Privacy Guides

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In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.

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Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

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[email protected]

I just acquired a new PC (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I just acquired a new PC, and it hasn't been turned on yet. I would love some advice and tips on what to do before I get started with it to protect my privacy.

I'm a privacy-conscious person, but not dogmatic about it. And honestly, this is the first desktop PC I've had since Windows XP was a thing. So it goes without saying, I'm very out-of-the-loop when it comes to Windows. I'm not opposed to putting a Linux distro on it, as long as it's very easy for a beginner to learn on.

Really tho, I'd like to know if there's anything I should or shouldn't do as I'm booting the comp up for it's first time. Im grateful for any and all advice here. Thanks!!

Edit: thanks for all the responses so far! I figured it'd probably help to list my use cases for the PC. It'll mostly be used for gaming, music production & sound design, collecting music and movies (which will likely involve me regaining my old sea legs, hoisting the black flag, and sailing the high seas). At some point in the future, I wouldn't mind learning how to host a media server for friends and family to access, but I got lots to learn before I dip my toes into that. My privacy concerns are pretty general - I'd like to prevent corporate data mining mostly, but since I may be screaming "yo ho ho" soon too, I'd like to be protected in those regards as well

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

What is your threat model like ? Who are you intending to guard yourself against ?

Is it an assembled PC or a pre-built ? Pre-builts may come with some form of tracking. OS support also may be a concern on some pre-builts.

Maybe something like Debian 12 testing might be a good Linux option to consider, of course Windows or Mac are not recommended for the privacy conscious amongst us. Debian is not the most user friendly to get installer image of, but it has a fairly straightforward GUI based setup for a fresh install.

In case Windows is a requirement then probably look into the Tron script, helps automate a lot of things you might need as privacy settings (among other actions performed by the script).

Note: These are to be treated as opinions, not advice.