> For me personally privacy and security is less of a concern vs Ads and manipulation.
Those two don’t add up. You expose yourself to manipulation and control when you don’t have adequate privacy. If privacy is less of a concern to you, then manipulation equally so too.
For me it's slightly nuanced. Personally, I'm less concerned about yet another attack surface for my personal information from a 3rd party I didn't expect, it's probably all out there anyway. If I gave all my data to an AI company and some hacks in and steals it, for me anyway, I'm less concerned (I realize very many people find that strange/insane). I am considerably more concerned about being psychologically manipulated by an AI tool. I would say however, to your point, it would be shit if someone hacked in, changed or inserted data, and that was use to manipulate the AI, however my sense is that might be difficult/unlikely?
Scenario: You get bloodwork done. You upload the report to an AI app and ask it for its interpretation. It says you have high cholesterol, low testosterone, and some elevated liver values.
The next day you start seeing ads on instagram for GLP-1’s, TRT, cholesterol medication, and supplements to “improve liver function”.
It may not be that the AI tool is directly manipulating you. It could simply be that your data is used or incorporated into a new AI personalization model where the manipulation happens outside of the AI tool you originally gave your data to.
Just to make it very clear: I am less concerned about my personal information being stolen, hacked, etc. I accept that stuff happens.
I tech people how to do that all day every day without AI, we have the tools to do what you described already, and we in fact indeed do what you said already.
It’s possible for users to donate money directly for Thunderbird development (since it’s a separate for-profit subsidiary under Mozilla Foundation). All donated money goes into developing and supporting Thunderbird.
But it’s not possible to donate money to support Firefox development because that’s under Mozilla Corporation (another for-profit entity under Mozilla Foundation). This, I believe, has resulted in multiple monetization strategies and offerings, such as Mozilla VPN (which is actually reselling Mullvad), MDN Plus (not sure about how this money is used), etc.
With Google’s antitrust lawsuit going on and the real possibility of Google not being allowed to pay for being the preferred search engine (this was the main source of income for Mozilla Corporation), Firefox is at a bigger risk of not having enough money. Unless Mozilla restructures the organization and finds ways to get money for Mozilla Corporation, Firefox as it exists now will probably have to find a new home with a new name.
The number of permissions that Laspass may request also looks very invasive.
With all the security issues that Lastpass had been dealing with time and again for years, I wonder who’s even using it in 2025. Is it just non-tech people who are not aware of its poor track record? Or is Lastpass very good at hiding its past from potential customers?
Does anyone here recommend Lastpass to others? If yes, I’m curious to know why (when there are, IMO, much better options).
The main issues here are the default opt-in and not announcing this feature way back in September. If someone wants this, they can always enable it if it’s opted out by default. I’d expect Apple to fix this soon.
The link below is from the original author of this revelation, and is better suited for discussion, IMO. The author, Jeff Johnson, is a long time developer of applications on macOS and iOS/iPadOS.
> We will be running an experiment in December featuring a Fakespot feed in the vertical list on newtab. This list will show products that have been identified as high-quality, and with reliable product reviews. They will link to more detailed Fakespot product pages that will give a breakdown of the product analysis.
Will the products be generic (not targeted at the user based on some profile building) or is there some tracking and profile building going on to “suggest useful products” for that person? Is there going to be a different “Topics” implementation to serve this purpose?
Whatever you end up using, make sure that there is an easy way to turn it off and on from each client device. A network wide blocker could cause issues with some sites (like banking, as an example).
Tangential topic: I see some suggestions for NextDNS here as an additional layer. I can’t speak for Android, but if you’re looking for iOS/iPadOS/macOS/tvOS, note that NextDNS does not work well on these. The app hasn’t been updated for several years and toggling on the app does nothing (I like the app because I can quickly switch it off and on when needed, which cannot be done with a profile). Most of the time the test page at test.nextdns.io shows as “unconfigured”. Even the profile installation approach does not work on Apple TV (I’ve tried this a few times). Overall, the NextDNS servers around the world exist, but there is zero support and maintenance on the client side for the platforms I mentioned. The community forum has posts about issues that the founders don’t respond to.
At least on macOS, I have Little Snitch that acts as a system wide blocker (one can subscribe to blocking lists just like in uBlock Origin).
Bit of an unrealistic comment, this might be a choice you can make for yourself, but most people don't live alone and share their internet connection with others – I doubt telling your partner or housemates to get a new bank because of the DNS ad blocker you set up on the network will go down well.
