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I value my privacy and frequently take steps to try to keep it. Thankfully, I live in the UK, which has many laws on what companies can do with my personal information. Below are some useful tips and sites to help you regain some privacy online.
If you would like me to add any other useful links or tips to this list, please contact me here, or email privacy.tips@michael-gibson.co.uk.
To see the Privacy Policy for this website, click here.
Please note I have no affiliation with any of the following sites, and can take no responsibility for anything on them. I take no responsibility for anything that happens after you leave this site, and by clicking on a link, you do so at your own risk.
This is a great blog post by STRML. It is a good guide on how to stop Facebook tracking being linked to your account.
Similarly, Privacy Badger (featured in STRML's blog post) stops invisible trackers from tracking you.
uBlock Origin is (in my experience) very efficient at preventing ads from showing, which prevents a level of tracking.
DuckDuckGo is a great privacy-focused company. Their search engine is very effective without trackers, they have a browser extension that blocks trackers, they offer an email forwarding service, which means you can have a unique email address @duck.com for every service you use, making you harder to track, and they also offer a mobile and PC browser, all for free!
This is a very simple one, but delete any account you no longer use, so less people have your data.
Proton is a great privacy-focused alternative to the Google suite of products. Based in Switzerland, they have to follow some of the strictest privacy laws in the world. Everything they offer has end-to-end encryption and, although it doesn't feel as polished as the Google suite, is a very good alternative. You can pay a subscription fee to unlock more features, but the basics are free by default. Their services include Proton Mail, an email service, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, a cloud storage service, Proton VPN, and Proton Pass, a password manager.
If you're looking for more cloud storage, Mega has one of the highest free storage limits and also supports end-to-end encryption.
This is one of the simplest tips, but if you don't want to be tracked, deny all cookies on websites when you get a cookie pop-up.
If you are on a chromium-based browser, this extension allows you to opt out of your data being used by Google Analytics.
Mine is a great website that helps you to file data erasure requests. Simply give it access to your emails (I know, but it's worth it) and it will show you all companies that have your email address (based on the emails in your inbox). You can then send them a data erasure request drafted by the team at Mine.
This works best if you are in a jurisdiction where companies are legally obliged to follow any data erasure requests, although companies may delete your data upon request even if they don't have to.
Although Google services may not have a monetary cost, Google didn't become one of the top 5 richest companies without making money. They sell your data to fund their company, and your use of their services. It is unknown to what extent, but, for example, they could look at every email ever sent through Gmail. This is why getting off Google is so essential to restoring your online privacy. A good place to start is this guide about alternatives to some of the most popular Google apps.
Following on from the last point, the website, Restore Privacy, which published that guide, is a very useful site as well.
If you do want to de-google your life, Linus Tech Tips made a great video on some alternatives to popular services here, and then a follow-up video here, ironically both on Youtube.
Unfortunately, the second video has been taken down, along with most re-uploads of it. It can still be found on archive.org (free), their official BiliBili channel (free), or Floatplane (subscription).
One of the tips featured in the 2nd of the above LTT videos, and the reason why it got taken down, was providing alternative services to Youtube. I use a free app called FreeTube which allows you to access Youtube without an account, so they can't track you and your interests, while still having the same access to content and subscriptions, which are all stored locally.
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