Turning on privacy for Windows

Lately I've been getting into privacy in IT and thought to myself: How could you make Windows more privacy focused? I know this is a somewhat impossible task but you can always at least try. There are some crazy ones out there like this one called Windows Optimize Harden Debloat which takes it to the extreme in my opinion and I have it installed on my laptop currently and I tried it for a bit but overall it takes away a lot of comfort that people are used to and I doubt anyone's willing to give all this up just for some privacy.

Also read the warnings on the GitHub page or you might end up having to reset your Windows installation!

There are less intrusive options out there though, like Privacy.Sexy which still gives you control over what you enable or disable and at the same time won't take away anything that would basically limit what you're used to. For my PC I went with that and noticed no difference really. The options I chose were the strict setting and disabling "Privacy Over Security" as if you do not have a 3rd party anti virus installed, you'll end up with none!

So if you wanted a tutorial for Windows:

1. Click the "Windows" button where it says "For desktop" at the bottom
2. Open the program you downloaded
3. Select Strict and un-select anything under "Privacy Over Security"
4. Click the Run button

Another program worth mentioning and probably installing is WindowsSpyBlocker which simply puts a lot of IPs in your hosts file to block, all of which are used by Windows to collect your data. You have to run it every now and then to stay up to date though, perhaps not something for everyone but certainly worth a look if you want to be serious.

Privacy for your browser

Most people use their browsers for almost every task they perform online, so I'll also let you know what I've done in regards to my browser to make it more focused on privacy.

First I tried out LibreWolf which is based on Firefox and not Chromium and for me that didn't quite work out as Spotify wouldn't play most songs and the ones it did play, it would stop playing any sound after about 10 seconds, so that was a no-go. My next choice was Brave as it's yet another privacy focused browser but it's built on Chromium. It gave me a way better experience right away and everything basically worked the way I'm used to. I also put the tab bar on the side as it allows for more tabs open at once, just a little pro tip from me ;)

Update of 2023-08-10: I have switched from Brave to Firefox, mostly because there is some controversy about the Brave CEO as he is against gay marriage but also because some websites actually suggest Firefox over Brave but you can certainly decide on this for yourself. One thing I dislike about Firefox currently though is that it doesn't allow for vertical tabs OR grouping of tabs which is a big shame. Thus I've installed addons that allow for this (Power Tabs) and added some other stuff that prevents the tab bar at the top from showing but this is besides the point of this blog post.

Now all I had to do was install some extensions and here's a list of the ones I have installed with some little extra information:

• ClearURLs: Automatically removes tracking from URLs
• I still don't care about cookies: Yes, that's the actual name and it basically suppresses any cookie pop-ups and tries to deny them if possible. You might sometimes still see them pop up real quick and then be automatically dealt with but that's the only "downside" to it.
• Privacy Badger: In their own words "Privacy Badger is a browser extension that automatically learns to block invisible trackers."
• uBlock Origin: Another quote here "It blocks ads, trackers, coin miners, popups, annoying anti-blockers, malware sites, etc."
• NoScript: I advise against installing this if you don't know what you're doing and how URLs or domains really work. It blocks all JavaScript but these days it's basically a requirement to have it enabled if you want to surf the Internet in any way.
• Guardio: I don't have that one installed but it's good at catching phishing and scam websites and blocking them before you even open them. It does however nag you with their paid plan and such things every now and then which might be slightly off-putting.
• LocalCDN: In their own words once again "LocalCDN is a web browser extension that emulates Content Delivery Networks to improve your online privacy." - you simply install it and forget it's even there ;)