If you're not paying for the product you are the product.

[Uncle Gizmo]

I posted this for someone special on the forum. You know who you are!!!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1698079414263873736

 

[Steve R.]

There is another saying; "If you can't compete with free, you have no business being in business". Capitalism allows for unlimited competition, which effective lowers the price of the products that are up for sale. Obviously, there are costs to producing a product, so if you can't profitably sell it for the ultimate lowest cost (free), then you lose the capitalism game. That means, to sell a product you have to come-up with innovative revenue streams to cover the (free) cost of selling the product.

 

[Edgar_]

You'll be surprised how many paid-for products are using your data even though they sworn they wouldn't. Just in case, they say.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

You'll be surprised how many paid-for products are using your data even though they sworn they wouldn't

Exactly!

Also, everything you do on the internet is exposed. There are NO private CHATS. Something, or someone will compromise the "Privacy" ....

I site recent cases of WhatsApp conversations becoming public and the exchanges scrutinized for offensive content. The participants obviously believed the conversation was private.....

 

[Cotswold]

I'll use TOR to logon to sites as much as possible. Unless totally necessary I'll ignore sites that don't allow a TOR logon. All free email providers will not allow you to use Tor. Google etc won't, or if they do they force you to use CAPTCHA which is spy software to get around TOR amongst other things. I use the paid-for email Proton for additional securiry, so no adverts etc. But have to say, no idea if Google isn't there somewhere.

All of your Anti-Virus software scans your PC and it logs your every move. Every program you open it records and downloads the details. What the devil they use this data for I've no idea. Maybe they just do it because they can? It is madatory in the T&Cs for you to allow the AV full access to everything. Even your emails. So how do they access your emails without the password? Well I presume they also know your passwords along with everything else. When I ask an AV supplier that question they do not deny, or they huff and puff, or do not reply. It is so easy for them to obtain so much data, how can they not know all your passwords if they so decide?

p.s. Access-programmers opens just fine in TOR

 

[Pat Hartman]

The AV builds models of how benign software works vs dangerous software to help them identify threats.

I think that paid software providers reserve the right to look at certain types of data because it helps to improve their product but they should all promise to never sell it

Games are always a problem although with the web based versions, they have better control over who is using the software. When they used to come on disks and need to be installed, there was quite a market in pirated software. You should never give games access to anything.

 

[AccessBlaster]

I'll use TOR to logon to sites as much as possible. Unless totally necessary I'll ignore sites that don't allow a TOR logon. All free email providers will not allow you to use Tor. Google etc won't, or if they do they force you to use CAPTCHA which is spy software to get around TOR amongst other things. I use the paid-for email Proton for additional securiry, so no adverts etc. But have to say, no idea if Google isn't there somewhere.

All of your Anti-Virus software scans your PC and it logs your every move. Every program you open it records and downloads the details. What the devil they use this data for I've no idea. Maybe they just do it because they can? It is madatory in the T&Cs for you to allow the AV full access to everything. Even your emails. So how do they access your emails without the password? Well I presume they also know your passwords along with everything else. When I ask an AV supplier that question they do not deny, or they huff and puff, or do not reply. It is so easy for them to obtain so much data, how can they not know all your passwords if they so decide?

p.s. Access-programmers opens just fine in TOR

Do you boot into TOR (Tails) using a thumb drive? Or do you use the TOR browser or browser extensions? Personally I find TOR a bit slow for everyday use but I have played with all of the above.

 

[Cotswold]

Do you boot into TOR (Tails) using a thumb drive?

I use the Brave browser which includes a TOR option and have no problem with speed. Actually Brave is my preferred browser.