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<img src="/blog-content/september-2021/31/facebook.jpg" layout="responsive" width="2000" height="1333" alt="facebook">
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It’s widely known that [Facebook collects information about its users](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/facebook-privacy-hearings.html). Most people seem to be at least tangentially aware that this either is actively happening, or has happened in the past. For many, the details end there. We want to take a look at not only what Facebook does with all this data, but what data they collect in the first place.

## What information are they actually collecting?

Facebook gathers lots of information from a variety of sources. Here’s a small list, and some explanation for the more vague ones.

- Cookies
- Facial Recognition
- Behavioral Data
- Personal Data

“Behavioral Data” has to do with what you like, how long you engage with content, what’s more likely to cause you to leave a comment, etc.. They collect this information based on how you act on the site.

“Personal Data” has to do with information about you. This includes your location, age, name, etc.. In most cases, this is information that you freely give Facebook as opposed to it being collected subliminally.

## How are they using this information?

This level of data harvesting may sound scary, but it doesn’t answer what the salient threat actually is. One issue on this front is that we don’t actually know with perfect certainty what Facebook does, and we can only get hints based on what they tell us, and what they’ve been caught doing in the past. Here’s a list of three items, accompanied by some analysis.

### Turned over to the government

This likely only applies in certain circumstances, namely, to those engaged in criminal activity; however, this doesn’t excuse this behavior. Facebook has no right to abuse its power over the people who depend on it for communication, and your privacy should absolutely matter under all circumstances.

### Sold to the highest bidder

Facebook has been caught in scandals in the past for monetarily collaborating with third parties to disclose your personal information. Most famously, they were impugned for their involvement with Cambridge Analytica, a shady political firm.

### Experimented on internally

Finally, your information is collected and researched internally. Whenever you see a news story with a headline like, “Study finds Facebook users xyz,” this information is gathered subliminally by Facebook. In some cases, this information is given to researchers, but this is primarily internal research.

## What can you do to stop Facebook from abusing your information?

We plan on writing about all the different steps you can take to minimize Facebook’s grasp over your data; however, the biggest first step you need to take is to remove harmful information you’ve posted in the past.

Facebook is able to deduce a shocking amount about your life based on inferences they make from your posts and activity, and deleting those posts will get rid of this vault of knowledge. Redact does this in a matter of seconds, and is free to boot. To start today, go to redact.dev/download to start your path to true privacy.


What does Facebook do with your data?


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Passwords are the first line of defense between a cybercriminal and your accounts. Having a weak password greatly increases the risk of your accounts being compromised, resulting in your personal information (your phone number or bank account) being exposed. While there are ways that you can strengthen your password to immensely mitigate this risk, as expressed in one of our [previous articles](https://redact.dev/blog/why-is-having-a-strong-password-so-important), keeping track of more complex passwords can be difficult. Fortunately for you, this is exactly what password managers excel at.

Password managers, while having a great amount of utility, share the same challenge as all other products in existence: competitors. With a plethora of clashing software, all claiming to be superior to the others, how could you possibly determine which is right for you? In order to make this decision as easy as possible for you, we have compiled a list (in no particular order) of password managers, along with their respective strengths and weaknesses.

## 1Password

1Password is one of the most recognizable password managers on the market. Part of this recognition comes from its outstanding reviews on sites such as Trustpilot. 1Password offers two options for personal use; a $2.99 a month option for one individual, and a $4.99 option able to be shared among 5 people. There are also options for businesses, starting at $7.99 a month.

### Pros

- Supports Two-Factor Authentication
- Accessible on numerous platforms (MacOS, Windows, Linux)
- Accessible on mobile applications (iOS and Android)
- Can generate more memorable passwords (full words instead of just random characters)
- Has a “Travel Mode” when going across borders

### Cons

- No free plan available
- User interface is a bit outdated
- Comes with only 1 GB of document storage

## Keeper

In comparison to other paid password managers, Keeper proves itself to be a worthy adversary. While it is not free, Keeper provides a wide array of options for customers to choose from according to their needs. If you want it for personal use, you can pay $2.91 per month, or if you are looking to use it for your business, you can pay $3.75 per month. In addition to this, one of the most exceptional features is the fact that students are given 50% off a personal use plan.

