First: Turn It Off

1. Understand: You are being surveilled.
   Several of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world rely on highly invasive surveillance of as many people as possible. Governments follow roughly the same playbook, and countless smaller corporations, special interest groups, and criminal organizations follow it too. They do it because it works. Information about people can be used in a shocking number of ways to control, exploit, or defraud them or those they are connected to.
   Privacy issues are involved in nearly every digital safety problem there is, from identity theft to propaganda. You might not understand yet how "your data" can be weaponized against you. Do not let this stop you from taking steps to protect yourself and your loved ones. Privacy is a pillar of safety.
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2. Understand: Knowledge is power, and convenience is a trap.
   The best antidote to surveillance technologies is knowledge about what the devices around you are doing - and how and why they do it. Be suspicious of shiny prepackaged "solutions" that don't encourage you to look under the hood. As you learn the way things work and migrate away from things that work against you, you will find yourself more able to make things work for you.
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3. Understand: You can make a difference.
   Perfect security is not possible, and perfect privacy is not the goal. Different people face different risks and dangers. You don't need to learn all the risks and solutions before you take real, beneficial action. No matter who you are, thoughtful, serious, incremental steps will reduce risk and make you more safe.
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4. Act: On your computer, install and use Mozilla Firefox as your main web browser. There are other options that prioritize your privacy and your control of your devices (and you might want of those later on). Firefox even has its own weaknesses, but it is still the "old reliable" option, and the most accessible way to deal with the big problems Come back to this webpage in Firefox to continue.
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5. Act: Inside of Firefox, change your default search engine to DuckDuckGo. Here is a guide.
   Why: "Personalized" internet search engines are one of the major tools for surveillance and one of the most powerful tools for manipulating your online behavior. You need to be able to filter online content down to just what you care about, but you need it to happen in a way you can see, understand, control, and occasionally turn off.
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6. Act: Inside of Firefox, install the Privacy Badger extension.
   Yes, there are alternatives, but this is the gold-standard anti-surveillance browser addon. (If you have the time, read their FAQ. For now, don't worry about what you don't understand.)
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7. Act: Inside of Firefox, install the uBlock Origin extension.
   As of 2025, this is the gold-standard general purpose ad-blocker.
   Why: You've already taken the most basic anti-tracking steps to reduce the largest , but ads are also one of the major carriers of malware and other objectionable content. Use the uBlock Origin settings themselves to selectively 'pause' the adblocker on trustworthy sites - and turn the adblocker back on if your trust is violated.
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Stage 2 - Getting Started On Mobile

1. Understand: Your mobile phone is much worse than your home computer.
   Your phone has a wide range of built-in sensors, and much more access to your life than desktop or even a laptop. Your phone is also much harder for you to control, both in a technical who-is-giving-orders-to-this-software way and in a personal excercising-self-control sort of way. These surveillance treasure troves are exploited constantly by a dizzying range of bad actors. Use your phone as little as possible, and for as few things as possible.
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2. Act: Delete apps you don't need, and consider if you really need the ones you think you do. Many of the most used mobile apps are a thin veneer of some useful functionality on top of different primary functionality. This real purpose is the detailed surveillance that you "agreed" to in some vague part of an enormous and unreadable Terms Of Service. doc. Google and Apple deal with this situation by occasionally squashing criminal or controversial offenders and by aggressively squashing or undermining security tools that would threaten their own ability to collect your sensitive data.
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3. Act: On your mobile phone, install Signal.
   Clicking this link on your phone should open the installer.
   Why: You should not trust the confidentiality of messages or phone calls that are not end-to-end-encrypted, so use Signal (or an adequate substitute, once you have learned enough) wherever possible, and don't send anything particularly sensitive without first making it possible to use end-to-end-encryption, i.e., by getting the person you are messaging to also install Signal. (We will need to deal with email and other things later).
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