Many posts in the forum deal with online security, browsers, addons,
multimedia, etc. I offer a few suggestions that should help find music,
videos, and information while maintaining privacy.
Dillo Web Browser(1):
The fast and lightweight Dillo web browser was designed with default settings
that respect and protect your online privacy. It rejects all cookies,
javascript, and other code processes that are outside your control. This
means you can surf online without cookies tracking and sharing your data. The
lack of javascript helps restrict malicious code from creeping in and running
questionable processes on your PC. There are addons or extensions, but you
must learn how to create and implement them. Most browser addons and
extensions are resource hogs which hand off control of your browser, and
possibly of your computer, to someone or something on the outside.
Technology is useful for research, education, and the sharing of data, but
please maintain control of any information you share. The responsiblity for
privacy and online security lies with each of us, not with an outside agency,
operating system, or company.
Startpage Search Engine(2):
Startpage uses results from Google, but instead of allowing Google (or any of
the other search engines) to track, gather, and share your IP address and
geolocation data, Startpage and Ixquick servers act as the middle-man,
bringing the search results to you in private.
Keep in mind that anytime you click a hyperlink with default browser settings
intact, you WILL expose your IP address, username, geolocation, and other
info to various data-harvesting companies. Don't do that! Instead, use the
proxy link provided by Ixquick-proxy; or better still, type the URL address
into the browser bar, thereby eliminating the referral info. As a general
rule, we should never follow hyperlinks in search engines, websites, or
emails. Examine each link before using it. Also, send and receive email as
text-only, and auto-block links and external data which can hide malicious
code.
Startpage and Ixquick(3) are privately owned by Surfboard Holding BV(4)
located in the Netherlands (note that the lack of an "s" following 'Holding'
supposedly means Surfboard is owned 100% by staff members and their immediate
family). Although these search engines, just like all search engines, record
the search terms for inclusion in their databases (advertising space is sold
based on these search terms), their claim is to NOT record your IP address,
geo-location, zeitgeist(5) info, or other data that is commonly shared among
computer programs, and that is too-often leaked (sold) by operating systems,
search engines, and browsers to outside databases such as Acxion.(6)
An insider at one of my ISP accounts revealed that on average the income
generated by subscribers leaving default modem, router, and browser settings
in place results in over $100/yr extra profit per customer. With 2.5+ million
customers, just hijacking of searches alone pays them huge benefits. It is
our responsibility to control these types of leaks.
VLC Multimedia Player(7):
How can we locate and watch streaming videos or listen to streaming music
using only Dillo, Startpage, and VLC?
This is a real-life example:
A friend told me the Norwegian photographer, Terje Sørgjerd of TSO
Photography, created time-lapse videos with good music, suggesting that I
find and watch/listen. Okay, first step is to open Dillo browser and fire up
Startpage. Then type "TSO Photography videos" in the search box (use quotes)
which returns 7 results in 0.24 seconds. (create a default search page to use
as your 'homepage' or about:config 'newtab' from Startpage settings. I use it
for both and remove the search box from all browser toolbars.) Anyway, the
second link was the video list I wanted:
https://vimeo.com/terjes/videos
Next step is to open that link (4 videos are shown) and copy each video URL
into VLC, one by one. The steps to create a playlist are: Right click and
copy a link, open VLC media player, left-click 'media' then 'open network
stream' and middle click (Dillo users) to paste the link into the location
bar. Do this 3 more times so VLC can auto-save the playlist. Now, left-click
'play' to watch the videos, or select the drop-down arrow to 'covert/save'
them to a local folder.
VLC is able to stream music or video whenever a link can be found via search
engine or within a page's source code. This method has been tested for years
on dozens of browsers. BTW, we use only wired desktop workstations, or
laptops with wireless disabled or removed for privacy reasons.
Dillo Memory Tests:
Dillo is based on FLTK (fast light toolkit, pronounced "fulltick")(10), and
uses about 2 MiB of memory during launch. As a comparison, our
privacy-enhanced version of Iceweasel 28 Mozilla browser uses about 70 MiB of
memory during launch. Results with Abrowser, Firefox, Icecat, Aurora, or
Nightly were similar during tests, and memory consumption can surge over 500
MiB when multiple extensions and addons are used. BTW, noscript is actually
the only addon needed with Mozilla-based browsers, since you can control
cookies, advertising, javascript, frames, and even force the use of https
from a single control panel.
Try Dillo if you want to enjoy online privacy at fast speeds. You will get a
kick out of how broken and useless many websites are, simply because of the
illogical coding needed to force cookies, flash, and javascript on
unsuspecting consumers. These processes are used mainly to capture info to
sell products, while promoting false ideals and altering perceptions of
reality. This should not be funny, but because people don't know any better
and the majority don't care, I must LOL. :)
Explore in freedom and do good things!
(0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalStyle
(1) http://www.dillo.org/funding/objectives.html
(2) https://startpage.com/
(3) https://ixquick.com/
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixquick
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_(software)
*Note: Zeitgeist is NOT used by true privacy advocates!
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acxiom
(7) https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
(8) http://lynx.isc.org/current/index.html
(9) http://www.netsurf-browser.org/about/
(10) http://www.fltk.org/index.php
