[JohnFen]

I avoid software that I know to be problematic. Also, I firewall off all outgoing network traffic by default, and whitelist very sparingly.

For my smartphone, I run a bare minimum of apps and refuse to install new ones without an extremely good reason. I also pipe all smartphone data through a VPN I run at home, specifically so that I can run it through my firewall and make the block-by-default policy I mentioned above cover the phone as well.

[tavro]

cool!

> I avoid software that I know to be problematic. Also, I firewall off all outgoing network traffic by default, and whitelist very sparingly.

how do you stay informed about what software is problematic? what are examples of addresses you whitelist? if you feel comfortable sharing.

> For my smartphone, I run a bare minimum of apps and refuse to install new ones without an extremely good reason. I also pipe all smartphone data through a VPN I run at home, specifically so that I can run it through my firewall and make the block-by-default policy I mentioned above cover the phone as well.

what would be an example of "an extremely good reason"? what VPN solution do you have?

:o)

[JohnFen]

> how do you stay informed about what software is problematic?

It's a loose heuristic. Primarily, I base it on word-of-mouth, whether or not the publisher/dev is known to have used tracking/telemetry in their other products, whether it contains ads, whether it in some way requires an external server, that sort of thing.

> what would be an example of "an extremely good reason"?

The last time, it was to install an authenticator app that I needed in order to authenticate for my work accounts.

> what VPN solution do you have?

I use OpenVPN for this.

[tavro]

thanks! valid!