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

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by PrivacyWayFinder@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

32 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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[–] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Previous location + WiFi (google and others map it), + also logging in on your phone, + anyone else who is associated with you at that location, + exif data on photos that are uploaded, querying your browser for system time, lots more.

You can look at something like https://www.deviceinfo.me/ to see what just a browser can identify. When you connect to an account obviously the service has many more details.

[–] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You can look at something like https://www.deviceinfo.me/ to see what just a browser can identify.

At the Keys Pressed (Live) it can see my arrow up and arrow down key presses 😱

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

This site does a really great job of illustrating how fingerprinting works and the plethora of information that your browser is telegraphing to every website you visit.

[–] MrPoopbutt@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I never understood why a browser couldn't just...not give out that info.

Like screen resolution for example. Just give the browser the content and let the browser render it to screen, no?

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 2 points 5 months ago

A good browser will not send most of that info, or it will spoof it.