[{"content":"Can you actually count how many social media platforms exist in 2026?\nCount with me\u0026hellip;\nInstagram, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, X (former Twitter), threats, Blue Sky, Quora, Clubhouse, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok, Telegram, Pinterest, Discord, Twitch, and Tumblr.\nDid it end? No. It didn\u0026rsquo;t and never will. Each year some new social media platform launches by someone.\nNow, you say how many of these social media apps are installed on your phone, or at least you have an account on one. Probably in 4 or 5 platforms?\nWhat do you use it for?\nUse it for getting connected with friends? or for time passing? Or for making some money? Or any job-related requirements?\nAnyway, it\u0026rsquo;s understandable that for some reason we really need to use social media platforms. But at the same time for many, these apps are not essential at all. They just want to kill time by consuming this curated content. They don\u0026rsquo;t know that these platforms provide no real benefits and are slowly eating up their brains.\nMaybe readers already saw a lot of videos and articles related to people quitting social media and posting experiences after years of absence. That\u0026rsquo;s absolutely not a trend or clickbait. Especially from my personal experience, where I quit all major social media about 3 years ago, which was a really good and effective decision for my overall mental health.\nThe view from outside of social media is very clear and peaceful. No rush, no need to prove anyone anything, no validation needed for any acts, etc\u0026hellip; When I look into the universes like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. from here, it feels really weird what happens inside there.\nWhy is deleting social media worth it? Let\u0026rsquo;s talk about why deleting most of your social media platforms in 2026 can be a good treatment for your mental health and how it\u0026rsquo;s going to change your life forever.\nYour attention span is in danger. All those stimulating facts and news shown on these platforms are specifically designed to grab your attention. By you daily using these platforms and putting your attention on their unnecessary posts and videos, you see they are slowly damaging your brain by decreasing its attention span.\nAttention span: attenstion span can be described as the time an individual can spend on a single task without getting distracted.\nThey send constant notifications and reminders about new posts, people you may know, new messages, and you getting a like just to make you check the app. Without your attention, all those algorithms and suggested content become useless. So your attention is their revenue.\nThe comparison trap Every time you scroll the app, it\u0026rsquo;s guaranteed that you must see any photo or video of someone with a talent or skills or maybe someone richer than you or who has a perfect life or is always a positively staying person or an individual who got a dream job. At the same time, you start comparing yourself with these individuals and feel sad that you don\u0026rsquo;t have a perfect life like theirs. That is not envy or jealousy or anything, but you are seeing all of them leading a perfect life, which is a life. Nobody\u0026rsquo;s life is perfect at all; everyone has sad moments and depressing events.\nActually, there is no celebrity, no influencer, and no rich; at the end, everyone is human. Also, they never post anything behind the scenes, like the sad moments in their life, financial issues, fears, etc\u0026hellip; Then why are you comparing your real life with their curated one?.\nThese social media need you hooked into their platform. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X, etc., will try so hard to control your emotions with their algorithm. Which means it\u0026rsquo;s not an accident; they really want you to compare yourself with others and feel an urge to become like them at any cost.\nThe algorithm knows you better than anyone. No matter which social media you use, every click, every like, your watch time, and who you share this with the most—all these details are recorded. They collect your contact list and call logs. They need your camera and microphone access.\nBy collecting all possible information about you from your and others phones, they feed the data to the algorithm. So next time opening the app, it suggests posts, videos, and ads about what you recently talked about, what you planned to buy, your weekend plan, etc\u0026hellip;\nBasically they are stealing everything from your phone with your own permission to show personalized ads and posts that can trigger your attention to click it. Isn\u0026rsquo;t it creepy?\nThe false sense of connection. I know you have too many followers and following. But all these followers are really following you because they really need to or just followed you to increase their following list?\nThe people you see on social media or who like your posts are not your friends. I am not saying they are untrustworthy, fake, or something. But they are the same persons addicted and trapped just like you to the platform.\nThey are liking your content you posted because it helped them feel relatable to the content or it helped them trigger some dopamine. Not because they see the real value or meaning in your post. Some others are just like mirrors; if you like them, they like them; if you message, they reply like that. Everything is just artificial and fake.\nHow to test it? Just delete or deactivate any of your social media accounts and see how many followers/frinds actually miss and try to find you. Some will never because for them you are easily replaceable, and they have already replaced you.\nWasting hours for nothing. Actual feelings of accomplishment or satisfaction require hard work. Social media is just a bucket of free, effortless dopamine you can trade/mine with your precious time. Many people just opt in for it without a second thought. So all the time you ever spend, spending and going to spend without actual development or effort, is just wasted hours.\nYou are not going to find any treasure in these platforms at all, so please stop digging for more and start living your life. Life is much shorter than we think.\nYour self-esteem is tied to strangers validation. Now you need other people\u0026rsquo;s likes and positive comments under your post to value yourself. Even if we think it\u0026rsquo;s not, actually it is. We are craving likes and views for nothing.\nA ton of likes under a post means nothing, as it really depends on someone\u0026rsquo;s mood or what they actually value. Because we don\u0026rsquo;t know who is even posting the comment, maybe he is in a bad mood, or he just doesn\u0026rsquo;t know about what you posted at all. Still, we count a dislike or negative comment as hate or low value.\nNobody needs anybody\u0026rsquo;s validation for anything. Everyone will make mistakes, and it\u0026rsquo;s 100% sure that for a thing there are both supporters and haters. So the likes are not a way to measure your talent. But most social media platforms promote the opposite by giving a like or dislike button.\nThe news is specifically designed for your attention. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to be informed about what\u0026rsquo;s happening around the world 24/7. The media just tricked you into getting viewers. You even don\u0026rsquo;t know the news you just saw is real or fake. And most of the time, what are these media just publishing? a political promotion or news with the actual fact removed. It means none of these for supporting the society or helping the people to get their rights but instead for harvesting money, supporting governments by hiding their secrets, promoting a specific political party at election time, etc\u0026hellip;\nDon\u0026rsquo;t hurt your brain by feeding this shit into your brain. Especially the social media platform is deciding what you should see and read on the feed.\nPolitical discussions and influence. Social media is filled with too many political posts. Everywhere there is discussion about politics and spreading hate across everyone. They actually use these mediums to spread a positive effect about the current authority across the internet when it is not. By suggesting this type of content to everyone, they can manipulate the mind to feel more attached to a certain political party, and this leads to more support even when they don\u0026rsquo;t deserve it.\nWe all know most of the popular media nowadays exist and have strong political influence. Not only media but also these popular social media platforms also. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to inject this garbage daily into your mind.\nYour sleep cycle is already damaged. Last night you scrolled until the last minute before going to bed. right? Or even some people sleep hugging their phone.\nYour phone and the blue light it emits are destroying your sleep depth and quality. More than that, your social media don\u0026rsquo;t even want you to go to sleep. They want you to spend some more time scrolling through the feed. I am not joking, but seriously, many individuals rescheduled their sleep time from 10 PM to 3 AM just for the dopamine they get from these social media platforms.\nPlease don\u0026rsquo;t do it. It\u0026rsquo;s extremely dangerous. Your sleep quality is more important than you think. It is what decides how your next day will go. So, I recommend avoiding screens at least 3 hours before bedtime. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry, nobody will steal your account or likes you got. You can scroll it tomorrow morning as you usually do.\nFOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). You believe everything you saw on social media is really important, and losing that account will damage your social life in unexpected ways. This type of illusion is called fear of missing out.\nYou really don\u0026rsquo;t have to keep up to date with what\u0026rsquo;s happening around the world, what your favorite celebrities are doing, how your colleagues are living, etc. Because none of that thing is your business at all.\nBy watching and monitoring everyone else\u0026rsquo;s life when you are going to find time for your own life? The fear or feeling of missing is just an effect of too much consumption of content from these platforms, and it will vanish when you delete social media and find a healthier habit.\nYour creativity is dying. When you are on social media, your thoughts are no longer yours. Every post you saw and every video you saw has an impact on your thoughts and activities.\nFor example,\nIf an algorithm is suggesting more sad and depressing content to you, eventually you will become hopeless in life. At the end you will become unable to do anything creatively.\nIf an algorithm suggests you more educational content, then you become interested in studying more and get a passion to achieve something.\nIf it suggests content that is very joyful or relatable, then you start scrolling those feeds more to unlock more dopamine.\nActually, creativity is born from emptiness and boredom. In social media there is no chance to be bored. A constantly distracted mind can\u0026rsquo;t do it for you. A stupid habit is what becomes a creative work. Like a butterfly born from a larva.