### Pros

- Supports Two-Factor Authentication
- Accessible from numerous devices
- Easy-to-navigate user interface
- Fingerprint & Face ID login
- Provides 24/7 customer support
- Has Dark Web monitoring

### Cons

- No free plan available
- Premium services can be costly

## Bitwarden

Unlike the aforementioned password managers, Bitwarden does not instantly put a price on your safety. Instead, Bitwarden offers an entirely free service for personal use. It includes your own, personal “vault” to generate, save, and access unique passwords at any time from practically any device, whether it be on their mobile application or on your desktop.

### Pros

- Free for personal use
- Unlimited storage for passwords
- Supports Two-Factor Authentication
- Keeps track of password history
- Checks to see if any password generated was discovered in recent data breaches
- Compatible with many platforms (MacOS, Windows, Linux)
- Accessible through browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.)
- Has a mobile application (iOS and Android)

### Cons

- Does not have live chat or phone support
- User interface is a bit hard to navigate

While all these password managers are great, Keeper seems to provide a lot of extra features at a relatively lower cost than other paid password managers. Unique features like dark web monitoring and fingerprint / face recognition logins, paired with low-cost options (e.g., the student plan) are certainly what give Keeper an edge on their competitors. However, Bitwarden provides a completely free service for personal use that goes above some aspects of the premium services. For example, while 1Password only stores your deleted passwords for 365 days, Bitwarden will keep track of your password history permanently


The Top Password Managers in 2021


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Recently, [we wrote about](https://redact.dev/blog/what-are-vpns-and-what-are-they-useful-for) what VPNs are, and some of their pros and cons. While this is all wonderful information, it doesn’t really help you decide which specific service to choose. There are literally hundreds of competing companies that claim to offer the same product, so which ones are the best?

Here’s a list of our 4 favorite VPN services in no particular order, along with their relative strengths and weaknesses to one another.

## Express VPN

At $2.95 a month, ExpressVPN offers the basic suite of VPN services. They’ll encrypt your data, allow you to access location gated content, and not even sacrifice your lightning fast speeds. They claim to operate out of 160 locations in 94 different countries, and to have “unlimited bandwidth.” But what are their true strengths and weaknesses?

### Pros

Express VPN has some of the best speeds of any VPN service, in addition to providing some of the more secure encryption. This killer combo is further sweetened by their diversity of servers, allowing you to skip around and access content from almost anywhere in the world.

### Cons

The only cons worth mentioning are Express VPN’s price, and their lack of a solution to ad blocking. Otherwise, they’re a standout option.

## Nord VPN

Nord VPN undoubtedly has the largest ad campaign of these options, and as a result, the most brand recognition. They boast rapid speeds, secure encryption, diverse server locations, and an intuitive UI. That being said, does it meet expectations?

### Pros

In short, yes. Nord VPN is top in the line in terms of security, encryption, features, speed, and transparency. All of this is wrapped up in a lovely 11.95$ per month plan, a full dollar cheaper than Express VPN (wow!)

### Cons

The only cons to speak of are related to the platforms it supports. It’s not nearly as comprehensive as Express VPN in terms of being accessible from different browsers, operating systems, etc.. Additionally, the pricing options are a little rigid, but this is dampened by the volume of YouTube sponsor codes.

## Proton VPN

Proton VPN stands out by marketing itself as the affordable alternative to its flashier, sexier competitors. While they’re off fighting to offer the most features, the most servers, the best encryption, they’re gunning for the market who’s not quite set on reaching for their wallet. That raises the question, how successful are they in this quest?

### Pros

In terms of the most noticeable effects Proton will have on your day-to-day operations, they excel. They have very fast speeds, and a perfectly serviceable number of locations. Combined with the reasonable price point of 0 dollars a month, Proton VPN is immediately an attractive option.

