 after support has officially stopped?

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