Tag Archives: security

Gated Community

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Keep Facebook out of your business.

1. Install Firefox.
2. Click Settings and choose ADD-ONS
3. Scroll down to FACEBOOK CONTAINER (or use Search bar)
4. Click + ADD TO FIREFOX.
That’s it. Now read on.

Now that my life is irretrievably linked to Google, I’m taking steps to separate myself. Google knows enough about me now. Time to keep my business to myself. To begin, my new default browser is Vivaldi, a Chrome-based browser that wants nothing to do with my personal information, browsing habits, or history. It dumps all data every time I close the browser. We’re close friends with really, really short memories.

Vivaldi browser

Vivaldi is an elegant browser, fully customizable. FULLY customizable. It’s insanely customizable. I personally like the greens. Menu can be wherever you want (I have it set to the red Vivaldi icon in the upper left corner). Along the left are pop-open menus for bookmarks, downloads, history, recent pages, and more. I’ve also added Instagram here, which allows me to post photos from my desktop PC. All of this can be placed wherever you’d like. The main start page contains blocks (as many as you wish) for favorite web pages. Or not. Too much to talk about here, so I encourage everyone to check out Vivaldi at their home page. Trust me, it’s a great browser.

Just as Vivaldi wants nothing to do with my personal info, Duck Duck Go is now my search engine of choice. In fact, I’ve deleted all other search engines from Vivaldi to ONLY allow Duck Duck Go. This search engine’s policy is simple: “We don’t store your personal information. Ever.” That’s what I want.

Google follows me wherever I go on the internet. Facebook does, too. You can exit Facebook and continue surfing, but Facebook is still watching. Ever wonder why you see ads on Facebook for things you’ve looked at elsewhere? Facebook is watching. Google provides me with a variety of useful services, so I allow them to peep at me whenever they want. Facebook is a social platform. Facebook does NOT deserve to know what I’m doing outside of Facebook.

The Firefox browser

I was about to delete my Facebook account when I discovered Facebook Container. This is an add-on available with the Firefox browser. Firefox, like Vivaldi, is all about protecting your privacy (from everyone else). When you add Facebook Container, you can open a tab to Facebook and this add-on puts Facebook in a sandbox of sorts. Facebook is now unable to access your history, your cookies, or any other information about your web habits. Quarantined!

In the image above, you can see a blue border around the Facebook tab, indicating that Facebook is being fenced in. You also see the icon for Facebook fencing over on the right. This keeps Facebook in its place, and not in yours.

I don’t use Facebook often, but when I do I now use Firefox and its Facebook Container. Apologies to Firefox (a very decent browser), but I rarely use it for anything else, which further ensures that Facebook doesn’t follow me around.

Firefox, like most browsers, has a wealth of security settings. I always set my browsers to dump history and cookies every time I exit the browser. I keep bookmarks and favorites, but don’t store my history. Google and Microsoft already know enough about me.

So, I use Vivaldi as my default browser. I use Firefox to open Facebook. I use Chrome for my email, photos, maps, YouTube, news, etc. And I use Bing on those occasions when I have to communicate with Microsoft. And all of those nefarious advertisers who want to “tailor their advertising” to me can go squat.

My business is MY business.

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Doing the Two-Step

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Little by little, Google is taking over my life. And I let them, in exchange for the services they provide.

I’ve used Gmail for a long time. I also have a Comcast email address or three, but they are used less and less often, and now act mostly as spam catchers.

Google knows
• every Google search I’ve ever done, every search result I’ve clicked on
• every location I’ve ever looked up on Google Maps
• every YouTube video I’ve ever watched or searched for

Google knows my whereabouts and keeps track of my most visited locations. Google has my phone number, which means that Google can now track me in realtime. And I’m okay with that.

I’m now on my second Android smartphone (the incredible HTC 10, thankyouverymuch), and HTC has jettisoned its own proprietary apps in favor of established Google apps, so now Google is intimately involved with my everyday life.

Google knows me probably better than anyone.

And now, finally, I see that my bank has joined the list of institutions working with Android Pay! I happily scanned in my credit card, entered all information, and I can make small purchases just by holding my phone near a pay terminal.

So now money is involved

And that means that NOW I have set up Two-Step Verification for my Google account.

I log in using my usual username and password, but now there’s an extra step involved in accessing my account.

Authenticator

First I set up a code generator. I downloaded Google Authenticator to my phone, and this generates a random 6-digit code every 20 seconds or so. I have to enter this code when asked, if I want to get into my account. Not as much of a pain as it sounds…

random_code

You can “authenticate” devices and computers. Basically, I said that I use this smartphone all the time, so don’t ask me for verification on this device. I can also do that with computers or other devices that I normally use.

As an alternate method of verification, if I use a strange computer, I get a pop-up on my phone that says something like, “Is this you?” Tapping YES on my phone allows me to use the strange computer.

Bottom line, no one is going to get into my Google account now. Unless they steal my phone, of course. But in order to unlock my phone, they have to guess my PIN or cut off my thumb for the fingerprint scanner.

And that’s a lot of trouble to go through in order to steal the $20.00 that’s available on my credit card.

Oh. In order to use Two-Step Verification and Android Pay, I agreed to use a “locked” smartphone. This was a royal pain on my last phone, so I never used to lock the thing. On the HTC 10, though, I use the fingerprint scan (either thumb) to unlock the phone, and it takes all of 0.6 seconds. Takes even less time if I pick up the phone the right way! So having the phone lock is no longer an issue. In fact, a quick press of the power button turns off the display and locks the phone immediately. Then a simple thumb press on the scanner turns it back on, unlocked.

Very cool.

I feel much better now.