### Cons

Sacrifices must be made, though. Proton VPN lags behind the others in terms of encryption and how many platforms it supports. Additionally, you may find yourself unable to access truly niche content depending on what you’re interested in, even though the vast majority of users are well serviced by its repertoire.

## Surfshark

Finally, Surfshark swims onto the scene. In addition to offering a fully functional VPN, they also provide a bevy of additional privacy features, including “scans” for your ID, Credit Cards, and email addresses. We won’t be looking at these options today, but they’re worth considering as we talk about how they compare.

### Pros

The best thing to be said is the number of platforms (browsers, operate systems, etc) that they offer their protection too. Their speeds are perfectly serviceable, and their encryption is top tier. Additionally, they offer their services at 2.49 a month; however, it’s billed in two year chunks.

### Cons

That being said, they’re sort of a jack of all trades master of none. You get a lot of bang for your buck, but you aren’t getting the most transparent, fastest, most accessible VPN. With these drawbacks in mind, if you want a wider array of features than just a VPN, this is a wonderful option.


The Top 4 VPNs in 2021


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When protecting both your privacy and online accounts, you are your own best defense. You determine the [length and complexity of each password](https://redact.dev/blog/why-is-having-a-strong-password-so-important), as well as which extra security measurements to opt-into, such as [Two-Factor Authentication](https://redact.dev/blog/what-is-two-factor-authentication). While these are all phenomenal ways to protect yourself from malefactors, people often overlook something excruciatingly important: their mannerisms on social media.

## The Scope of Your Information on Social Media

As expressed in [one of our previous articles](https://redact.dev/blog/the-power-of-the-send-button), the “send” button on social media generates an immense outreach. Your information immediately becomes accessible to millions of people, one of which that could potentially be your undoing. This is why it is crucial for users to post safely, as even the most arbitrary piece of information could be extremely valuable to a cybercriminal.

## What is Oversharing?

The definition of “oversharing” is rather self-evident - it is simply disclosing too much information. Whether it be a post with your pet’s name, a picture at your favorite local coffee shop, or details about an upcoming vacation, these all come with a level of risk. Your pet’s name could be linked to one of your passwords, the post at your local coffee shop could give away your location to strangers, and a post about an upcoming trip out-of-town could be an unintended invitation for a burglar to break into your home while you are away.

There are also features on the social media platforms themselves that could be detrimental to keeping your online presence safe. Certain components of these sites, such as Twitter, often provide information to the public that you might not necessarily want out there. For example, posts made on certain platforms can have tags, or “geolocators,” underneath them that disclose where the post was created. There are also “fun” features that go unnoticed, like your birthday. While it is nice to receive birthday wishes, your date-of-birth is critical information to cybercriminals looking to breach your accounts, as they are often tied to passwords or security questions.

## How to Protect Yourself from Oversharing

If you are just learning about oversharing and the immense risk that comes with it, you may be wondering how you could protect yourself. Fear not - preventing oversharing only takes a few steps! Here are some great ways for you to prevent accidentally doing it in the future:

- Make your social media profiles private
- Avoid posting personal details
- Be mindful of what you are posting before you press “send”
- Disable location-based settings on social media platforms

While these are good measures to prevent oversharing in the future, posts from your past that could be oversharing your information are still out there. Now, you may think to yourself “How do I go back to delete hundreds, maybe thousands of posts? That’s too much time and effort!” Fortunately for you, Redact can get this done with ease. Whether it be a post you made a day ago or a year ago, Redact can go back and remove them from the public’s eye, ridding the threat of oversharing. You can get started for free today by downloading Redact for Windows, MacOS, or Linux at [redact.dev/download](redact.dev/download).


Oversharing: A Self Inflicted Danger


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It’s increasingly popular to see two-factor authentication be the norm for many users across all social media platforms. This is because it’s so incredibly effective at keeping your accounts secure in addition to being relatively easy to enable. That raises the question though, what is a “factor,” what does it mean to have two of them, and why is it so effective?

### Factors and Authentication

Whenever you want to access information on a computer, it’s become common practice to prove in some way that you have the proper credentials and clearance to get in. This applies equally to your personal, private messages and classified documents in a top-secret government database. The process of proving your identity is called “Authentication.”

