Give permission. Don't give permission. They know where you are anyway

[ulrich@feddit.org]

but it won't be very accurate

Which they actually acknowledge in the blog post.

Kind of interesting that they're smart enough to understand how to sniff packets but not enough to understand that IP address = location.

[ulrich@feddit.org]

So use a trustworthy middleman? Surely you can find someone more trustworthy than advertising companies?

[ulrich@feddit.org]

Not the magic bullet people think they are.

No one thinks VPNs are "magic bullets". I don't know why this gets repeated ad nauseum.

Oh, and you can't turn it off, so you'll have to take the loss in network speed on absolutely everything.

True but it's not that bad.

And better know how to configure each device so it doesn't go ahead and check leak your IP anyways

Just choose a good provider. You don't need to configure anything.

if any device on your network ever connects to the net without the VPN, then your anonymity just went out the window.

That's what kill switches are for.

[forrgott@lemm.ee]

I agree it's a powerful tool! I was specifically responding to "problem solved" in the previous comment. My reply was in no way meant as a general review of VPNs.

[mangopenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

True, it's storing the IP address that is the issue.

[mangopenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Using firefox in strict mode with ublock origin, cookie auto-delete, and a VPN to change your IP should stop location tracking and cross-site tracking. Sites will still know you've visited them and what pages you've been to for that session but that is impossible to stop.

[breadstickninja@lemmy.world]

Storing it and associating it with all the other identifying information collected.

[priapus@sh.itjust.works]

Yeah, a middleman you get to choose. That's a huge improvement. There are plenty of trustworthy VPN providers.

[cyborganism@lemmy.ca]

Tor over VPN

[cyborganism@lemmy.ca]

That's an uninformed statement.

You get to pick your provider. So pick one that you trust.

It's FAR better than without as your ISP is probably selling your traffic to third parties or at least monitoring it. Some VPNs don't.

[cyborganism@lemmy.ca]

Is that tinfoil hat comfortable?

[bilb@lem.monster]

None worth pursuing

[telorand@reddthat.com]

Easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Most companies are so big, getting caught is relatively cheap with how low the fines are compared to their annual profits.

It's just a line item on their expense sheets, anymore, and most people don't have the money to get the justice they deserve in court.

[morys@lemmy.ml]

You'd want to be using only Linux apps that weren't recording and reporting everything. Much easier to get in Linux than Apple/android

[mbourgon@lemmy.world]

Latitude and Longitude are in there. As is screen brightness. He does acknowledge that he is on Wi-Fi, but that’s still super suspicious

[misk@sopuli.xyz]

This we can expect but there’s also a trend to idolise solo developers or small firms but everyone can be shitty and everyone should be accountable. In this case a smaller developer steals user data do defrauds Unity most likely because they think they’re too small to be worth investigating.

[mrvictory1@lemmy.world]

Use a custom DNS and/or hosts file. You can cut them off the grid by blocking data upload to SSP. Don't install many apps, for games that can be played offline, play them offline.

[mrvictory1@lemmy.world]

It may have estimated location data with IP from Wi-Fi. Location Services turns on GPS but that is not the only way of getting location.

[yetanotheruser@lemmy.ca]

But when Firebase gets that network/IP change report, what information does it get? Because if it only gets the public IP address, the reported IP will still be the VPN one, not the real one, right? So, if that were the only information reported to Firebase, wouldn't you still be protected? Does Firebase block requests when you're using a VPN (this could be detected, for example, if certain aspects of the network have changed but the IP hasn't)? Is that what you mean with not getting push notifications when simulating a local IP with filters?

PS: From my research, the WiFi's SSID can also be used to track someone's whereabouts, but depending on where you are and how many networks have used the same SSID, it may work work well or badly. You can see that by going to https://wigle.net/ (which is a database on WiFi networks with some publicly-available information), go to the map, type in the SSID field, and click "Filter".

[scrollone@feddit.it]

Using a VPN means that all your traffic is routed through a possibly malicious actor.