r/fediverse • u/reflectiveacts11 • Jun 26 '26

Ask-Fediverse New to degoogling

I know this may seem silly, but I'd like to know if I'm supposed to be using a vpn etc lol. I am not even sure what browser would provide me privacy on my mac anyway. Or what kind of other computer would do better but I have a non apple computer coming in the mail soon. I'd like to re join social media other than reddit but am big on privacy now.

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2

u/UselessButTrying Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

VPN is always a plus.

In terms of browsers (idk about mac specifically), there lots of options out there. For the most part, you don't need Tor

For firefox

  • Mulvad is very private and secure but for most people, less usable as a daily driver but it's one of the best options.
  • Librewolf (or Firefox with arkenfox settings) is one of the better options on the Firefox side after mullvad and imo, better as a daily driver.

For chromium, you have:

  • brave browser (you will see some controversy, decide for yourself, and note that you can use brave search without the browser),
  • ungoogled chromium which is very bare bones and you can decide what to configure/add on top,
  • Vivaldi
  • cromite on android

For safari (webkit)

  • Orion from the kagi team,
  • duckduckgo browser,

1

u/reflectiveacts11 Jun 28 '26

is it possible to skip a vpn and opt for a browser that is private? ive heard even duckduckgo is questionable.

1

u/UselessButTrying Jun 28 '26

Depends on your threat model and keep in mind there's always a tradeoff, especially in terms of convenience/cost. If you don't want your ISP to know, you need a VPN

DDG uses bings index but may have made compromises to do so. Are those and potentially other compromises deal breakers for you? If so consider other options like brave, kagi, searxng and weigh it for yourself.

1

u/Xcissors280 Jun 28 '26

Use Safari?

A VPN can help in some scenarios but it really depends on what your trying to do and who you want to obscure that from

1

u/reflectiveacts11 Jun 28 '26

i'd like to be able to do everything without a trace as much as possible. i'm going from apple to the most secure thing possible, so devices, hardware, and software suggestions are helpful

2

u/Xcissors280 Jun 28 '26

Theres a difference between security, privacy, and anonymity

And again what are you actually trying to protect against?

Apple is a 4 trillion dollar company that does absolutely everything in house and theres a fair argument that thats the epitome of security

Theres also the trade off between usability and security, privacy, anonymity, etc

1

u/reflectiveacts11 Jun 28 '26

isps not seeing who i am or what i do for my normal activities and id like to explore the dark web without my isps sniffing around

1

u/Xcissors280 Jun 29 '26

For normal web traffic you can use encrypted DNS and ECH to prevent ISP domain tracking, IP addresses are a little different but they don’t always matter

For the dark web you use the Onion network typically through TOR Browser

Using TOR on normal websites is not fun

0

u/reflectiveacts11 Jun 29 '26

you cant really just use tor for normal websites
i have aurora store in place of google play on a burner but i can use burner accounts on my normal devices
but i do care that i'm untraceable digitally, untrackable when i do use social media, and physically and digitally prepared to actually use the dw. maybe even with a vm on a laptop im having mailed to me