Authentication requires any individual to provide one of the following pieces of proof, called “Factors.”

- Something the user has
- Something the user knows
- Something the user is
- Somewhere the user is

Most commonly, people use the factor “something the user knows” in the [form of a password](https://redact.dev/blog/why-is-having-a-strong-password-so-important) to authenticate their identity. It’s also common to see people use biometrics (something the user is) or even physical keys (something the user has.)

### Multi-Factor Authentication

Any individual factor by itself can be easily compromised. Keys can be stolen or faked, locations can be duped or trespassed on, information can be stolen or guessed, and even your identity can be stolen. With this in mind, it’s a good idea to employ more than one factor to ensure maximal security.

For example, let’s imagine that before you log into your Facebook account, you have to provide a password in addition to a confirmation code delivered to your phone number. This is an example of two-factor authentication, where one factor is “something that you know,” and the other is “something that you have.” Alternatively, you could require a password in addition to a fingerprint scan.

### Relevance to you

Whatever your preferred factor, you’re limited by convention. Most social media platforms will have an option to enable two-factor authentication, but it’s almost always limited to connecting your phone number to your account.

If you take 5 minutes out of your day to set this up, it increases the difficulty of breaking into your account dramatically. After all, how likely is it that a malicious actor will have access to both your physical phone and your password?

It may seem inconvenient, but the benefits are immeasurable. You should absolutely enable two-factor authentication on as many social media platforms as possible as soon as possible.


What is Two-Factor Authentication, and why is it important?


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Since its founding in 1998, Google has come to dominate the tech industry. Over the past twenty years, it has extended its reach far from its humble beginning as a search engine, ranging from a YouTube, a video sharing service, all the way to Google Fiber, a broadband internet service. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Google has also dabbled in Global Positioning System technology - more commonly referred to as “GPS.”

Whether it be from a web browser on your desktop, or an app on your smartphone, anyone can view your home from wherever they are. Without even knowing your direct address, someone could potentially stumble across things as broad as your city, to specifics such as your neighborhood. If you feel uncomfortable knowing this, you are not alone and, thankfully, there is a way that you can make yourself more private.

### Blurring Your Home on Google Maps

If you do not want your house to be visible on Google Maps, fear no longer. By following these simple steps, you can make sure that your house gets blurred out on their applications:

1. [Go to Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps) and enter your home address
2. Enter “Street View” mode by dragging the tiny yellow, person icon at the bottom-right corner of your screen onto the map and in front of your house
3. Shift your camera to face your house, then click “Report a Problem,” located at the bottom-right corner of the screen
4. Position the red square onto your house, then select “My home” underneath the “Request blurring” list.
5. Enter your email address and fill out the CAPTCHA
6. Press “Submit”!

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How to hide your home from Google Maps in 2021


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Keeping your account secure is vitally important to operate safely in online spaces. Your personal information, identity, finances, conversations, and more are all guarded behind (hopefully various) passwords across all your accounts and devices. While it’s easy to get complacent or employ bad practices, lapses in judgement can significantly increase the risk of at least one of your accounts getting compromised.

### Why make a strong password?

It's taken for granted that longer, more complex passwords are better than shorter, simpler ones. Intuitively, this is because we imagine that a longer password is harder to guess, but in reality, it’s slightly more complex.

“Guessing” a password in a cryptographic sense involves spam firing every possible combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. This is done with the fastest, most powerful computers available, and is by no means the most effective way to gain access to somebody’s account.

In fact, we recently wrote about a far more subtle way of obtaining account credentials in a previous article - Social Engineering: The Silent Killer.

However, if a malicious actor is dead set on breaking into your account in the most direct possible way, then they can simply start with the minimum number of characters the service allows, and systematically work through every single possible combination, adding a character only after all the other possibilities are exhausted.

In such cases, each single addition can add days, months, even centuries to the time it takes for even the fastest computers in existence to crack.

