I have a new browser setup on my desktop to increase my privacy and convenience. It is divided into two profiles that perform differently based on what I need to do in the moment.
-
What is it?
+
What is it?
I use Librewolf as my browser. It is a fork of Firefox that is enhanced for privacy without heavily impacting user experience. I divided it into two profiles:
Accounts (instances in which I need to login)
Browsing (general website browsing)
Let me walk through how each profile is setup.
-
Profile Setup
+
Profile Setup
Firstly, let me talk about common settings between both profiles.
Common In Both
On both profiles, I have my settings to optimize my privacy. On Firefox-based browsers, it is very easy to use these settings because most of them have little impact on convenience. I use Brave Search as my search engine and will switch to my own SearX instance when I get a good server. In terms of extensions, I have the 'uBlock Origin' extension installed setup to block JavaScript and remote fonts by default. I have the default lists along with all the others unchecked by default apart from language lists. I block every single domain from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other websites which are known for tracking. If a website breaks, I whitelist that website in particular.
@@ -81,7 +80,7 @@
-
Conclusion
+
Conclusion
This setup has been serving me extremely well. I will continue using this setup and building on it if any specific need arises.
As mentioned in the title, I have deleted my Discord account. This was obviously not without a reason. There are two reasons due to which I deleted my Discord account:
Privacy
Lack of Use
The most prominent reason is privacy but lack of use compelled me to actually take the plunge and delete my Discord account.
-
Privacy
+
Privacy
Introduction
Discord is a hellhole for your privacy. Avoid it at all costs. In this section, I will show you the various things that Discord tracks.
DISCORD'S HISTORY
@@ -92,9 +91,9 @@
ALL IN ALL...
... this is not all that Discord does. If we know that Discord does all of this, there is obviously more that they are doing that we do not know. You should always assume closed-source pieces of software are tracking you and sending your information to a third-party.
-
Lack of Use
+
Lack of Use
I was not using Discord anymore so I deleted it. The reason is that my previous account got banned for botting when I did not do anything. I made a new account, chatted with three or four of my friends. Afterwards, the CounterHawks Discord server got banned. Due to this, I realized there is no use for my account and that there is no reason for me to support Discord.
-
Conclusion
+
Conclusion
I do not use Discord anymore and probably never will. Previously, it was difficult to delete my Discord account but Discord themselves have done all the hard work for me.
With regards to technology, the average person would rather buy a new computer when their WiFi stops working instead of taking it to a repair shop or fixing it themselves. They would rather buy a new smartphone when their screen cracks than repair it. They would also rather buy a device because of its looks and arbitrary specifications than one specific to their use case and their interests. They focus on the marketing of a company and become 'fanboys' of a specific company, buying nothing but their products, stating that the company in question makes the best products in the world. Self-servicing and repairability are not even factors in their decision to buy a device.
@@ -28,7 +27,7 @@
Instead of buying ThinkPads that function amazingly, people go for looks that impress amazingly. A computer is a device designed to perform computation. If you are shelling out a lot of money, you should have a device that performs fast and can be repaired by you.
What I have realized is that you should 'do it yourself' as much as possible. This is why my computer is custom-built. Had I bought a pre-built computer, I would have never known what was inside my computer. This is tedious on smartphones since they are becoming more and more locked down. Linux phones are alternatives but they are not great as of 2023. I hope they become mainstream soon because I want to buy one.
Doing it yourself also helps in terms of software. I used to flash custom ROMs on my old phone and used LineageOS extensively. Now, I use Arch Linux on my computer, which is a Linux distribution that is basically barebones. It has only the packages required to boot up. Everything else is done by you. The advantage of an operating system like this is that you know what runs on your system and there is minimal resource usage. If there is an issue, you can easily find out which program it is from and fix it immediately after gaining knowledge.
-
Conclusion
+
Conclusion
You should try to 'do it yourself'. Take control of your hardware and software and know what you are running. It will not only be cheaper, but it will make it easier to fix issues and learn about computing and technology in the long run.
OpenDoas or Doas is a portable version of the doas utility that is used on OpenBSD. OpenDoas can be installed on Unix-like system which includes Linux. It is designed to be more minimal and has less configuration options than sudo. If you are on a personal computer, then I highly recommend you switch to doas because it has a much smaller codebase which leaves less room for error.
However, if you are part of a professional environment with many individuals needing to use sudo, I recommend staying with sudo because it offers more configuration options to be used for groups and users.
-
Installing Doas
+
Installing Doas
Doas is available on almost all major distributions. If your distribution is Debian-based (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin OS), simply type:
sudo apt install doas
If you run an Arch-based system (Artix, Arco, Endeavour, Manjaro), type:
@@ -36,20 +35,20 @@
If you use RHEL-based systems (Fedora, CentOS), type:
sudo dnf install opendoas
Doas should now be installed but it will not work out of the box. There is one line that we need to add to the configuration file.
-
Configuring Doas
+
Configuring Doas
You have to configure doas as it is not included in most distributions by default but do not fret! One of its plus points is that its configuration is much better than sudo's.
To begin, edit the /etc/doas.conf file as root.