\nSo as long as you are scrolling through this curated feed and worrying about others thoughts, your creativity is never going to be revealed. Because it\u0026rsquo;s not you; it\u0026rsquo;s an individual who carries others thoughts and problems. So slowly the creative side of you dies inside you as time passes.\nTraining yourself to be easily manipulated. Those posts popping up in your feed are not even verified to be real by anyone, and they can be written and posted by anyone. So at what measure are you deciding to trust in the first place?\nOnce you believe one thing that ends up in a lie, there are chances you are going to blindly trust more and more lies.\nBy trusting everything you see online blindly, you make yourself easily manipulatable by anyone.\nAll you wanted to do is, if you want to know about any serious stuff, then do your own review about it. Search on multiple platforms and also in official records. Just depending upon a low-quality social media feed is not reliable at all. So don\u0026rsquo;t like, share, or repost blindly.\nHealth issues. All the time you scroll by lying on the bed, eat food by scrolling, have weird posture while using mobile devices, etc., are going to hit you seriously in the future. This is not how humans are supposed to treat their body. It\u0026rsquo;s right that now we have more convenience than our ancestors lack, but all this convenience will just slowly destroy us at the end.\nAs you get older, your body gets weaker and harder. Without essential exercise, fatigue, cholesterol, acidity, etc., are going to hit you hard. So please schedule and allocate your time also for physical exercises too. Drink water constantly. It\u0026rsquo;s really worth it.\nYou are constantly missing present moments. When you are inside your phone, you always forget that there is a present time. And if you are mindlessly scrolling through feeds, who will take care of the present moment that is never going to return?\nYou saw a post about childhood on social media and started to worry about your missing childhood.\nSocial media is only forcing you to look into things that already happened, like sweet memories, or worry about things that are going to happen. It actually never mentions anything about the present because in the present you are scrolling and scrolling. And if you get aware of that, you will stop using social media platforms or limit your usage. That is something these platforms never want to happen.\nJust prioritize your present moments over social media. Because time is passing and it will never return. Nothing is permanent, and slowly all you own is vanishing along with time. Your parents, current age, free time, friends, and everything will fade away. So in your free time, just spend time by talking with someone, taking a walk, doing any hobby, preparing dishes, or anything. But don\u0026rsquo;t scroll.\nDopamine addiction. The dopamine addiction we have on social media is comparable to gambling/hardcore drug addiction. Social media like Instagram and TikTok itself shows examples of how much worse dopamine addiction can be.\nMany individuals do crazy and unacceptable things for likes and views. They don\u0026rsquo;t use it for good; they need fame and money. They need a successful life. So they act like how social media algorithms are designed; they do which content gets more interaction on social media. So in an indirect and effective way social media is making them do it. This includes harmful pranks, cheating on a partner, invading others\u0026rsquo; privacy, criticizing others for no reason, etc\u0026hellip;\nAnd this is disturbingly normalized by society too.\nYour goals and dreams are replaced. What you consume, what you become. Currently your goal or intention is heavily influenced by social media. Most people might feel unacceptable. But in reality what you see or interact with slowly changes your likes and dreams. If this is a good thing, it is actually a good thing, but what if it is an unacceptable thing?\nThis happens in a subconscious way. Many people may claim, \u0026ldquo;I never had a wish or anything, but social media helped me find one,\u0026rdquo; which is totally false. Social media didn\u0026rsquo;t help them but tricked them. A powerful algorithm draws a line to move their entire life forward.\nYou are the product. They collect all possible data from you and people you know and interact with. They also have trackers on all major websites. And they will easily fingerprint you if you are a regular user of browsers like Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc\u0026hellip; With all this collected data, they already build a detailed profile about you. Based on this data profile, they train the algorithm to better understand you and suggest posts and ads based on your preferences. To make it accurate nowadays, they even ask for your ID, email, phone number, etc\u0026hellip;\nWhen you see ads that actually make you feel useful, then you click and buy it. Your money is gone, and the social media company generated its ad revenue and commission from the affiliated website. So now say who is the product and who is the user? Data brokers and advertisement customers are their real users.\nSmall data brokers sell data to major companies, while these major companies keep it themselves to grow their own ecosystem. Major platform owners like Google, Meta, Amazon, etc. has already found doing it. Then what?. They are still doing it and doing it. All these fines and suits seem like a joke at the end.\nIf a product is free, then you are the product\n- not applicable to the FOSS community.\nYour mental health is worse than you think. Nobody actually feels good after scrolling social media. There is too much to look at, and modern bloats like reels, shorts, and even stories are just like a parade of different emotions at the same time. The human brain is never designed to consume such content at all. Eventually it will lead to serious mental health issues.\nAnd this too is extremely normalized by society. Social media owns the power to make fake reality.\nStudies have found that Instagram is the worst app for mental health. And the release of the Reels feature made it extremely worse. At the same time, other platforms are not too bad regarding mental health issues.\nFalse sense of productivity. You believe you are being productive while all the time spending on platforms like YouTube or Quora. But it\u0026rsquo;s actually not. The more you watch, the more knowledge you get is a myth. If you want to learn something or just want to get knowledge about anything, you have to actually practically do it yourself. The reality is that you consume a lot of hours but do not do anything at all. It means you watch YouTube videos for hours just to forget everything at the end. Or in another way, you fall into those recommendations and waste another 2-3 hours on theirs.\nSo instead of consuming 10 videos, try to do what said in 1 video yourself and learn from that.\nYour privacy is completely gone. All major social media platforms require massive amounts of data to function. Usually an app like Facebook or Instagram requires these minimum permissions to function properly.\nCamera and permission. Storage access Location Contacts Notifications Nearby devices Bluetooth And all these data are collected as soon as you open the app. Even if you deny the permission, they constantly ask to turn it on. Many apps are caught collecting this data even if permissions are off.\nThe profiles they create using these data are permanent; they will never expire or get destroyed, even if you die.\nMajor social media companies never sell this to anyone because data is the fuel for this type company but they collect or buy it in every possible way.\nYou are stuck in reactive mode instead of proactive mode. Social media teaches you to react to everything. Instead of planning our own life, we are constantly worried about what happened to this celebrity, when that movie will release, and what happened to that influencer/streamer.\nSeriously, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about any celebrities or something; all you have to worry about is you. It\u0026rsquo;s not selfishness. And actually a way you can help others in your life is by focusing on yourself first!\nThe need for a perfect body This affects women more effectively than men. Because they are more worried about their looks and appearance than men. When they see some perfect-looking men or women in the feed, they start to compare them with these figures.\nActually, that can be a model or a celebrity or anything. If yes, then that\u0026rsquo;s their job. Then why are you comparing yourself with them?. Are you trying to become a model or to get fit for any auditions? Even if yes, then still you don\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about others looking visually better than you. Because each individual has their own value.\nAlso, you must be just sitting in your room. They took that photo well prepared with a perfect dress, lighting, background, and more. It\u0026rsquo;s not relatable to your situation at all.\nSadly, this is also very normalized by society.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t sit alone with your own thoughts anymore. You know what makes us both different individuals? It\u0026rsquo;s our thought. So sitting alone with it and caring for yourself is much more important than you think.\nBy spending too much time on social media, your mind gets distracted very easily by what you see there. The biggest problem in society nowadays is that people don\u0026rsquo;t know themselves anymore. Because they have no time for themself to sit with their thoughts.\nEven the social media algorithm knows you better. Right?\nYour genuine personality is replaced by a curated persona. A lot of these things happen subconsciously. In a deep desire to achieve something, just like everyone, you started to follow certain trends even if you deeply don\u0026rsquo;t like it. But your mind tells you you must do it to gain more audience and build fame across Instagram.\nActually, by doing such stuff, you are losing your own self for something that at the end doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter at all.\nFor example, at a point people care about privacy. Then eventually they get to know that all these apps collect massive amounts of data anyway, so without fighting, just use them normally as everyone does. This actually cost you your privacy as an individual.\nRagebait. Nowadays social media influencers look more worried about what others are doing than themselves. They are doing this intentionally by suing and teasing others to create ragebait content.\nRagebait is a type of content that is created to provoke certain emotions like anger, frustration, and outrage in viewers.\nBecause social media algorithms prioritize posts with higher user interaction. Negative emotions are what generate more viewers. So basically they are doing it intentionally for more views and audiences. No content you see on social media is genuine, and there is a reason behind it. Everything you interact with on social media is specifically designed for users like you.\nBuilding someone else\u0026rsquo;s empire. All time spent on social media to see and like posts is for someone else\u0026rsquo;s growth. You helped the platform to generate revenue by watching their ads. At last you are still poor.