Thanks to the help of this site, I can officially state that I now feel safe browsing the internet. As you may be able to tell from my last post, safety through the internet is a VERY big concern and priority of mine. I know many may not feel the same threat of the internet presence that I do, but it feels very real and I don't want my data to be sold to multimillion companies that make at least 60-70% of their profit through such actions (cough cough, google..).
I don't know much else of what to say, considering my last post is so large, I feel the need to own up to it. But I really don't have much else! Years ago I thought that Firefox was the safest common browser in the world due to influence of friends, but I now know otherwise!
I don't want to be dramatic, but I feel so eternally grateful for Spyware Watchdog that this post is essentially a way for me to guide others with those same concerns in their direction. I HIGHLY recommend going through their site and seeing if you can do anything to protect yourself, and because I am only aware of the browsers that are potentially spyware, I will go back and look further if there are more things for me to look out for.
My overall thoughts on Tor is that although at first glance it is a bit slower than Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, it is a very small price to pay for the feeling of a safe and secure internet experience. It has a very modern look to it and automatically uses DuckDuckGo as its search engine, although with a simple click you are able (and almost prompted) to have the options of DuckDuckGo, Youtube, Google, DuckDuckGoOnion, Startpage, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Yahoo. Although loading of images and marquee's on my site is so far slower, I assume it is because Tor isn't loading stored data about the sites you visit and what is on each of them. I really appreciate how modern of a browser it is because it would probably be harder to get used to if it looked it came straight from 2008, which seems a petty thought, but is genuinely something I could see myself getting frustrated with. So far, so great! I feel as though I am finally safe on the internet. I know, I keep stating it, but it is true! It's the highlight of this post.
On top of getting a new browser, now that I have looked through a bit more of their site I am considering deleting most social media. With Instagram's new merge with Facebook, I was wary, due to the leaking of information that happened just a few years ago (supposedly, I am mostly recalling this all from memory.
But now I can strongly say that I will never utilize the Google Attributes on my phone, and may delete snapchat, facebook, and possibly instagram. Who knows if I will have the strength to do some, as my means of communication with most people will be destroyed (and the fact that most people like conversing primarily through social media these days), but I think with this new information ON TOP of already knowing sites like these don't have your best interest in mind AND are harmful for your psyche, I think it is time for them to go. I will most probably create a new post when I have officially deleted them and/or a post about the effects afterwards, just due to the fact that I am sadly a victim of social media addiction :'(
While I thoroughly believe that it is hard to let things go if you truly don't want to, this is obviously for the best. I may update below the "written" line if I do so :>) Here's for hope!
Written June 14th, 2021.