I'd say I'm a bit concerned with this, but without being paranoid. I try to follow security "best practices", but more so that my devices don't become part of some botnet. If given the chance, I'll go for the privacy-protecting option, but only to a point. I don't consider all my computing devices equivalent: I can tolerate much more invasive apps on my phone, which I basically only use to make calls and to find my way around town, than on my computer, which has access to a bunch of personal things. But I do deny all requests to access my contacts to any and all 3rd party apps, and only allow them to use GPS if at all necessary (say for a navigation app) and then only when I'm using them. No access to my pictures, either.

> ### Applications, Operating Systems

I mostly use Linux for reasons unrelated to tracking: I genuinely enjoy using it the most, since it just gets out of my way. The only thing that had a better OOB experience was my macbook pro. Windows annoys me to no end and doesn't fully support my bog-standard HP laptop (!). I still use it on my gaming PC, though. I used to like macOS, but it's becoming more and more windowsy, so I got back on Linux when it stopped supporting my aging MBP.

I don't do any particular hardening, apart from using OpenSnitch (which doesn't seem to catch anything interesting - but I use a basic system). My servers do use linux-hardened kernel and have a default deny firewall with containerized (lxc) everything, but it's more "because I can" and some are on the internet. My laptop runs linux-zen because I value responsiveness and figure it's secure enough.

I mostly use local applications, since I value comfort. For me, that means not having to wait around for a browser to load 1 GB of JS just to show me a list. But if there's no other option, I'll use online apps.

I use Firefox because I'm not comfortable with Google's push of accounts and whatnot on the browser. I also think it's important for there to be a diversity of browsers, and Firefox works well enough for my needs. I run UBO and uMatrix on it.

I use an iPhone because I find it gets out of my way. Android is sluggish, and the interface is janky. Moreover, my iPhone 7 works as good as when it was new, and still gets security updates (installed one yesterday). I'd be hard-pressed to find an equivalent Android phone. I don't care to change phones every other year.

I used to mess around with custom ROMs on my older Samsungs GSs, but I'm past that. To me, my phone is basically an appliance. Its most important feature is getting out of my way. I only have a few apps installed that weren't there in the default install. I sympathize with the people who are angry about not being able to install whatever they want. But I just don't need to do that, so I prioritize other factors much more, so the iphone comes out on top.

> ### Online Storage

I use paid GSuite (or whatever it's called now) for the email of my company. I chose it so I can use Google Drive for my backups, since it's the cheapest way to get email + storage (for the amount I require). I back up my photography to it via Arq, which encrypts it before sending. Other than that, I use a bog-standard Linux on a geriatric server as my file server. No XCloud distro or whatever, just Arch Linux + (encrypted) ZFS + Samba. I try to have all data encrypted at rest and move it around encrypted (wireguard).

I also try to avoid depending too much on my internet connection, so all my home automation (lights + temp sensors) are running locally on a Home Assistant VM. My lights are set up in such a way that I can still use them when all the computers and internet are down.

> ### Social Media

Don't block it. I don't avoid it, so much as I just don't care about it. I simply never got any use out of it. The longest I used TikTok was like 10 minutes when I saw an HN thread about how the algorithm learns and got curious. After the Nth half-naked dancing girl and people screaming at police (I'm not even in the US), I just got bored and deleted the app. Ditto for twitter / facebook / reddit: I'll go see a post if someone sends me a link, but I don't have the patience to "browse" them and never just open them up. The only social-media I regularly use is HN, because I find the content interesting.