Maintaining a high level of privacy while surfing the web isn’t a straightforward task: It requires one to make certain ease-of-use sacrifices and changing aspects of how one goes about it. That said, if all you want to do is to limit your digital footprint, there’s plenty of ways to do so. This article will go over a few of those ways.

Browser

Unsurprisingly, the browser you use will have a strong impact on the amount of data you leak to the multitude of corporations that’s capitalizing on your information.

You can optionally check if you’re affected by this plague by going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Am I FLoCed.

Your first, and best option(!), is to simply switch to a proper, privacy respecting browser. Brave. for example, has promised to never implement this garbage, and seeing as its Chrome-/Chromium-based there’s virtually no reason why not. Other alternatives include Vivaldi and Microshaft’s Edge.

However, if you for whatever reason can’t or don’t want to switch from Chrome, then you should immediately block it by installing DuckDuckGo’s privacy enhancing Chrome extension. It won’t force you to use their search engine if you don’t want to, and you still receive a ton of protections for your online privacy, including the new FLoC.

Most eBooks you buy on Amazon, Kobo, etc, are protected by DRM (Digital Right Management) – meaning that you can not simply download your books and put them on any device you want.

First you’ll need the excellent Calibre eBook management tool. Next you need to download Apprentice Alf’s DeDRM plugin, the heart of this operation and the thing which will be doing the hard work for us. Remember to make sure to read the README and FAQ before you dive further into the stripping.