What reasons are there for being concerned about companies like google and meta etc collecting data and tracking me?

Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 170 points –

Please understandnim asking this question from a genuine place. I dont want the quora answer, i want the tech savvy, security expert minds of my fellow lemmings. If thats ok?

What happens to this data? What can/do they do with it? and why are so many people concerned about google tracking them?

Do i as an average user need to be concerned?

If so, What sorts of things can i do to avoid being tracked? Preferably without too much comprimise.

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If so, What sorts of things can i do to avoid being tracked? Preferably without too much comprimise.

Stop using Chrome based browsers. Use Firefox or a Firefox derivative. Use adblockers such as Ublock origin or Adnausem, a plugin that will hide ads from you and click on the ads to mess up your digital footprint. Consent-o-matic is a plugin that will decline any cookies request from sites.

More technical inclined, For your home set your DNS servers to DNS.adguard.com, again blocks ads. Use containers with Firefox, it will limit the cross site tracking when you see a share with Google/Facebook/twitter. Those share butts are particularly nasty.

AdGuard Software Limited was founded in 2009 in Moscow

And 7Zip is also Russian.

Yes it is, however it’s seldom updated open source software that’s been around for 24 years.

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Wait, adnauseum will clock on random ads for me? Does this make it an undetectable adblocker?

no it still gets detected because it is using Ublock Origin to hide the ads.

Do routers resolve domains for DNS? Would i need to enter an IP address? How will my router resolve DNS.adguard.com if it needs to use DNS to resolve the domain name? Sorry, that might be a dumb question.

The addresses are here under plain DNS

https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

Something to keep in mind is that some ISP will intercept your DNS request and redirect them their own servers. DNS is done in clear text. If you are concerned about that you can use DNS over TLS or DNS over HTTPS to hide your queries. But that is a complex set up and not all devices/apps support DoT or DoH

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