\nWill the content creator or platform give you a share of their earnings?. Never.\nAt the end, you got some eye strain, depression, overthinking, body pain, etc\u0026hellip; See that as a warning to press that delete button. It\u0026rsquo;s not that hard. Just do it.\nActual talents/skills are getting ignored. Not everyone uses social media just to consume content. There are people with actual talent and skills who try to create content and posts on social media. but the algorithm never prioritizes them. Even if it prioritizes, they get less than half the views compared to some other shitty video.\nBecause it\u0026rsquo;s a business, and they have no benefit by supporting actual talents. They have to boost videos that trigger instant fun and dopamine. That\u0026rsquo;s the only way to keep these viewers stuck on their platforms.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t handle discomfort. Whenever you feel bad or stressed, you open your social media. It means you are unable to process your own emotions. This is the effect of opening and scrolling social media when you feel bored and sad. So your mind is now automatically needing that app when you are again feeling bad. This is not for good at all.\nYou have completely handed over your emotional control to social media platforms. And these social media platforms take that as an advantage to stay on your phone forever.\nComparison goes beyond people to your past. You see some post and instantly start to compare your past with it. For example, you are seeing a heartwarming video about school life or childhood. Meanwhile, your childhood was a disaster, and you have a trauma about it. So you instantly start comparing, like, \u0026ldquo;I never got a childhood like this,\u0026rdquo; while others almost enjoyed every moment in their life from beginning to end.\nThis is also not true at all. Actually, they are too carrying trauma; they do have a bad childhood that never met the expectations just like you. But the reality is that they don\u0026rsquo;t want to tell you about the dark sides. They only want to tell the highlights.\nSo eventually your mind is going to compare your actual past with this curated content. Which leads to unnecessary overthinking and stress.\nYou are delaying the actual life you want. The more you spend the time on social media and in front of a screen, the more you are delaying the life you actually want.\nSo, just stop scrolling as soon as possible. It\u0026rsquo;s not too late to recover. Try a social media detox to break the walls of your toxic social media world. You deserve better.\nThe big red flag. Major social media platform Instagram caught suggesting child porn videos directly in their feed as a recommendation and also in the Explore section. After a big controversy about this, Meta decided to find the channels and posts relating to these and wipe them from their platform. Now Instagram gives an option to control adult posts displayed on the feed and results, but as a non-Instagram user, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how effective it is.\nThey don\u0026rsquo;t even care about what type of content is served to whom. All they are making sure of is just one thing: the suggested post is enough to hook the user in the platform for hours.\nConclusion. Social media platforms have become so toxic, and society seems to normalize everything. I saw this as a very unhealthy habit and harmful at its best. That\u0026rsquo;s why I deleted all social media platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp, around 3 years ago without a second thought. That gave me an immeasurable amount of peace and happiness. Now I have more time for\nRead books. Write blogs Study. Self-care Spend time with parents Watch a full movie. and much, much more. I strongly recommend everyone who read my blog to consider a social media detox if any of the reasons I mentioned above are spots in your life.\nThank you so much for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/social-media-detox/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eCan you actually count how many social media platforms exist in 2026?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCount with me\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInstagram, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, X (former Twitter), threats, Blue Sky, Quora, Clubhouse, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok, Telegram, Pinterest, Discord, Twitch, and Tumblr.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDid it end? No. It didn\u0026rsquo;t and never will. Each year some new social media platform launches by someone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow, you say how many of these social media apps are installed on your phone, or at least you have an account on one. Probably in 4 or 5 platforms?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Deleting social media can be a good treat for your brain."},{"content":"We got an introduction to short-form content (short-form videos) from TikTok. Then after the ban of TikTok in various countries due to privacy problems, it triggered a massive adoption of this strategy in popular social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, X, and even Reddit. These platforms saw the absence of TikTok; there is a chance to get more users and interaction from these short-form content strategies.\nYouTube was a well-known platform for its educational videos and long-form content. Instagram was a photo-sharing app that wasn\u0026rsquo;t related to short-form videos at all. X was for tweets and sharing news. Then still, why did they all decide to adopt short-form content in the absence of TikTok? Let\u0026rsquo;s discuss.\nWhat is short-form content? Short-form content is a collection of short videos made from various sources such as films, television shows, entertainment videos, etc.\nWe know these days depression, anxiety, and mental disorders have drastically increased, and I would argue that excessive social media usage and endless scrolling through this short-form content have a big part in it.\nAs we already know, too much time spent scrolling through these videos can cause serious issues like,\nLower attention span We will become less interested in watching long-form content over short-form content and easily get distracted halfway through for no reason. Long-form content provides real value and triggers emotions in a healthier way without instant switching. We will end up like we can\u0026rsquo;t sit and watch a long video or an interesting movie.\nAbility to focus will be decreased Even if we took the phone for 5 minutes and checked a message, an accidental scroll on these types of videos causes the release of dopamine in the brain. Then we just scroll more, like mining gold for hours in a belief that the next scroll will deliver something useful. Expectation for an instant reward.\nWhat actually happens behind the scenes? We are not just scrolling through a bunch of short-form videos made for pure entertainment, but emotions. These 20-30 second videos have to say a lot in their limited duration, which our brain is not designed to process. That can be something joyful, sad, exciting, or even depressing. Our brain instantly gets attention from it and makes us feel that emotion even if it\u0026rsquo;s not real.\nThen you scroll up and see something depressing. The brain suddenly shifts your emotion to a depressing state. Then, another scroll, saw something sad, and instantly switched emotion to sadness. It goes and goes on.\nBasically, this short-form content you are watching is a loop of emotions. The emotions we want to only feel in real situations happen in our real life and within constant gaps. On the other side, short-form content delivers fresh emotions into your brain within 10-20 seconds. These instant emotional switches can really damage your brain in unexpected ways and put it in an unrecoverable state.\nLong time sitting without movements Everyone must notice that when you are scrolling through this stuff, you stay longer without movements, as if staring at the screen. No matter if you are studying for an exam, preparing dinner, walking, eating, etc., all your focus is on the phone screen and the content you are watching.\nThis type of habit leads to a decreased social life. Instead of interacting with someone in front of you or doing your goals, you prioritize short-form content.\nSadly nowadays everyone is scrolling on their phone. No one has time for meaningful talks.\nThe fake feeling of knowledge you are getting is also an illusion. Actually, you are not getting any value from it. You may think, \u0026ldquo;I am scrolling through this much content within a short amount of time. So I must be getting information so fast. So I don\u0026rsquo;t have to waste time on long-form content anymore.\u0026rdquo; But no. You scroll through 20 videos just to understand; you don\u0026rsquo;t remember the first 10 videos you watch.\nIf you want real knowledge or want to learn a useful skill, then you have to spend your valuable time on it by trying to do it. Did you make any mistake? That\u0026rsquo;s absolutely ok. Mistakes make you good at anything by forcing you to solve them yourself.\nInstead, scrolling through short-form content and thinking, \u0026ldquo;Now I know almost everything about something,\u0026rdquo; or just blaming yourself for not remembering it is not going to change anything at all. Short-form content is just for unhealthy entertainment. The less you scroll, the better you are.\nHow does the brain rewire? When you watch short-form contents daily, you are training your brain to become good at instantly switching emotions and always be ready to store temporary information as a massive wave of knowledge is coming as you scroll. Actually, as you follow this practice, your brain becomes really good at it so fast. Then it will end up in conditions like emotional sensitivity, low attention span, depression, distraction, etc.\nIn the end, you just spend a massive amount of time destroying your own brain and helping make money for some popular toxic social media companies.\nWhy does every platform have it? Because it\u0026rsquo;s that much effective in keeping users hooked. It gives a massive amount of dopamine and comfort to viewers. No efforts are needed, like searching and finding what you want. It\u0026rsquo;s instant; just scroll and scroll. An endless loop.\nMore than that, all these platforms exist not for making you better but for increasing all their revenue and market share as high as possible. From their side, short-form content is just a feature; if you use it and you become more mentally distracted, then it\u0026rsquo;s your fault. Nobody forced you to use it; it was just a psychological effect. We can\u0026rsquo;t blame anyone for that, and even if we did, anyone wouldn\u0026rsquo;t listen to us.\nThose who built or invented this feature have restricted their kids and family from consuming it completely. Because they know the dark side of it. They are clever. We are the people who blindly trust them and fall into their trap.