Ad blockers pretty much all rely on community-maintained block-lists, there are always going to be mistakes in those that break some sites, or some sites might not act well when unable to send ad/tracking events. I recently had an issue booking a train, which was because of this, turned off the ad blocker and it worked fine, not something that's as easy to do with network level blocking, especially if it was set up by someone else and you're not a technical person. Not booking the train because their site is bad is not a realistic option.
Aren't banks sort of the poster children for legacy practices though? Only works with this or that browser, here are some weird password rules, yes I have an SVGA monitor, no I can't search older than 90 days, etc. I'm used to turning off my modern expectations and just getting into the 20 years-old flow for the time I'm logged into the average bank. No, I don't want to switch banks (where my mortgage and dozens of ACH linkages are set up) to have better ad blocker compatibility.
They aren't using advertisers. They're incorrectly* using user behavior instrumentation for diagnostics and anti-fraud, especially blocking on login if tracking is disabled as they are trying to prevent credential stuffing bots.
* Bug, or feature, many fail if the tracking is blocked, due to other code that assumes it's there or depends on it. They fail closed instead of fail open.
Sorry, but I laughed at your comment. Didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but it is laughable.
Banks and other financial institutions have a duty to prevent fraud and their malicious actors. Could they do better, yes. They still have a duty nonetheless.
Adblockers do more than just domain blocking, such as anti-fingerprinting, bot detection—which includes a lot of, sadly, invasive checks against the browser.
UBlock has annoyance lists, tracking lists, and others and others…
From what you’re telling me, you’re wanting a bank that’s protecting their clients or at least attempting to. Ooookay
I use NextDNS for adblocking on Android via the Private DNS Provider setting, which works nicely. For a while I'd have to disable it to use the Wells Fargo app, but they finally removed whatever dumb dependency (Firebase?) that was breaking that.
NextDNS does support creating a profile, you can just install that and it does the dns configs for you etc that method seemed to work fairly well for me.
NextDNS does not work many a times. I prefer the iOS app so that it’s easy to disable when needed, but the app has not been updated for a few years. Many a times the test page at test.nextdns.io will show as unconfigured and sometimes it will show as passing the test.
On Apple TV, I have the NextDNS profile installed, but it still doesn’t work.
Most of the community forum posts on NextDNS don’t get any answers. I’m sure the DNS servers exist, but the clients and the configuration options have not been supported by the creators.
I wouldn’t recommend NextDNS to anyone because of this apathy by its creators.
NextDNS was working a treat for me, and it was only through NextDNS's meticulous logging that I immediately discovered that my consumer grade router was hopelessly compromised: joined a botnet, trafficking porn, IDK.
So I threw the router out the window, and signed up to rent CPE from my ISP; edge router security is now 100% their responsibility!
minor nitpick, but it's not ownership so much as location. Sometimes the ISP will own the equipment, but it will be located on the customer premises rather than the ISP premises. It's an important distinction as you can't just rock up and do stuff to it.
You can donate to Thunderbird in general. Right on the homepage of Thunderbird mobile [1], is a donation link. [2] Unlike donations on mozilla.org, where the funds go to Mozilla Foundation (and not to Mozilla Corporation, which is the one developing Firefox), the donations on thunderbird.net go to funding Thunderbird on all the platforms that the Thunderbird team works on.
I came here to ask a similar question, looking for alternatives to Lockdown Privacy on iOS/iPadOS. [1] I've been using Lockdown for some years as a local and system firewall to block trackers across all apps, but this company got sold a few years ago and has since been annoyingly and frequently pushing for its paid subscription. It also moved some free blocking lists to the paid subscription.
Any alternatives to Lockdown on iOS/iPadOS would be nice to know about.
> Google may be a privacy issue... So I would love to have the possibility to prevent anyone putting my info in their contacts in Google.
This can be quite difficult to achieve. The moment your contact information is given to someone using Android, it will be synced up with Google (and known by most Google properties).
> I personally use a paid E-Mail service (mailbox.org)
May I know how long you’ve been using it and how the experience has been? Are you using it with a custom domain?
I use it for more than two years now and it has been a great experience.
Disclaimer: I use this email only for friends and family, told them not to tell anybody and did not register ANY internet account with it - so no spam, no unwanted emails and no shit.
Those two don’t add up. You expose yourself to manipulation and control when you don’t have adequate privacy. If privacy is less of a concern to you, then manipulation equally so too.
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