I have a threat model. What's next?

Gifay

First of all, I live in Europe and I'm not concerned with targeting attacks or people trying to uncover my identity. I'm just a guy that doesn't do anything illegal or risky and I don't expect anyone to go after me. What I want is to protect myself against passive attacks as much as possible such as malware, data breaches, and all the other attacks that aren't targeted toward me.
I want to protect my data from service providers, mass surveillance, and surveillance capitalism, or at least make it not worth it to track me. Basically, I don't want to have a permanent record of everything that I do on the internet.

So what should I do? Which tools should I pick? Where do I start this journey?

tango

Hi, Are you already using GrapheneOS or a different OS?

Gifay

tango Yes I do use GrapheneOS.

tango

Gifay

Ok thats good. From your description it sounds like a good VPN service is what you need in my opinion. Some good examples and in no particular order are Mullvad VPN, Proton VPN and IVPN. These providers are all well respected for privacy and security.

Also you are already miles ahead with using GrapheneOS compared to a stock OS. Check all your app permissions to make sure you only allow permissions that are absolutely necessary. Also get used to clearing your cookies in your browser as often as possible. All these things will help lower your risks. If you search through the forum you will find lots of good info and someone will always try to help you, just takes time to suss out the best methods for what you want.

Gifay

tango VPN is more secure than Tor too? Because exit nodes can manipulate and watch traffic if everything is not properly encrypted and even if it was exit nodes can do censoring as they did with releases.grapheneos.org in the past.

matchboxbananasynergy

Gifay Even if Tor did not have drawbacks, it sounds overkill for the threat model you've outlined.

It could be useful in some cases, but I wouldn't expect you to need or want to do most of your browsing through Tor.

Gifay

matchboxbananasynergy VPN is the way to go then. Thank you.

Gifay

matchboxbananasynergy I'm planning on using ProtonVPN. I will use their free plan until a new deal will come out that gives a good discount. How bad would it be to use ProtonVPN and a different DNS provider for content filtering? Should I just use ProtonVPN and their DNS until I will buy their paid plan to have content filtering?

Blastoidea

Gifay
I have been using Proton free VPN with GrapheneOS for a while now, and am quite satisfied.

My family and I use Session for texting. It has a Tor-like network. We were using Wickr, but abandoned it last month.

I am not a sophisticated user, I just don’t want to be tracked or snooped on.

tango

Gifay

Their free plan is good for a free service but if you can afford it their paid plan is well worth it as you get secure core for that extra layer of security. Better to use their dns and enable block malware / ads and trackers, that way you are also blending in with lots of other users making it harder for you to be tracked.

treequell

From a privacy perspective, I think it's better to use the same provider for DNS and VPN. If content filtering means trusting two different providers, it reduces your privacy.

Eirikr70

I wouldn't go so far as using a vpn. I would just recommend you use a dns server restricting access from some surveillance sites, such as tls://dns.adguard-dns.com

tango

Eirikr70

To get the protection from service provider snooping surely the VPN is the better option though?

Such2938

Consider transitioning to proxy sites and clients instead of your official social media sites. Some are browse-only, allowing you to follow people/topics, but others allow you to log in and post if you want to. On Android you have New Pipe (youtube), or Infinity (reddit) as great examples of this. You can import your Youtube subscriptions to New Pipe, btw.

Install this browser addon so all links to social media sites like youtube or reddit redirect to their proxy, privacy-respecting counterparts. https://libredirect.github.io/ .