Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, had shocked the public earlier during the year when he had announced that he would stop using the Google Chrome browser in favour of the privacy-focused Brave browser.
We all know that today we are living in the peak of the ‘big brother’ era. With the majority of the developed world using the internet on a daily basis, it is no surprise that the tech giants that offer the services have amassed a large amount of important and private data about our search and purchasing habits. These giants often use this data to target specific advertisements our way and often sell this data on to third parties.
For a clear example of the power that these tech giants have - you need not look any further than the Facebook scandal with Cambridge Analytica.
Migration To Brave and Locking Down His Cyber Life
Sanger had stated that he has now completely stopped using Google Chrome and has switched over to Brave. The privacy-preserving browser from the BAT team is designed to remove intrusive 3rd party adverts and trackers by default. The browser does not create a profile about your identity and any information collected NEVER leaves the hosting machine which means that Brave has no access to it.
The Wikipedia co-founder believes that he needs to “lockdown his cyber life” in the hopes to prevent any privacy threat against him. This action was taken after Sanger had his own phone hacked with his Google ID password being changed without his knowledge. Sanger had provided three important reasons that acted as the catalyst for his browser change.
Internet Security Threat Evolving
The first reason given is the fact that the threat to internet security has evolved way beyond the comprehension of most people and will only keep evolving.
The Silicon Valley Monsters
Sanger describes the Silicon Valley tech giants as ‘behemoths’ that have moved away from monitoring our data for anti-terrorism purposes and have moved toward monitoring our data to help censor free speech online. The so-called FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) are now monitoring our private conversations under the disguise of anti-terrorism - something which Sanger does not agree with.
Profiting Off Of Our Data
The final reason that Sanger provides revolves around the tech giants selling our data to 3rd parties to be used as advertising research toward us (and who knows what else they do with it)
These reasons combined were strong enough to cause Sanger to take some drastic measures within his cyber living. Along with moving away from the Google Chrome browser, Sanger has also stated that he will stop using Google Seach and use DuckDuckGo instead. He also stated he will use better password management software and will not let the browser save passwords, stop using Gmail and iCloud and also switch to the more secure Linux OS.
What do you guys think? I believe the move to Brave was a good solution but locking down the rest of his cyber life may prove too difficult for those who spend their daily lives using products from these giant corporations.