\nWhat to do about it? Nothing so hard to do. Just stop watching it until it provides no real value or meaning. Why do you want these scrolling in the first place?. Ask yourself, what\u0026rsquo;s the purpose of continuously using harmful features even after we know it\u0026rsquo;s affecting our brain negatively? If your answer is \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t care at all,\u0026rdquo; then it means you are already affected. You need immediate detoxing.\nSolution. The major companies that have massive amounts of users and effectively integrated their platforms into short-form videos are Meta and Google after TikTok. By the way, a complete escape from these via their official proprietary app is not possible at all, in my sense.\nSo I recommend using alternative apps.\nFirst of all, I recommend deleting Instagram at all costs, as it has no value in anyone\u0026rsquo;s life except the fake sense of connectivity. You need to deactivate your Instagram account for two weeks to find who really actually cares about you more than your likes. Maybe only 1 or 2 from your 1000 Instagram followers.\nRead this\nPractical solutions Use platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and X in a browser. Consider open-source clients like NewPipe, PipePipe, LibreTube, etc. Switch to fediverse Use browser extensions like Unhook, Untrap for YouTube, etc. Use any digital well-being app from the Play Store. No matter which app or functionality you use to prevent it. Until you decide to stop, nothing will work.\nHope you all understand what I tried to deliver.\nThank you for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/short_form_contents/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe got an introduction to short-form content (short-form videos) from TikTok. Then after the ban of TikTok in various countries due to privacy problems, it triggered a massive adoption of this strategy in popular social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, X, and even Reddit. These platforms saw the absence of TikTok; there is a chance to get more users and interaction from these short-form content strategies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYouTube was a well-known platform for its educational videos and long-form content. Instagram was a photo-sharing app that wasn\u0026rsquo;t related to short-form videos at all. X was for tweets and sharing news. Then still, why did they all decide to adopt short-form content in the absence of TikTok? Let\u0026rsquo;s discuss.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Harmful Effects of Watching Short-Form Content."},{"content":"There is something so shady about the most used browser in this world, which is Google Chrome. No matter how many competitors with unavoidable features came into the browsers war, Google Chrome still dominates the web, not just because it is owned by Google, but because there is more than what you think.\nEvery time you open the browser \u0026ldquo;Google Chrome,\u0026rdquo; you aren\u0026rsquo;t just accessing the internet like you do on a normal web browser. You are stepping inside a world\u0026rsquo;s largest advertising tool; its parent company efficiently utilizes it to harvest data about almost everything and show targeted advertising.\nWith dominating over 60% of the global browser market share, Chrome looks like a very trustworthy and daily usable piece of software. Unlike other browsers, Chrome was founded by a company that gains hundreds of millions of dollars only from targeted ads. This is how Google just turned a decent browser called \u0026lsquo;Chromium\u0026rsquo; into its own evil version called \u0026lsquo;Chrome,\u0026rsquo; a locked-up proprietary garbage. Because the browser is closed source, it is hard to say how exactly its creepy privacy practices work.\nWhat happens in the Background? While users are just opening the browser and surfing through the sites they want, there are massive amounts of tiny background activities happening every second. Some of these processes can even give a spike in user\u0026rsquo;s RAM usage.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s look at what the background activities are always running in the background when you use Google Chrome.\n1.Telemetry processing and network pre-fetch. Google Chrome never stays idle. No matter if you actively use it or close/minimize it, the browser always keeps an active network establishment with Google servers. 2.Your keystrokes are in the cloud. Every time you type something into the search bar, every word you typed instantly sent to Google and stored on their servers for providing instant search suggestions and autocomplete of URLs and keywords even before you press enter. These keystrokes are kept on the server forever to make your future search and search results better tied to you. 3.Preload Pages There is a feature in Google Chrome called \u0026lsquo;preload pages,\u0026rsquo; which prefetches websites before we even visit them. This promise is faster access to every website we are going to visit. But did you ever think how Google knows which website to preload?\nThey are predicting it based on user browsing history and search terms, then downloads the web page scripts, tracking scripts, and cookies in the background. By performing prefetching, chrome exposes user\u0026rsquo;s IP address and auto-accepts cookie notices from a site the user hasn\u0026rsquo;t even visited yet.. 4.Fingerprinting Chrome collects way too much telemetry data, including OS version, CPU architecture, screen resolution, graphics driver details, etc. In their privacy policy, this is for optimizing the web experience and overall performance, but actually this type of regular metadata collection makes browser fingerprinting easier for advertising companies like Google. On-device Experiments Google never treats anyone as a user. Users are their products and user\u0026rsquo;s device is their testing ground. Google illegally used Chrome user\u0026rsquo;s local hardware for testing their new software and AI features. 1.The silent 4GB model download. Google automatically downloaded its local AI model sizes around 4GB (Gemini Nano) into a hidden profile directory named OptGuideOnDeviceModel. This download happened without user permission. Many Chrome users didn\u0026rsquo;t even know it happened before it became a news. Deleting the hidden profile directory never worked, as Chrome auto-downloaded the model few hours later after detecting it\u0026rsquo;s absence. 2.The self-restart of paused downloads. User paused downloads are automatically enabled after restarting/reopening Chrome. This leads to increased data usage and storage consumption. 3.Auto-enabling experimental flags Before new tracking methods and AI-related features were released officially, Google auto-enables some of them for Chrome users via experimental flags. This has done in the stable branch of Google Chrome. Sync Historically, all major browsers treated browsing data and cloud-based accounts separately. Google Chrome changed this by syncing locally stored browsing-related data into the user\u0026rsquo;s Google account. Now the browsing history is tightly linked to the user, not only in the browser but also in the cloud. Once you install Chrome on another device and sign in, Chrome auto-syncs all of your previous data to the fresh new session. Then continuously collect and merge all possible data into user\u0026rsquo;s Google accounts automatically. It\u0026rsquo;s not a feature but an aggressive tracking and identity-linking method. 1.Chrome Auto sign-in Google Chrome browser allows users to sign into its own platforms automatically using the Google account logged in on the browser. This can be disabled in the settings, but they kept the option deep inside the settings where most of the normal users never notice it or bother to change it at all. System-level access Chrome is not just limited to its own browser window. It is capable enough to install software components into user\u0026rsquo;s operating systems at the root level. 1.Auto update service. In Windows and macOS, Chrome installs root-level background services for browser-related auto updates, which run 24x7 even when Chrome is closed. Who knows what was actually installed? Thank god I\u0026rsquo;m on Linux. Even on Linux, I would never consider Chrome.\nForcing users to accept unacceptable changes The issue with Google Chrome is not only tracking; it\u0026rsquo;s also the user\u0026rsquo;s freedom of choice. Users have no control over the browser. They can\u0026rsquo;t decide what feature to use and what\u0026rsquo;s not. Everything is forced on them. When we compare Google Chrome with other mainstream browsers, Google Chrome is a bubble with weird rules.\nBecause of Google\u0026rsquo;s controls over both the Chrome browser and the Chromium engine (blink), they can rewrite the rules how they want them to be. And then these massive changes in the core chromium engine will force other chromium-based browsers too to follow these changes even if they are not acceptable. Google has already done it.\n1.Manifest V3: The end of content-blockers. In the history of all major chromium updates, I would say MV3 is the worst, and it\u0026rsquo;s already live in 2026.\nManifest V2 (Legacy) Extensions like uBlock Origin used the Web Request API to effectively apply their network filters and cosmetic filters to websites for a clean experience. This API allowed such extensions to inspect, modify, and block unwanted network requests in real-time before a web page is even completely loaded. Firefox and its forks remain the best choice to continue using powerful ad-blockers like uBlock Origin natively.\nBrave Browser continues to support uBlock Origin functionality through its native engine and self-hosted components.\nUngoogled Chromium maintains MV2 extension support by enabling custom installation flags.\nManifest V3 (Current) Google replaced the Web Request API with the DeclarativeNetRequest API. Instead of extensions deciding what to block, extensions have to hand a pre-approved list of rules to the browser only to let Chromium decide what to block and what not. It is not just limited to Chrome; it affects all major Chromium-based browsers. It limits the number of rules an extension can enforce. also eliminated dynamic code execution. Google forcefully disabled MV2-based extensions and flags that users had already installed on their system before the implementation of MV3. Google wiped all MV2 extensions from the Chromium web store and blocked sideloadable functionalities. Even though google claims MV3 is about security, its all about control and exclusive online advertising on the web.\nMalvertising Chrome natively renders Google\u0026rsquo;s ad network without default filtering. Malicious actors can manipulate the Google Ads auction system to place sponsored links at the top of search results. These fake ads impersonate original sources and deliver malware to users. This makes Chrome users more vulnerable to threats directly via google advertisements. Legal troubles Google\u0026rsquo;s worst privacy practices are not just investigated by privacy advocates, but various countries have filed huge fines on Google for its worst privacy practices and data security.