let me ask this: what is your threat model? Don't tell me, ask yourself that and work through it if you haven't already.

Going full 100% and trying to become a shadow overnight if a great recipe for burning yourself out and not trying. Instead look at your specific threat model and work on the biggest things one step at a time. Make it a journey and only take a new step once you're comfortable with the last.

You need to step back and review your threat model, then figure out the balance point between privacy and convenience/QoL. There is no such thing as complete privacy unless you go completely offline and live like a hermit. So something has to give, and your threat model will help you identify that. Figure out first what exactly you’re protecting, and from who. Then you can assess which ones you will deem non-negotiable when it comes to privacy, some where you can relax a bit in exchange for covenience (and this has levels as well), and lastly the ones where you have no choice because blocking something will make it cease to function. Having this threat model will also help you figure out what extent you would want to expose yourself depending on the service. Don’t put everything into the same tier because that will be impossible. Good luck.

Privacy is a spectrum, not dichotomy. It is enough, imo, to reduce the amount of usage of google/amazon services significantly instead of blocking it.

I see a lot of my old habits in this post. What helped me was to create a threat model for myself, what do I really want to protect and what can I do to protect it with a reasonable cost and time effort.

I found that my most effective controls were using a VPN, using an email relay service and using Linux as an OS (I use ubuntu and fedora because I value my time and compatibility, I used Arch years ago and it was a part-time job to keep it going)

For example, if you are using a VPN, you don't need to be blocking google and cloudflare.

You are seeking a perfection you will never achieve, so find your comfortable and do that.

Last piece of advice, nobody is judging you. Most people on this lemmy community are doing more than 99% do on a daily basis, but its not a competition.

Every blocked ad and cookie is a small victory. They hate you for it. Be proud of that.

You will always have to interact with these company's servers at some point. Stay in control, but don't obsess. What matters is getting further away. You have succeeded in many ways by taking these steps. Do not lose sight of that.

Psychologically speaking I think about the situation as

• a learning process rather than a destination (when you mention "perfect" that's a warning sign)
• a spectrum rather a binary position (even a king back centuries ago or a rich CEO or a powerful politician today has limited privacy, so it's about moving positively over that spectrum)
• a worthwhile adventure helping to better learn about other things (e.g psychology, technology, politics) rather only costs

So... yes in fine it's the same, i.e "more hoops" to go through to do the same things, BUT when framed positively it's genuinely more exciting, more empowering!

Besides what others have said basically asking "what is it that you're trying to protect (from)?" I would say the main questions in terms of usage are, are you on a degoogled Android phone and are you using Linux on your Desktop yet?

Yea sure VPNs are nice but I personally often feel like I don't want to have to hide behind someone else's IP-Address just to add a layer of obfuscation to the data-collectors. If your browser is clean and working for you there is no need for a VPN (unless you need it for the sake of coming from a different geolocation). If your Operating System isn't Open Source it can be assumed to be tracking you with or without a VPN.

There are definitely downsides (especially in terms of convenience) to using Android without Google on it. If those inconveniences are too much for you (as you are alluding to in your described hassles) then it's probably just a question of which desire is stronger. That for certain privacy or that for ease of use.

You don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing. People saying “define a threat model” are right.

Figure out what you’re trying to accomplish.

I’m figuring this kind of thing out too. I’m taking a few steps in directions that I can, like using duckduckgo, migrating off of gmail, using this instead of twitter and alternative Reddit. Trying to enjoy blogs on the smoll web. The hardest part was family. I still have to use WhatsApp since that’s the one platform my family collectively uses. But I keep it on my botnet phone which I keep around for work. I still have one gmail but its main purpose is for backup and when I’m using YouTube. I’ve stopped keeping content tied to it, and I’ve stopped posting myself on social media. Making a website instead. Idk. You reach an age and social media apps stop being a fun way to connect with your peers, and becomes a liability.

uBlock Origin and Canvas Blocker in Firefox, not using gmail, youtube-login (there's apps, bookmarks that can store your favorites) and you're mostly fine.

Custom ROM with f-droid, gmaps-alternative, if you're in an adventourous phase.

There's no perfect, only good enough.

My solution? Just not care.

I do things that help my privacy, but don't make my life harder. When investing in a new product privacy is one of the things I try to attain, but if option A works perfectly for me, but has some questionable things in their TOS, and option B just straight up doesn't work but is great for privacy then I'm going to go with option 1 10/10 times.

First of all, don't waste your precious time enjoying life with privacy worrying and fear. It's just not worth it.

I don't know why, but I get the impression the device you are struggling to make more private is a phone. If that's the case, the extent to which you can make things work is indeed very limited, so don't try to push it too hard.

You could use a tool like a firewall to have a more high-level control over all apps, like blocking them all and only allowing a few.

This may be less overwhelming than trying to block and contain each app individually. Now, you will still need to allow some Google stuff to have a Google phone work properly (to use the Play Store for example). If you want to go further, I'd suggest trying another OS other than Android, but that may make your phone even less compatible with what you are relying on, so it may be a better idea to instead try it on an old phone first.

On a PC, you have more freedom. Instead of trying to block everything from Google, for instance, you can rely on a separate browser profile (or Firefox Containers if that's inconvenient) for things that really need Google (e.g. Meet, work/school using Google Apps, whatever) and in your main browser profile you can rely on alternatives. For example, instead of trying to access YouTube behind a Google blocking extension, you could use Invidious or a dedicated app like FreeTube.

I hope you can feel more at ease with the sense of being watched and tracked online, but remember that's not worth loosing your best moments for if it ends up just causing more distress to you.