Lots of new resources ahead - thanks for all the suggestions, Blaine!
Blaine Clark wrote:Sara, you can install Privacy Badger too. It's developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as a tracking control, available in the extensions library of most browsers.
I have used that in the past; thanks for the reminder! Here's
Privacy Badger's FAQ page in case anyone wants more info. I came across some discussion about using other ad/tracking blockers alongside uBlock Origin.
uBO's developer doesn't recommend it, but
some (reddit) people do so with seemingly no ill effects.
To set up Proton on T-bird you have to download Proton's app. Proton has a how-to on their site.
Oh, yeah! I forgot about that option.
Proton Mail Bridge.
Here's that setup guide you mentioned. Looks like it's currently (October 2026) only available to paying users with a Proton Mail account. I think there's a free 14-day trial available for the free tier though.
Proton has
desktop and mobile apps now; I'm pretty happy with both. I have not explored their filtering and organization options yet.
One of the first things I do after an installation is to make sure ufw (uncomplicated firewall is enabled with default filters. That's basically all I use for system security.
I had to do some reading on this one, because it's been ages since I thought about a firewall and I wondered if I'd missed something when I switched to Linux. I found helpful articles on UFW at both
LinuxVox and
LinuxConfig. Both are recent sources.
As best I can tell (reading online and poking around in my Terminal), Fedora comes with firewalld pre-installed and enabled by default. Whew!
Here are a couple links to articles on the common Linux firewall flavors (iptables, firewalld, and ufw):
This one covers all three methods
This older source from 2018 discusses iptables and firewalld
And Techlore discusses Linux firewalls in this older video (2021), beginning around the 3:09 mark:
I also have my browsers set to delete all data when they're closed, cache, history, cookies, etc. Yeah, I have to log into all accounts when I start the browsers up again, but it helps cut down unknown tracking.
I liked that about the Firefox hardening guide I followed – every new window is a private window and data is cleared on close. My habit is to log in only when I need access, so the inconvenience seems minimal for me, too. Using a secure password manager helped with that (currently KeePassXC for me).
Your ID is out there and there's not a darned thing you can do about it.
It’s such a tangle, isn’t it? There’s so much we can’t take back. Without our knowledge or permission, our personal information and habits became a commodity to be sold and traded. I definitely felt hopeless at first when I learned about the extent of info that is gathered about us just in the course of living a normal life.
what websites I visit
where I spend my money
what products I buy
my methods of payment
how often I buy things
what products I research
what operating systems and software I use
where I access the internet from
on what devices
All that (and more!) is data that can potentially be connected to me, analyzed, and sold in our brave new world.
When I learned there were free, relatively simple changes I can make to reduce and sometimes even prevent this happening, that was empowering. Over time, as I make these changes, I get more clarity on my goals in this space. I personally don't need total anonymity (though some people might) at this stage in my life. I do find that I can reduce how much info is collected, and I can influence which identifiers are connected to each other. Also with these tools, I can better steward what is mine - doing what I can to make sure only the necessary parties have access to it, and no one else. So far the returns are worth the investment of time for me.
I really like how
Henry of Techlore presents this:
Security asks: can the wrong people access this data?
Privacy asks: who knows what about me, and did I consent to that?
Anonymity asks: can this be traced back to me at all?
Another good source is Kim Komando. She's built herself into quite the know-it-all, but in a good way.
I found
Kim Komando's website and
and her YouTube channel to explore, thanks!