\n1.The $5 billion incognito lawsuit. For years Chrome users used the incognito tab, believing it was truly private and nobody collected or logged their browsing data. In 2020, a massive class-action lawsuit exposed that Google is secretly tracking and recording Chrome users even in incognito mode. To settle the suit, Google paid a $5 billion legal fine. Not just fine, but Google is forced to make structural changes in its data handling practices. Massive Data Destruction. Google deleted a massive amount of data illegally collected from Chrome users while they were using incognito mode.\nCookie blocking. Google Auto blocked third-party cookies in private browsing mode for about 5 years. Then they started to re-enable third-party cookies again.\nRedefined disclaimers Google has rewritten its incognito disclaimer to be more detailed about the data collection practices when users are in incognito mode.\n2.GDPR Audits. In the European Union, a law called the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requires companies to collect data with consent and only collect a minimal amount of data that is really required to operate, which is completely violated in the case of Google Chrome.\nInvalid consent for data processing. Under GDPR consent must be freely given. Chrome\u0026rsquo;s practice of auto-signing users into its own platforms violated this principle.\nEuropean regulators repeatedly fined Google with tens of millions of dollars for this.\nEven though there are laws like GDPR, no one actually makes sure that a service or company strictly collects only necessary amount of user data. And if its violated, no serious action taken unless it is a multi-billion dollar company that triggered public complaints.\n3.Privacy Sandbox. Google tried to replace third-party cookies with its own native tracking protocols known as FLOC (Federated Learning of cohorts).\nEuropean and UK antitrust authorities found that it isn\u0026rsquo;t a privacy feature at all, but Google is using its browser dominance to lock competitors out of advertisement data while keeping the monopoly itself.\n4.The reality. Actually Google rarely change its tracking architecture unless forced by law, instead it simply changes its disclaimers to calm down the situation. For example, instead of stop tracking users across incognito browsing, google updated its incognito mode disclaimer into, This won\u0026rsquo;t change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including google.\nTake Back the Control. After reading this much, a normal human being must hesitate to use Google Chrome again. Switching browsers doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean sacrificing speed or usability. Even in modern days most browsers provide more functionality than Google Chrome, except for massive tracking in the background for showing personalized advertisements.\nMozilla Firefox Unlike other chromium-based browsers, it has its own powerful independent browser engine (Gecko). Enhanced tracking protection out of the box. Non-profit company that is not a part of the monopoly. Brave. Chromium engine, but with enhanced tracking prevention out of the box. It has its own adblock engine. Powerful fingerprint randomization capabilities. It has its own search engine. Tor integrated private browsing modes. Ungoogled Chromium. Pure chromium without Google Needs additional tweaks, like installing uBlock Origin for adblock functionality. Very minimal and empty out of the box. LibreWolf A privacy-hardened community maintained a web browser based on the Firefox Gecko engine. Comes with fingerprint resistance enabled by default. UBlock Origin is installed out of the box. Some websites can be broken because of hardened privacy tweaks. Don\u0026rsquo;t lose your privacy in the name of convenience. Chrome dominates 60% of the browser market share just because its pre-installed in many devices by default. Not because it was intentionally chosen by anyone.\nHope you guys found this blog useful and informative.\nThank you for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/google_chrome/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere is something so shady about the most used browser in this world, which is Google Chrome. No matter how many competitors with unavoidable features came into the browsers war, Google Chrome still dominates the web, not just because it is owned by Google, but because there is more than what you think.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery time you open the browser \u0026ldquo;Google Chrome,\u0026rdquo; you aren\u0026rsquo;t just accessing the internet like you do on a normal web browser. You are stepping inside a world\u0026rsquo;s largest advertising tool; its parent company efficiently utilizes it to harvest data about almost everything and show targeted advertising.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Google Chrome: The Ultimate Weapon of Google Monopoly"},{"content":"Nowadays online privacy is almost dead. Even in the comfort and dopamine loop we get from social media and the web, we also started to forget about the importance of privacy on the web. A single website owner to big corporations, including governments, has most of our browsing data, more than they need to protect us. Our every move is cleverly traced and kept for years without any security at all.\nOne of the most effective methods used to identify a person and the device he uses is fingerprinting. \u0026ldquo;Fingerprinting\u0026rdquo; isn\u0026rsquo;t just a word that indicates something, but it is the pipe they use to transmit or extract all our data (the device we use, operating system, installed fonts, etc.) via every single website we use. For monetization and earning, every single website owner injects tracking code into their websites without even knowing the full story.\nWhat is fingerprinting? It is a method used to identify a particular browser, extension, hardware, or user by collecting and combining various data like\nBrowser version Extension installed timezone and system-level language. Installed audio and video codecs Installed fonts. Browser settings tweaks. device resolution and size. Browser window size Using an operating system and much more data.\nThey collect it and combine it to identify users at different browsing sessions or even for cross-browser tracking.\nIs this much data directly provided to every website we visit by default? Yes, of course. All this data is automatically collected and stored on the server when we visit websites with our most used browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc.). It’s not cookies; it’s creepier and permanent compared to it.\nBut some other privacy-focused browsers (Mullvad, LibreWolf, Tor Browser, Brave Origin, etc.) prevent most of this data from getting leaked to websites we visit. Or they just spoof the values with a fake one, so the collected data becomes useless.\nJavaScript: The Real Danger JavaScript is a scripting language we use to write scripts. It provides added functionality to browsers and websites. What else can a normal scripting language do other than build some scripts. Right?\nNot at all. JavaScript is the tool all these websites use to harvest this much information from our devices. JavaScript is very useful, and at the same time it exposes a lot more than we can imagine about our browser and device.\nJavaScript depends on web APIs to run invisible background tasks for getting system details. This includes hardware info, RAM, screen size, timezone, etc.\nTypes of fingerprinting using JavaScript. Imagine JavaScript is giving a tiny task to your computer. By analysing the way user\u0026rsquo;s system process the task, JavaScript measures specific hardware on the system that is used to complete the task.\nLook at some fingerprinting methods effectively usable and continuously used with the help of JavaScript.\n1. Canvas fingerprinting (2D Graphics) Canvas is an HTML5 element used to draw 2D graphics and text directly on a webpage. How does fingerprinting work?\nJavaScript asks the browser to draw a 2D image with specific colors and shadows.\nAccording to the operating system, graphics driver, and graphics card, the way the system processes anti-aliasing is a bit different.\nAnti-aliasing is a method used to smooth out the edges.\nThe script notices these differences and renders those pixels into a text hash, creating a unique code. 2. WebGL fingerprinting (3D Graphics) WebGL is a browser API that allows sites to render 3D graphics. How does fingerprinting work?\nWebGL just directly asks the user\u0026rsquo;s system for its GPU\u0026rsquo;s manufacturer and model name.\nIt also forces the GPU to render hidden 3D objects. By the time the system completes the task, the script detects the tiny difference between GPU renderings and stores it.\n3. WebGPU fingerprinting WebGPU is an improved version of WebGL.\nIt does exactly what WebGPU does but with more added capabilities like low CPU overhead, multi-threading, etc.\nHow does fingerprinting work?\nWebGPU sits closer to actual hardware, which means it transmits even more accurate data than WebGL does.\nIt detects and stores structured information about adapter features, exact texture formats, WGSL language support, etc.\nThis fingerprinting method is much faster and extremely accurate.\n4. Audio fingerprinting The web audio API allows browsers to generate, process, and play audio directly in the browser. How does fingerprinting work?\nA script sends a silent sound wave through standard audio tools like an oscillator and dynamic compressor to make the system actually process the audio.\nSound waves are converted into long decimal numbers. To handle it, hardware needs to round it and store it somewhere. This rounding process depends on the combination of hardware and software the system has.\nThe output has a difference of microscopic fractions at the end compared to audio processed by someone else\u0026rsquo;s computer.\nThe web audio API script notices and records it.\n5. Font fingerprinting A technique used to detect all installed fonts on the system. How does fingerprinting work?\nA script writes hidden text snippets on a page using non-existent fonts so it falls back to the default font size.\nThen it swaps that font for hundreds of well-known and widely used fonts. (helvetica, sans-serif, verdana, etc\u0026hellip;)\nIf the text size changes when measuring the pixel width, then the script understands the font is installed on your system and records it.\n6. Other common fingerprinting methods JavaScript uses every possible way to collect much data from the website other than graphics and audio.\nHardware specs\nCollects the CPU\u0026rsquo;s exact core count and system RAM Screen \u0026amp; display parameters\nCollects screen width, height, available workspaces, color depth, pixel density, etc. TLS/Network handshake\nCollects the order and types of encryption cipher the connected HTTPS network support This is completely doable without Javascript too.\nTime zone\nCollects system preferences regarding language, timezone, keyboard layouts, etc. From Fingerprints to Individual Data Profiles All this fingerprinting is done using a single scripting language, JavaScript, by a single website.