Privacy Guides

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In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.

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Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!

This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.

Moderation Rules:

We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

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I just acquired a new PC (slrpnk.net)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I just acquired a new PC, and it hasn't been turned on yet. I would love some advice and tips on what to do before I get started with it to protect my privacy.

I'm a privacy-conscious person, but not dogmatic about it. And honestly, this is the first desktop PC I've had since Windows XP was a thing. So it goes without saying, I'm very out-of-the-loop when it comes to Windows. I'm not opposed to putting a Linux distro on it, as long as it's very easy for a beginner to learn on.

Really tho, I'd like to know if there's anything I should or shouldn't do as I'm booting the comp up for it's first time. Im grateful for any and all advice here. Thanks!!

Edit: thanks for all the responses so far! I figured it'd probably help to list my use cases for the PC. It'll mostly be used for gaming, music production & sound design, collecting music and movies (which will likely involve me regaining my old sea legs, hoisting the black flag, and sailing the high seas). At some point in the future, I wouldn't mind learning how to host a media server for friends and family to access, but I got lots to learn before I dip my toes into that. My privacy concerns are pretty general - I'd like to prevent corporate data mining mostly, but since I may be screaming "yo ho ho" soon too, I'd like to be protected in those regards as well

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If it were up to me, the first boot I would make sure theres no internet access either via Ethernet or wifi that ensures the computer cannot phone home to its mothership. From there either reinstall windows fresh or straight to Linux if you want to avoid spyware.