For more than a decade now companies have grown to the biggest companies in the world by spying on its users. Facebook, Google, Apple just to name the biggest have secretly and openly taken a huge amount of big data from all its users. Together with state supported institutions like the NSA, the data kraken is growing unstoppable. It is time to start being more protective about personal data.
In valuing the information I am giving away while using the Internet - my partner is probably the more caution one. She is setting good examples: never had a facebook account, using DuckDuckGo as search engine as soon as I told her about it and this year she is starting to delete her WhatsApp account because of the Facebook involvement.
For me 2019 will be the year I start replacing everything that I know is making money by spying my movements. And luckily the path is paved with some good Software as replacement.
Browser
As my browser I am already shifting from Chrome to Brave, which avoids spying on me but - to top it - helps me avoid getting spied on websites I visit. As crypto fan I also got a couple of BAT to support websites that enabled rewards in BAT. As search engine DuckDuckGo is set as the default.
Phone
This one will probably be the most challenging in 2019. I am looking at some of the offered blockchain phones (from HTC for example) but it seems their only focus is having a good storage possibility of assets with the phone. Rumors also note that Android will probably get convinced by their userbase to include crypto asset storage options into their software. Hopefully there will be operating systems supporting your privacy soon - most likely powered by blockchain.
Social Media
Steemit is my obvious choice. No advertisement - no data kraken. Giving "value" with my upvote is something that I start to miss on other alternatives. I enjoy that moment after two years using steemit still. And I appreciate it even more after the time. I continue to engage more in social media like DTube, steeve.app or other blockchain powered apps. As developer you can always pull the information directly from the blockchain if you want to get sure really avoiding the data kraken.
Chats
WhatsApp is going to get replaced by Signal, Telegram, Threema or other Apps that offer real encryption and not making money by gathering user meta data. This one is also a tough one, it involves convincing many parties that you value to switch in order to really delete the old messenger. But it is a challenge I hope the vibe of 2019 will help me with. I expect there will be more stories about data breaches making the news of 2019 and waking people up.
If you know any Apps or Software - leave a comment and maybe a sentence about it. I am eager to learn about good choices.