\nWith all these collected metrics, the site now knows almost everything about the visitor\u0026rsquo;s device and browser he used. So it combines all the collected information into a single profile to create a detailed, unique identity about the user. Then whenever this user revisits, maybe from a different browser or using a VPN, the browser scans all data profiles it has and tries to match currently detected information to existing profile data to identify the user uniquely. This is called \u0026ldquo;fingerprinting.\u0026rdquo;\nThe interesting fact about fingerprints is that they can\u0026rsquo;t be deleted or tweaked by the user like clearing a cookie. Also, even a VPN can\u0026rsquo;t protect from fingerprinting.\nWhy prevent fingerprinting? Cookies can be cleared; the fingerprint is permanent.\nYour privacy is more important than you think. Seriously\u0026hellip;\nA VPN can\u0026rsquo;t protect you if they have a unique fingerprinting record on you.\nEffectively used for cross-browser session tracking and identification.\nYour real-life identity doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be linked to your normal browsing data.\nThey are building unique profiles about you, and they never expire. These are shared across many business partners, and there is nothing to wonder about when you see an ad while browsing about what you just talked about. Also, this data is used in more disturbing ways than someone can imagine. They know in the modern day, data is the valuable thing even though you really don\u0026rsquo;t know how valuable online privacy is.\nWhat are the solutions? Please avoid MV3 browsers, as the techniques/extensions I explain below have very little effect on these browsers.\nUblock Origin Use an adblocker?. No. Ublock is not an adblocker. It\u0026rsquo;s a content blocker that does more than just blocking ads.\nIt stops the fingerprinting scripts from executing in the first place.\nNo Script. Gives much more control over scripts run on a website.\nYou can decide to allow a website to run scripts at all, which scripts to allow, and which ones to keep off for every website you visit.\nIt is very inconvenient to use when it comes to normies. But it\u0026rsquo;s the user\u0026rsquo;s problem and has nothing to do with this extension.\nPrivacy-hardened browsers. Many community-maintained browsers come out of the box with tweaks for privacy, including fingerprinting protection. Recommended Browsers\nTor Browser (the king) Librewolf Mullvad Brave Origin Suggesting Brave Browser is controversial in privacy communities due to its shady practices in the past, but at the same time, it prevents fingerprinting effectively out of the box.\nWhat makes fingerprinting more accurate? Installing too many custom fonts. Using common browsers like Chromium, Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, etc. Installing too many extensions. trusting random fingerprint spoofing extensions or scripts. Browser settings tweaks. window resizing. Hardware setup. Browsers you must avoid Google Chrome Microsoft Edge Vivaldi Vanilla Firefox without tweaking for fingerprint resistance. Standard safari When it comes to vanilla Firefox, it out of the box provides no protection against fingerprinting at all. But it can be tweaked for effective fingerprint resistance.\nThere are various user.js files available to harden Firefox.\nBetterfox Phoenix Arkenfox How to test your fingerprint detection score? These are various free tools online to check how much the browser you use exposes about you.\nCover Your Tracks\nFounded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Shows a detailed summary on what was protected and what was not. Am I Unique\nGives fingerprinting details based on your current settings and setup. CreepJS\nIt dives deep into systems graphics drivers, WebGL, system fonts, and audio frequencies and then gives a clear output on whether your browser is capable enough to prevent fingerprinting. Hope you find this article useful.\nThank you for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/fingerprinting/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eNowadays online privacy is almost dead. Even in the comfort and dopamine loop we get from social media and the web, we also started to forget about the importance of privacy on the web. A single website owner to big corporations, including governments, has most of our browsing data, more than they need to protect us. Our every move is cleverly traced and kept for years without any security at all.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Fingerprinting: The Hidden Trap on the Modern Web"},{"content":"Hi there, Firefox is an open-source and nonprofit browser that lets its users customize and tweak the browser too deeply. Even the anonymous ‘Tor Browser\u0026rsquo; is based on Firefox ESR code. Firefox already has most tools that are required for a normal user to browse the web efficiently. But still using some add-ons provides additional features and user control over the existing ones.\nBy using these add-ons I recommend, you can have a clean and fast web experience on Firefox.\nuBlock Origin This addon doesn\u0026rsquo;t even need an introduction. It is widely used and very popular among privacy communities. It is not an ad blocker but a content-blocking browser extension developed by Raymond Hill.\nFeatures Powerful content blocking.\nSupports custom filter lists.\nCan remove specific elements in a website\nCosmetic filtering\nDisables prefetching of resources and hyperlink auditing\nOptionally blocks remote fonts, disables JavaScript, and much more.\nEasy on CPU.\nEven because of the effectiveness and adaptation of this extension, Google killed it using MV3 on Chrome and its based browsers. Just imagine then how powerful it is; even Google (an advertising company) is shocked by how this extension works.\nSponsorblock Used to skip sponsorship segments on YouTube videos. Works as simply as an ad blocker. The sponsor segments are submitted by SponsorBlock users. Based on the upvotes and downvotes, they decide if the segment is really a sponsor segment or not. Then it auto-skipped for every user.\nCustomizable (you can decide if a sponsor segment is detected, if it should be auto-skipped, or if you should do it yourself when the skip button appears.)\nVarious categories (sponsor, unpaid/self-promotion, end cards, interaction reminder, etc.)\nSegments are collected via community engagement. No corporation controls it.\nYou can submit segments of your own if a video didn\u0026rsquo;t skip a sponsor segment.\nAI block for YouTube Nowadays AI is everywhere. Even on YouTube there is too much AI-related stuff, like summaries, insights, and videos/shorts made using AI.\nYouTube is a well-known and largely used platform by content creators. So switching to another platform is not possible most times. So this extension fixes the AI video problem in YouTube.\nHelps you to bypass the AI slop on YouTube by hiding AI-generated videos\nYou can choose to hide it completely or show a warning.\nAI videos are submitted by users.\nDisadvantages currently only supports YouTube videos; there is still no support for Shorts. Disable AI Disables all AI features on all major search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.) just by installing this extension.\nBy installing these extensions, you are telling search engines to not enable AI features, meaning you are indirectly supporting nature by preventing this AI processing from spending too much water and electricity.\n*Google and Bing are not recommended to use. DuckDuckGo and Brave allow you to disable AI in settings. So this extension is actually not necessary but still makes the process easy for those who don\u0026rsquo;t want to do it manually.\nTampermonkey This extension helps you to manage and use various userscripts.\nCan search for user scripts in GreasyFork, OpenUserJS, GitHub, etc.\nonly install trusted scripts.\nStreetPass for Mastodon An extension that helps you to find Mastodon users / profiles as you browse the web\nWhen StreetPass detects a Mastodon profile link, it is automatically added to the collection so later the user can browse through the collected profile links.\nMakes it easy to find and follow Mastodon profiles.\nChrome Mask Certain websites are specifically built for Chromium browsers (e.g., Google-owned websites). This website gives poor performance on Firefox-based browsers. In certain situations sites force you to be in a Chromium-based browser.\nIn such conditions, this extension becomes a great tool. It spoofs the Firefox browser to look like Chrome.\nThis extensions isn\u0026rsquo;t enabled by default or can\u0026rsquo;t be enabled for all sites at once, which is a good thing.\nYou can switch it on in specific sites where Firefox works poorly.\nYouTube Tweaks Another extension like Improve for YouTube or Unhook, but with more control. This extension helps you to customize your YouTube experience to the next level.\nFeatures Change the number of videos per row/column.\nCustomize video grid.\nHide shorts, mixes, playlists, recommendations, etc.\nChange the homepage.\nForce the original audio track.\nand more features.\nRead Aloud Are you tired of reading long blog posts or news and not having enough time to read full posts? Eye strain is a daily problem? If yes, then this extension helps you to solve all these struggles.\nJust by clicking on a button, it reads an entire webpage for you.\nIt uses text-to-speech technology.\nVideo Download Helper This extension detects videos on a website and allows you to download them directly.\nWorks perfectly on major social media platforms and websites (YouTube, Instagram, X, etc.)\nno download limit\nDownsides Free users have limited download speed. Hope you guys found all the extensions I mentioned useful. As I find more extensions, it will be updated to this post.\nThank you for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/firefox_addons/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHi there, Firefox is an open-source and nonprofit browser that lets its users customize and tweak the browser too deeply. Even the anonymous ‘Tor Browser\u0026rsquo; is based on Firefox ESR code. Firefox already has most tools that are required for a normal user to browse the web efficiently. But still using some add-ons provides additional features and user control over the existing ones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy using these add-ons I recommend, you can have a clean and fast web experience on Firefox.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Cool and Useful Firefox Add-ons I Use Daily"},{"content":"Stop using Meta (Facebook) products right now. Yeah, you heard it right. The most popular messaging app is WhatsApp; the most popular photo-sharing app is Instagram, then Facebook, Threads, etc. They are not just convenient mobile apps or websites or something. These apps are effectively and intelligently built with the help of thousands of engineers and psychologists just to grab everyone\u0026rsquo;s attention. They are spying on everything you do. They stole your voice, images, contacts, location, etc\u0026hellip;\nHow was the company Facebook formed? In 2003 Mark Zuckerberg, a student of Harvard University, developed a site called Facemash. It used to upload the photos of his friends and girls; other students studied at Harvard just to compare and then rate them. That was a really creepy idea. After getting complaints about how the platform works, Harvard takes it down due to privacy violations.