Basic iPhone Privacy & Security
As part of finding ways to achieve Digital Simplification, I wanted to find the easiest solution to maintain proper levels of privacy and security on my personal devices. Yes, I could go crazy with self-hosted solutions, dive into Mullvad VPN, or Faraday Cages, but that misses the whole point of what I'm trying to accomplish. I want the perfection combination of better-than-good and simple.
Is my final solution perfect? No. Is it better than what 95% of people do? Absolutely. Will I do the same thing on my wife's phone, and she won't want to throw it across the room? I think so. Will moody location aware apps like MLB.tv work consistently? So far, so good.
Here's what I've done and suggest you should do:
- Enable iCloud Private Relay (Settings → Name → iCloud → Private Relay → On)
- Turn off Personalized Ads (Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Advertising → Off)
- Turn off Analytics and Improvements (Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements → All Off)
- Turn off App Tracking (Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → Off)
- Turn on Mail Privacy Protection (Settings → Apps → Mail → Privacy Protection → On)
- Prevent Cross-Site Tracking (Settings → Apps → Safari → Prevent Cross-Site Tracking → Off)
- Hide IP Address (Settings → Apps → Safari → Hide IP Address → Trackers and Websites)
- Audit and Limit Location Services (Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services)
- Set Search Engine as DuckDuckGo (Settings → Apps → Safari → Search Engine)
- Install: StopTheMadness Pro
- Install: Wipr
- Install: 1.1.1.1 (enable WARP)
Extra: Enable Advanced Data Protection in Settings → iCloud → Advanced Data Protection. This requires all devices with your AppleID to be updated.
This should significantly obstruct what carriers, WiFi owners, and websites can see about you and your activity. More things should be encrypted and anonymized. The overall speed hit should be minimal. And best of all, it should require virtually no maintenance or ongoing upkeep. Set it and forget it.
Have any more tips? Reply on Mastodon.