Better @better@mastodon.ind.ie
- Website
- https://better.fyi
- On Mac App Store
- https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/better/id1121192229?ls=1&mt=12
Better is a privacy tool for Safari on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We protect you from behavioural ads and companies that track and profile you on the web.
Joined Aug 2018
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‘These Ads Think They Know You’
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/opinion/privacy-targeted-advertising.html
“Today’s data providers can receive information from almost every imaginable part of your life: your activity on the internet, the places you visit, the stores you walk through, the things you buy, the things you like, who your friends are, the places your friends go, the things your friends do, and on and on.”
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Slavery 2.0 and how to avoid it: a practical guide for cyborgs
https://ar.al/2019/05/02/slavery-2.0-and-how-to-avoid-it-a-practical-guide-for-cyborgs/
(This is the original English version of an article that I wrote for Issue 32 of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes – The German Federal Cultural Foundation – magazine.)
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Indie Web Server v9.0.0 release
* Mostly housekeeping
* Breaking change: proxy syntax
* Drops Windows support (use Windows Subsystem for Linux)
https://ar.al/2019/04/29/indie-web-server-9.0.0-housekeeping/
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‘Facebook while black: Users call it getting ‘Zucked,’ say talking about racism is censored as hate speech’
“Facebook is not looking to protect me or any other person of color or any other marginalized citizen who are being attacked by hate speech…They are just looking to protect their bottom line.”
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‘How Big Tech’s cozy relationship with Ireland threatens data privacy around the world’
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/24/ireland-data-privacy-1270123
“Ireland’s failure to safeguard huge stores of personal information looms larger now that the country is the primary regulator responsible for protecting the health information, email addresses, financial records, relationship status, search histories and friend lists for hundreds of millions of Americans, Europeans and other users around the globe.”
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‘That mental health app might share your data without telling you
“Potentially advertisers could use this to compromise someone’s privacy and sway their treatment decisions…”
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‘Why You Can No Longer Get Lost in the Crowd’
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html
“Obscurity bridges this privacy gap with the idea that the parts of our lives that are hard or unlikely to be found or understood are relatively safe… And until lawmakers, corporate leaders and citizens embrace obscurity and move to protect it, your freedom and opportunities to flourish will be in jeopardy.”
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Just released Indie Web Server 8.1.1: introduces a development-time reverse proxy feature
https://ar.al/2019/04/18/indie-web-server-8.1.1-reverse-proxy-local-mode/
The post has an example of using it with Hugo to test over https://localhost with functional live reload.
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‘Communities at risk: How security fails are endangering the LBGTIQ+ community’
“This enables governments and companies to construct profiles of them, using these highly sensitive details to make inferences or predictions that may or may not be accurate. Increasingly, profiles are being used to make or inform consequential decisions, from credit scoring, to hiring, to policing.”
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This site now runs on Indie Web Server
https://ar.al/2019/04/17/this-site-now-runs-on-indie-web-server/
🐹🥜
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Also, as Indie Web Server natively supports the 404→302 method for an evergreen web, all I had to do was create a file called 4042302 with the domain the previous version of the site is on (https://2018.ar.al) and all old links still work. e.g., ar.al/notes/the-nature-of-the-self-in-the-digital-age/
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Just switched my personal web site https://ar.al from nginx to Indie Web Server.
Took a few seconds.
What’s Indie Web Server? Check out a two-minute introductory video here: https://ar.al/2019/04/16/set-up-a-live-static-personal-web-site-in-seconds-with-indie-web-server-8.0.0/
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‘Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police’
“Technology companies have for years responded to court orders for specific users’ information. The new warrants go further, suggesting possible suspects and witnesses in the absence of other clues. Often, Google employees said, the company responds to a single warrant with location information on dozens or hundreds of devices.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-location-tracking-police.html
💙 New blocking rules! On 17th April 2019, Laura blocked first-party adtech on one site and blocked nine new trackers.
To get the new rules, choose ‘Update rules’ or ‘Check again now’ from Better’s menu.
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Introducing Indie Web Server 8.0.0: install the server and start serving a secure static personal web site in literally seconds
Video demo + short post: https://ar.al/2019/04/16/set-up-a-live-static-personal-web-site-in-seconds-with-indie-web-server-8.0.0/
I hope it makes your lives easier. This is one of the earlier pieces of the puzzle in the Hypha project.
(It took two weeks and a couple of false starts but Version 8.0.0 introduces native binaries for Linux and macOS. Production use via startup daemons is supported only on Linux platforms with systemd.)
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‘Discrimination’s Digital Frontier’
“An ad system that is designed to maximize clicks, and to maximize profits for Facebook, will naturally reinforce these social inequities and so serve as a barrier to equal opportunity.”
Also on our forum: https://forum.ind.ie/t/discrimination-s-digital-frontier/2675
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‘Are you serious Mr Zuckerberg?’
“Facebook is seeking yet again to apportion blame for its failures elsewhere - this time on governments for failing to regulate. Yet Facebook continually obstructs regulatory reform with its powerful lobbying capabilities , appeals against regulatory judgments and then investigates its critics.”
https://privacyinternational.org/blog/2773/are-you-serious-mr-zuckerberg
Also on our forum: https://forum.ind.ie/t/are-you-serious-mr-zuckerberg/2657
New blocking rules! On 1st April 2019, Laura blocked three blocker blockers, fixed one site, and blocked four new trackers.
To get the new rules, choose ‘Update rules’ or ‘Check again now’ from Better’s menu.
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‘Privacy’s not an abstraction’
“Privacy for marginalized populations has never been, and will never be an abstract. Being surveilled, whether by private actors, or the state, is often the gateway to very tangible harms–violence in the form of police brutality, incarceration, or deportation. And there can be more subliminal, insidious impacts, too”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90323529/privacy-is-not-an-abstraction
Also on our forum: https://forum.ind.ie/t/privacy-s-not-an-abstraction/2652
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‘State websites are aiding a disgraceful silent surveillance’
“Of ‘special concern‘ is that, by cross-referencing such data to the vast trove of personally-identifying information Google also holds from services like Gmail, Android apps, and Search, Google can ‘easily associate web activity with the identities of real people’, the report warns.”
Also on our forum: https://forum.ind.ie/t/state-websites-are-aiding-a-disgraceful-silent-surveillance/2648
- Website
- https://better.fyi
- On Mac App Store
- https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/better/id1121192229?ls=1&mt=12
Better is a privacy tool for Safari on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We protect you from behavioural ads and companies that track and profile you on the web.
Joined Aug 2018