\nFrom Facemash, Mark found out that people love spending time comparing one another. So based on this fact, Mark Zuckerberg, along with some partners, founded Facebook and officially launched it in 2004.\nIn 2004 there was already a popular site called MySpace. But with faster updates to the web interface, interactive features, and speedy loading time, Mark managed to bypass the user base of MySpace using Facebook in a couple of years.\nEven in the beginning stage of Facebook, Mark required users\u0026rsquo; real names and email addresses to allow them to create an account, while MySpace and other components worked almost anonymously. But actually, the email requirements of Facebook created a safe feeling in its users. Maybe because they now know somewhat with whom they are really interacting with.\nBy 2006, Facebook had grown further than just Harvard. Mark allowed anyone over age 13 to create accounts on his platform. Then within months Facebook introduced new features like news feed, status updates, profile pic and editing, loading time faster than MySpace, and a clean interface. With all of this, Facebook gained more unique users than MySpace had in around the 2008 – 2009 period.\nThe Expansion of Facebook. As time passed, Mark was not really ready to just stay limited to the Facebook platform only. He wanted to grow it more, more than imaginable. So for that, instead of developing new services, Mark planned to buy some platforms that were already used by many users. Actually, this was for reducing development costs and increasing profit and market share of the company. Then he founds Instagram.\nFact Facebook is the only service actually built by Mark Zuckerberg. Other giant platforms are actually acquired from others just to destroy them.\nThe acquisition of Instagram. Actually, that was really a unique idea to post photos online just for connecting and comparing. That\u0026rsquo;s why Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger founded Instagram. In that time, Instagram was the only photo-sharing app with decent users. Instagram had around 12 employees and very little revenue at that time. But more than the Instagram development team, Mark found the true power of Instagram.\nIn 2012, by offering 1 billion dollars (which was much bigger than the actual worth of Instagram at that time), Mark proposed an idea to purchase Instagram. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger know they can\u0026rsquo;t make Instagram popular alone, but with the help of a huge company like Facebook, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s possible. So with a condition that Instagram always stay separate from Facebook, they sold Instagram to Zuckerberg while still staying as CEO and CTO of Instagram.\nEventually, just like Facebook, Mark added more interactive features like statuses, filters, and UI changes to Instagram. Then Mark started to forget the promise he had made, and he integrated Instagram with Facebook for better communication and interaction with users on both platforms.\nAfter getting too much tension and argument about this, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger officially quit Instagram\u0026rsquo;s CEO and CTO positions in 2018. This shocked the entire development team. The new CEO of Instagram is Mark Zuckerberg, and the app is now under his full control.\nThe acquisition of WhatsApp. After the acquisition of Instagram, Mark also purchased a popular, widely used, simple messaging app called \u0026lsquo;WhatsApp\u0026rsquo; from Jan Koum and Brian Acton. Mark acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for around $19 billion. Because of not having enough time and money to maintain the app, like the implementation of encryption and new features, founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton accepted the deal and sold the app for $19 billion to Mark Zuckerberg.\nThe beginning of data profiling. Now Facebook owns some of the most used apps in this world. So now what?. They have to generate more revenue. More money means more user data required. Then Mark starts to implement powerful tracking code and capabilities into each app they own. And these apps started to share data between them to build massive user data profiling. Some of the creepy techniques they used are\nBehavioral profiling: Facebook tracks far more than what we like. What we speak, what is just typed and deleted, who we know and daily interact with, who our family members are, contacts and call logs, apps installed, battery level, time, etc.\nShadow profiles: Facebook actually started to profile non-Facebook users by adding their analytics code into most of the websites we visit (news, video-sharing, blogs, etc.) and collecting data from Facebook users\u0026rsquo; mobile devices (contacts, call logs, location, physical activity, camera, etc.).\nRun experiments: Facebook has been caught running psychological experiments directly on users\u0026rsquo; feeds to analyze the behavior of millions. How they react to certain features, what they expect, etc.\nWhen Facebook gets caught. The Cambridge Analytica scandal. A simple mistake exposed millions of users\u0026rsquo; data to a political consulting firm. They illegally harvested private profile data of Facebook users without explicit consent. Then later the data was used to show targeted political ads during the 2016 US presidential campaign.\nThis was the first time Zuckerberg got sued by law. They demanded a fine of $5 billion for Facebook\u0026rsquo;s worst security practices.\nDark patterns to increase user engagement. Beyond data breaches and data harvesting, Facebook has always tried to manipulate its users in the app to make them addictive and increase interaction time.\nInfinite scroll: A loop of homepage contents. The user scrolls upward, but the end is never reached. Users get a thought like mining gold, like \u0026ldquo;If I dig/scroll more, I will find something useful.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Which is not true at all.\nPersonalized feeds: Instead of showing the same feed for everyone, Facebook shows separate personalized profiles for each user based on their needs or what Facebook thinks they must see. This was also used to manipulate voters to a certain candidate in election times.\nInstant account creation, but deletion is not that easy: Creating an Instagram account is an easy and guided 3 to 4 steps. But the account deletion is not that easy. They kept the delete button away from the visible area. No guide to delete or disable accounts. Users have to manually do this, which many don\u0026rsquo;t even bother to do.\nAll these practices are really creepy and disturbing. If I describe the complete story, it will never end because it recently happened and is still happening. Millions of people are inside Meta\u0026rsquo;s bubble even without knowing they are trapped in every sense. And the dopamine lock is not so easy to break; if you get addicted, there is no other way to escape than understanding the reality behind what you see.\nThe red pill is the answer.\nThank you for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/meta/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eStop using Meta (Facebook) products right now. Yeah, you heard it right. The most popular messaging app is WhatsApp; the most popular photo-sharing app is Instagram, then Facebook, Threads, etc. They are not just convenient mobile apps or websites or something. These apps are effectively and intelligently built with the help of thousands of engineers and psychologists just to grab everyone\u0026rsquo;s attention. They are spying on everything you do. They stole your voice, images, contacts, location, etc\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"You Should Stop Using Meta (Facebook) Products at All Costs"},{"content":"Firefox is a powerful and efficient browser. especially in Linux. It is the only browser we have other than Chromium-based browsers. As a Linux user, I know in Wayland-based desktop environments Firefox is the only hope for a working, efficient browser to use, as Chromium-based browsers didn’t truly migrate to Wayland that much. It is a golden browser that works almost perfectly for me. Even when it comes to installing add-ons, Firefox has fewer extensions compared to the Chromium Web Store, but Firefox holds the most powerful ones.\nEven though things are like this, I noticed that recently Mozilla, the company, is hardly trying to make Firefox the go-to browser, a bloatware, an open-source bloatware browser, by adding too much stuff that really isn\u0026rsquo;t asked for by anyone. By this move they will force the browser to consume more resources and RAM by default. Because all these settings never came on, they made it turned on for everyone. I always wake and open Firefox just to see a new widget, sponsored shortcut, or sports banner on the homepage.\nSo by this blog post I am trying to break down features that I found to be bloat and unnecessary.\nThe Homepage. Once the home page was really minimal and useful. I only consider Firefoxc to use and recommend it to many just because of this minimal approach. But nowadays Mozilla Firefox\u0026rsquo;s homepage is one of the most annoying homepage sections I have ever faced. Even we can now compare it to Opera\u0026rsquo;s or Edge\u0026rsquo;s home page.\nThe Firefox homepage seems to be very busy with\nshortcuts (I wish they had speed dial instead)\nsupport Firefox (sponsored shortcuts)\nrecent activity\nBrand logo\nwidgets\nJust look how Firefox has kept its homepage very busy and annoying by default. The highlight is that every single option is on by default. They removed the very useful features like speed dials for this distractions? But why?. Now users have to depend upon third-party extensions just for basic features like speed dial on homescreen. By the way, news seems to be missing, and I think it is on the way.\nDesigning. Firefox developers are destroying the browser by redesinging it constantly. With the first design, which is the unique one, they managed to stand out from major chromium-based browsers. But now my doubt is whether I am using Opera or Vivaldi. This also makes the browser too complex and hard to use for aged users. Seriously, those design updates were unnecessary.\nSettings. Instead of giving more control over the browser, Mozilla created new problems like AI enhancements directly into the browser. Is it about privacy? Is it about security? The only thing I know is AI is used by big corporations to destroy the web. It consumes a massive amount of water and electricity. Nobody asked and nobody needed it at all in a browser like firefox. Then they gave a switch to turn it off only when it became a controversy in the community (a solution for the issue they created on their own). Because of \u0026lsquo;AI\u0026rsquo; implementation, many users switched from Firefox to its more privacy-focused forks.\nInside the permission and data section, they have various options to collect data (turned on by default). Some collection methods and options sound creepy, like allow Firefox to run feature studies! If they want to run studies on a stable branch, then why do the beta and alpha stages of Firefox exist?