### What is a “strong password” anyway?

Today, websites are typically pretty transparent about displaying password strength, and many people even develop a natural sense for it. As a general rule of thumb, the more stuff you add to your password, the better.

Here are some things to keep in mind when trying to create a strong password, many of which will be a requirement on some sites.

- Mixed Capitalization
- Numbers
- Symbols
- Multiple Words
- As many characters as possible

### Two-Factor Authentication

Ultimately, the most important thing you can do to keep any of your accounts safe is to enable two factor authentication. A hacker can’t access your account even if they have your password if they don’t also have your phone number, or email address. It can be tedious, but the reward from locking down all your accounts by tying them to your phone is enormous.

We’ll discuss Two Factor Authentication, what it means precisely, and the different forms it takes in a [future article](https://redact.dev/blog/what-is-two-factor-authentication), but for now, go check your account’s settings in whatever social media app you may be interested in, and enable it by following the instructions.


Why is having a strong password so important?


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Privacy has remained one of the most paramount topics across the globe, especially within the United States. In fact, emphasis on privacy can be traced as far back as 1890, in which two lawyers from Harvard Law School understood “the principle which protects personal writings and any other productions of the intellect or the emotions, is the right to privacy” in their article, “[The Right to Privacy](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html).” Even though those words were published well-over a century ago, many Americans still share the same sentiment. While politics has grown increasingly partisan, [a survey conducted by Morning Consult](https://morningconsult.com/2021/04/27/state-privacy-congress-priority-poll/) found that Democrats (86%) and Republicans (81%) overwhelmingly believed that Congress should make privacy a “top” or “important but lower” priority in 2021. In the same survey, nearly three-quarters (72%) of voters said Congress is responsible for regulating data collection. However, despite privacy remaining one of the most prevalent topics, certain privacy features, such as “incognito mode,” are often misunderstood.

## Incognito Mode in the Public Eye

Incognito mode is quite possibly one of the most well-known privacy functions available on the Internet. According to Elie Bursztein, a researcher from Google, [just over two-thirds of people (67%) knew what private browsing was](https://elie.net/blog/privacy/understanding-how-people-use-private-browsing/). Even though incognito mode certainly has name-recognition, it is not nearly used in the same capacity, and is often used under false preconceptions. In the same study, Bursztein discovered that only a mere 34.5% used incognito mode consistently, and among that same group of people:

- 54% use incognito mode to hide from the websites they visit
- 20% use incognito mode to hide from their Internet Service Provider (ISP)
- 16% use incognito mode to hide from people who manage their network

Unfortunately for those respondents, those are not what incognito mode is designed to do.

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<img src="/blog-content/24/incognito-window.jpg" layout="responsive" width="788" height="426" alt="incognito window">
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## The Misconceptions of Incognito Mode

To many, this screen should look familiar. It is the first window that opens when you launch incognito mode. While many forego this screen to search in what they believe to be “private,” they miss critical information that explicitly states that incognito “doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit.”
When compared to the aforementioned statistics, it becomes evident that a majority of those that use incognito mode are completely unaware as to what it actually does.

## The Reality of Incognito Mode

Even though there are many misconceptions around incognito mode, it can still be a great tool for privacy purposes. More specifically, Norton, [an antivirus company](https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-privacy-how-does-incognito-mode-work.html), emphasizes that incognito mode can:

- Delete cookies from the websites you access
- Keep your browsing history empty on your device
- Prevent third parties from collecting your data (e.g., your location)

Overall, to those who want to keep their digital footprint as small as possible, you cannot go wrong when using incognito mode, so long as you understand its true functionality.


Our cat diaries

What does Facebook do with your data? • 2021-09-07

The Top Password Managers in 2021 • 2021-09-06

The Top 4 VPNs in 2021 • 2021-09-05

Oversharing: A Self Inflicted Danger • 2021-09-04

What is Two-Factor Authentication, and why is it important? • 2021-09-03

How to hide your home from Google Maps in 2021 • 2021-09-02

Why is having a strong password so important? • 2021-09-01

The Truth about Incognito Mode • 2021-08-31