Cranjis_McBasketball

I’m not sure we disagree. :) I’m just reducing my dependency on mega corps.

It sucks, there’s inherently a trade-off between anonymity and participating on the Internet. Here’s my step-by-step plan to staying anonymous on the Internet:

• Acquire a Thinkpad T480 with cash. Meet somewhere without cameras. Don’t drive past traffic or Flock or Ring cameras on the way. Leave your phone at home.
• Flash libreboot, install Qubes OS
• Spoof your Wi-Fi adapter MAC address
• Crack your neighbor’s Wi-Fi password
• Operate over TOR to exploit machines and build a botnet around the world under different jurisdictions
• Be active during set hours to appear as if you operate in a different region
• Build proxychains across your botnet
• Don’t do anything at all on the Internet because everything now requires an account and identity
• Go outside and touch grass

Edit: I don’t know how to format.

I added some more context in an edit to my comment.

I agree with you about privacy being a right. It’s extremely difficult to have 100% anonymity, and I think that’s part of the calculus when deciding who we trust our data with. Google 100% already knows my identity, and therefore they shouldn’t need to collect any further identity verification documents “papers, please”-style. Maybe it’s more of a protest on my part, and I’m sure it’ll be just as effective as one, but I don’t want to participate in this identity police crap.

Cheat code: Have your employer pay for it. ;)

A more serious answer is, you could use an anonymous payment card, or apparently crypto as well, if that’s your threat model. I’m not looking for total anonymity, but theoretically paying for the service means you are a customer and not the product. No ads/paid search rankings, no tracking, no selling your data to third parties. Yes, I do use uBlock Origin, I could block ads on DDG or whatever, but that doesn’t seem like a sustainable business model. I’m kinda rethinking the services I use and how much they are worth to me. I’m not here to sell you on it, I’m on day two of my Kagi subscription, but so far I like what I see.

Edit: I don’t think I really answered your question. Kagi isn’t in a position to be an identity verifier, and it doesn’t look like they have any interest or requirement to do that. It is looking more and more like Google/Meta/et al will be policing the Internet, and I just want no part of it. Google will absolutely sell your data to third parties. Kagi says they will never do so. I don’t know how they’d prove that, but I hope they are true to their word.

Thank you. It’s a long process to migrate all these accounts, I have hundreds of accounts listed in Bitwarden, and I’m going through them one at a time. I’m moving my email to my own domain that I’ve had email hosting setup on for a while now. At least I shouldn’t need to do this again as I “own” the domain.

I’m de-Googling right now, and I’m trying out Kagi for search. It’s paid, but so far I’m liking it. No ads, and very customizable in that you can boost or lower results from specific sites, among other things.