this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
26 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16813 readers
7 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
26
I just acquired a new PC (self.privacyguides)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by j_roby to c/privacyguides@lemmy.one
 

I just acquired a new PC, and it hasn't been turned on yet. I would love some advice and tips on what to do before I get started with it to protect my privacy.

I'm a privacy-conscious person, but not dogmatic about it. And honestly, this is the first desktop PC I've had since Windows XP was a thing. So it goes without saying, I'm very out-of-the-loop when it comes to Windows. I'm not opposed to putting a Linux distro on it, as long as it's very easy for a beginner to learn on.

Really tho, I'd like to know if there's anything I should or shouldn't do as I'm booting the comp up for it's first time. Im grateful for any and all advice here. Thanks!!

Edit: thanks for all the responses so far! I figured it'd probably help to list my use cases for the PC. It'll mostly be used for gaming, music production & sound design, collecting music and movies (which will likely involve me regaining my old sea legs, hoisting the black flag, and sailing the high seas). At some point in the future, I wouldn't mind learning how to host a media server for friends and family to access, but I got lots to learn before I dip my toes into that. My privacy concerns are pretty general - I'd like to prevent corporate data mining mostly, but since I may be screaming "yo ho ho" soon too, I'd like to be protected in those regards as well

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] finestnothing@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Throw Linux on it or reinstall windows if you don't want to learn Linux. I assume it's a new PC, but you never know what may be on there regardless. A new install with a complete overwrite is the way to go imo.

For Linux, it personally use arch (btw) and love it but it's not super beginner friendly. I've heard good things about Linux mint for beginners so that may be a good place to start

[–] j_roby 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks, I saw somewhere else that Mint was recommended for beginners too. I'll look into that

[–] HumanPrimate@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

Mint is great and feels very similar to Windows, and Pop OS is also very great and feels a bit more analogous to Mac OS if you prefer that.

Pop is in the middle of building their own desktop environment (moving away from Gnome) so the latest version is 22.04, but they're still keeping kernel updates and packages up to date until the new DE is ready to launch.

When I first wanted to switch to Linux I tried out both on a USB stick and I was impressed with both, but I preferred the style of Pop. Both are based on Ubuntu so if you need to Google for tech support 99% of what you find will apply to you.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)