\nSearch engines. Many users say the contract with Google has ended. For making money and thriving, Firefox has to do some promotions and tracking. But if you look at the search engine, you can see the default search engine is still Google. If Google didn\u0026rsquo;t pay, then why did Firefox still keep them as their default? The other options available are Bing and Perplexity, which are also creepy. Wikipedia is not a normal search engine. The only private and decent option is DuckDuckGo. no start page, no searching, no kagi, etc\u0026hellip;. Also, if users don\u0026rsquo;t want to use them, they can\u0026rsquo;t remove/delete search engines but only disable them. good.\nBasic privacy and security settings. When it comes to basic privacy and security features, they protect users without any issues on their daily browsing. Firefox is turned on the tracking protection standard mode by default, which is good. But still many trackers aren\u0026rsquo;t blocked by the standard blocking. Understandable. Every user is not a power user, so turning on strict mode by default may affect their browsing experience.\nDoH is disabled by default. I don\u0026rsquo;t think enabling any Doh provider by default will cause any troubles; instead, it will make the browsing more secure by default if the users haven\u0026rsquo;t set up a system-wide DNS yet.\nHTTPS-only mode is also disabled by default.\nabout:config. Tweaks. Firefox hardcore users know there are various user scripts (BetterFox, ArkenFox, and Phoenix) available for Firefox, which are used to improve the overall experience of using Firefox in performance-wise and security- and privacy-wise. All these scripts do is just tweak some about:config settings. If tweaking some about:config options improves the user experience and makes the browser more secure, then why did Firefox never release the browser by enabling all those configs? (Just a doubt).\nConclusion. Even though Firefox has been going in a wrong path and made many unsatisfying decisions in the past, we still have to support Firefox. Also, this is not a reason for supporting every unacceptable move of Firefox as a nonprofit open-source browser. Firefox can be better, and it deserves more attention than its forks, which are actually doing better than Firefox.\nApart from these disadvantages, as a Linux daily driver, I found many advantages for Firefox over Chromium-based browsers, specifically on Linux.\nBetter hardware acceleration support.\nfaster and less RAM consuming.\nBetter integrity with Wayland.\ncan be tweaked for extreme security and privacy.\nstill support MV2.\npowerful add-ons.\nThis is not a post intended to discourage the use of Firefox, but it says what I really felt disappointed as a hardcore Firefox user from the beginning. Anybody who uses Firefox from the beginning knows how bad the experience is currently. Even though there are many forks (Waterfox, Mullvad, Librewolf, Zen, etc.) that exist for such users, Firefox deserves more attention.\nI believe many issues will be fixed in the future updates.\nThank you for reading.\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/firefox_browser/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFirefox is a powerful and efficient browser. especially in Linux. It is the only browser we have other than Chromium-based browsers. As a Linux user, I know in Wayland-based desktop environments Firefox is the only hope for a working, efficient browser to use, as Chromium-based browsers didn’t truly migrate to Wayland that much. It is a golden browser that works almost perfectly for me. Even when it comes to installing add-ons, Firefox has fewer extensions compared to the Chromium Web Store, but Firefox holds the most powerful ones.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Firefox Is Slowly Becoming Bloatware. Seriously..."},{"content":"Hi guys, actually I was a hardcore Firefox and Brave browser user. Which means I have already used some of the most powerful browsers available today.\nSome days ago I posted a negative review about the Vivaldi browser, and another person commented that Vivaldi is not just a Chrome fork, but more than that. So I thought: am I misunderstandings about Vivaldi? Is Vivaldi really awesome and equivalent to Firefox and Brave?\nSo I installed it and tried it out.\nInstallation \u0026amp; First Impressions I am running Debian (for some reason I switched to Fedora KDE). Native Debian repositories don\u0026rsquo;t carry Vivaldi, but it\u0026rsquo;s easily downloadable from their official website as a .deb package. When you install the package, it automatically appends its repository to your Debian source list for automatic updates.\nWhen I first launched Vivaldi, it welcomed me with a setup wizard. I needed to click through 6 to 7 times on the \u0026ldquo;Next\u0026rdquo; button just to land on the actual start page. I expected a minimal browser startup, but that\u0026rsquo;s fine—maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just part of their customization push.\nOn the default homepage, there are several built-in speed dial bookmarks. These are likely Vivaldi\u0026rsquo;s sponsors and partners—after all, they have to generate revenue to maintain the project.\nThe default search engine is Startpage, which is a great choice! (By the way, Firefox still ships with Google as the default, which I really dislike).\nCustomization \u0026amp; Sync There are tons of options to customize the browser and make it your own, including a built-in sync feature to keep settings aligned across platforms.\nHowever, Sync doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to sync everything. Only basic browser settings transferred over.\nExtension settings were a hit or miss:\nSponsorBlock and Return YouTube Dislike synced properly. AI Block for YouTube and Reddit Enhancer completely failed to sync across devices. The Built-in Ad \u0026amp; Tracker Blocker I really need to talk about Vivaldi\u0026rsquo;s built-in blocker.\nVivaldi ships with an ad and tracker blocking shield (turned off by default), but it feels much less efficient at eliminating ads and cosmetic filter clutter on web pages. On popular news sites (outside YouTube and Reddit), I still encountered visible ads and promotional banners.\nRunning online tracker blocking tests never yielded a 100% protection score using just Vivaldi\u0026rsquo;s native shield.\nExtension Nightmare \u0026amp; Manifest V3 (MV3) In cases where built-in blockers fail, extensions and filter lists usually come to the rescue. But recently, installing and managing extensions on Vivaldi has turned into a hassle.\nNo Sideloading: Sideloading .crx files by dragging and dropping them into the browser is completely broken. Annoying Web Store Popups: Visiting the Chrome Web Store throws a continuous \u0026ldquo;Switch to Chrome\u0026rdquo; popup. Even after turning on the User-Agent Brand as Chrome inside Vivaldi\u0026rsquo;s settings, the popup persists. Manual Zip Extraction: The fallback is downloading .zip files of extensions, extracting them, enabling Developer Mode under vivaldi://extensions, and loading them unpacked. But even then, effectiveness is hit-or-miss. I know this isn\u0026rsquo;t intentionally done by Vivaldi—Google\u0026rsquo;s architectural shifts caused this. But Google completely wiped Manifest V2 (MV2) from Chromium-based browsers (except ungoogled-chromium, Brave, Helium, etc.).\nVivaldi is an independent company—why follow Google\u0026rsquo;s strict playbook so closely? Why not make their native adblocker significantly more powerful, or build direct compatibility for uBlock Origin or AdGuard?\nI eventually figured out a way to sideload uBlock, but it still doesn\u0026rsquo;t function as flawlessly as it used to.\nThe uBlock Lite Crash Loop Many users suggest switching to uBlock Lite.\nWhile uBlock Lite now supports adding custom filter lists, adding 3 external lists caused the extension to crash consistently inside Vivaldi. Reopening the extension settings panel revealed a blank state—no filter lists shown at all. The only way out was completely resetting the extension, wiping out any custom configurations.\nDesktop Environment Quirks (KDE vs. GNOME) On KDE (Wayland), the browser ran smoothly.\nHowever, on GNOME, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t drag and reorder installed extensions on the toolbar by holding Ctrl. While GNOME is infamous for weaker drag-and-drop support, this toolbar reordering action works fine on every other browser I use (Brave, ungoogled-chromium, Helium, Firefox).\nOpening a support thread on the Vivaldi forums didn\u0026rsquo;t yield a clear resolution either.\nConclusion At the end of the day, Vivaldi is a solid browser if you prioritize productivity, heavy visual customization, and an abundance of granular controls.\nBut what about privacy? Is there anything truly privacy-centric beyond an insufficient built-in ad/tracker blocker?\nI really hope Vivaldi and its developer team take a deeper look into modern web privacy protections and level up their ad-blocking engine.\nThank you for reading!\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/posts/vivaldi_browser/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHi guys, actually I was a hardcore Firefox and Brave browser user. Which means I have already used some of the most powerful browsers available today.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome days ago I posted a negative review about the Vivaldi browser, and another person commented that Vivaldi is not just a Chrome fork, but more than that. So I thought: \u003cem\u003eam I misunderstandings about Vivaldi? Is Vivaldi really awesome and equivalent to Firefox and Brave?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"I Tried Vivaldi on Linux Just to Find Out it's Not for Me"},{"content":"Welcome to MindDump!\nI’m an introverted individual who prefers solitude. Reading and writing are my favorite habits. I read about tech, online privacy, digital minimalism, philosophy, etc. This blog is my personal corner where I express my thoughts and reflections.\nI designed this website to be as minimal as possible. This site is very fast and user-friendly. You won\u0026rsquo;t find any hidden trackers, invasive metrics, ads, or bloated scripts, just blogs.\nI kept this site as open-source, and it will always be. Users can expect posts about online privacy and case studies on the most used known privacy-invading services. Also, I try to reflect the use of free software and software in my real life instead of depending upon some eye-catching, worst-case proprietary apps.\nI hope my articles bring you useful knowledge and deliver knowledge to you. Thank you for taking the time to read my blogs!\n","permalink":"https://minddump-5f4.pages.dev/about/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to \u003cstrong\u003eMindDump\u003c/strong\u003e!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’m an introverted individual who prefers solitude. Reading and writing are my favorite habits. I read about tech, online privacy, digital minimalism, philosophy, etc. This blog is my personal corner where I express my thoughts and reflections.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI designed this website to be as minimal as possible. This site is very fast and user-friendly. You won\u0026rsquo;t find any hidden trackers, invasive metrics, ads, or bloated scripts, just blogs.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"About"}]