If you are the only user on your system and do not plan to allow other users to use your system, this line will suffice.
permit persist username as root
Many distributions have a group (wheel, sudoers) that are allowed to run sudo commands. If you would like to allow that group to send commands as root, type this:
permit persist :wheel as root
-
Using Doas
+
Using Doas
Using doas is incredibly simple. Just type doas instead of sudo. For example, if you usually type:
sudo pacman -Syu
then just type:
doas pacman -Syu
I also recommend aliasing doas to 'doas --' since it causes issues sometimes if you just use doas. Apart from that, this is it for the setup.
-
Conclusion
+
Conclusion
If you are the only person on your Linux machine, you should switch to doas. It is much more lightweight and is similar to sudo. It has a smaller codebase which, in my opinion, prevents exploits from popping up as often as sudo.
However, if you are in a professional environment, you should stick with sudo.
Previous Post - Next Post
diff --git a/email/index.html b/email/index.html
index 4b1af5f..8122dcf 100644
--- a/email/index.html
+++ b/email/index.html
@@ -16,14 +16,14 @@
In this article, I will show you how to encrypt emails. You can encrypt emails on almost any device. In this article, however, I will be focusing on Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo. I will also be focusing on making ProtonMail encrypt emails with Gmail.
-
Myths
+
Myths
Firstly, let us dispell a few myths. The first myth is a big one.
Gmail's Confidential mode does not encrypt your emails
Yes, you heard that right. Gmail's confidential mode does not encrypt your emails. Whenever I speak about email encryption, I hear something along the lines of:
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
ProtonMail does not encrypt emails sent to non-ProtonMail users
This is also a huge myth. ProtonMail encrypts emails sent to other ProtonMail users. However, they do not encrypt emails sent to or received from non-ProtonMail users. It collects less data about you and it stores your emails with encryption on their servers but the email itself is not encrypted on the other person's end.
Encryption for non-ProtonMail users works on a user-to-user basis. You have to have the encryption keys of the other person if they are a non-ProtonMail user and they also have to encrypt their emails manually. We will learn how to do this in this guide.
-
Online Email
+
Online Email
Encrypting your emails online is a simple process.
Step 1: Get the Mailvelope extension
Mailvelope is a free, libre and open-source browser extension which allows you to not only encrypt emails using public keys but also has a keyserver which has a list of other people who use Mailvelope. Emails sent to other people using Mailvelope will automatically be encrypted.
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
Step 4: Send encrypted emails!
Whenever you go to compose an email, there will be a button like the image below. Just click on it and there will be a popup to compose your encrypted email. Just fill in the info and send your email!
-
Smartphones
+
Smartphones
Firstly, I would like to give a disclaimer. There is no way to use PGP encryption on iOS. Most encryption that is used on iOS is either paid or unavailable. On Android, you cannot encrypt emails using the native applications for Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo. Even if there is such a feature, you should not use their official clients due to their invasive tracking. To encrypt emails, we will use an email app called K-9 Mail. I believe that everyone should use K-9 Mail even if they are not encrypting their emails. It is a fantastic app.
K-9 Mail is a free and open-source email app that has a lot of features. I believe that no one should be writing emails on their phones but it is a great app to have just to make sure there is nothing urgent in your inbox.
Step 1: Get the app
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
Step 5: Setup K-9 Mail
Go back to K-9 Mail, go to settings, go to your account that you added, go to end-to-end encryption and enable it. Select your key. Turn on autocrypt mutual mode. That is it! You should see a lock icon whenever you are sending an email to someone if you have their PGP public key. If you need to import more keys, just go to the OpenKeychain app and import them.
-
Exporting ProtonMail Keys
+
Exporting ProtonMail Keys
To export your ProtonMail public keys, follow these steps.
Login to your ProtonMail account
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@
The image below is how it looks like in 2023.
You can now send these keys to anyone to import into their PGP keychain. They will then be able to encrypt emails when sending them to your ProtonMail address!
-
Conclusion
+
Conclusion
That is it! You have setup encryption on your emails. This is a great step as email itself is very unsecure, so this will boost your privacy and security by a lot. Sharing passwords through email has never been safe but encryption allows you to do it with a good range of security.
This post is to inform you that the grace period for the deletion of my public Instagram account has been completed. My Instagram account has been deleted... forever. I highly recommend you do it too. Read this post for more information.
I have tried finding open-source and free Islamic apps for a long time and it is tiring to do so. Most of the apps are Quran and prayer time apps which are perfect but we do not have apps for other parts of Islam like hadeeths, duas and even Qibla locating. If I do run across an app, its last update is always more than five years ago which is not ideal. There are two Islamic apps that I use on a daily basis that I absolutely love and will never switch from:
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
Al-Azan is another app which also follows the UNIX philosophy and is hosted under the AGPL license also making it free software. It does one thing well - displaying and informing of prayer times. You can adjust the prayer times based on location, offset and even calculation methods.
However, there is not a single free software or even open-source Hisnul Muslim application that I have noticed. Most Hisnul Muslim apps I have used have the exact same duas since it is based off the 'Fortress of the Muslim' book. Just having a page with all duas with a simple search option and the translation in popular languages is all thats required to get the open-source savvy Muslim community to start using free software for their duas.
Anyone can take the lead. In fact, this may be the first thing I try when I start developing applications.
