I deleted twitter this morning
That's a good start.
Delete Facebook, Instagram, and also your Google Gmail and account, which would include YouTube as well. (Try NewTube). Be sure to set up a new email account (your ISP or protonmail.com, for example) before you delete your Gmail account. If your phone is bound to your gmail account change it to your new email address BEFORE you delete your Google account.
On GitHub Stephen Black has a hosts file:
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts You can download the hosts file and install it on your computer. I use the "
Unified hosts + fakenews + gambling + porn + social" hosts file link.
Or, go to
https://github.com/Ultimate-Hosts-Blacklist/Ultimate.Hosts.Blacklist In addition to the hosts file it includes, for Linux systems, a "hosts.deny" file. That site also includes installer scripts for use on both Linux and Windows if you don't know how to install them manually. The site also includes an explanation for what the hosts file does. If those files are too large for your machine or you can't touch your hosts file then user their dns servers to do the same thing.
I run Kubuntu 20.04 (Linux) so I can also use the hosts.deny file, but Windows users cannot. I've been using the StephenBlack hosts file and the hosts.deny from the second site to filter out obnoxious sites banging on my browser's back door, and on the ports of my laptop. These hosts files block pixel trackers, ad trackers, Google's hex address addons, analytic servers, and many more unsavory websites and big tech snooping.
The Social and Tech websites have thousands of additional domain names they use for "analytics" and tracking. These hosts files send all of their ACK requests to the infinite bit bucket in the sky (0.0.0.0) and they never get a single byte from your system. Without all that tracking traffic and snooping eating up your ISP bandwidth your browser's speed can increase significantly. However, expect sites that fail to load because of the hosts file.
You can edit your hosts file (at /etc/hosts on Linux boxes) and add domain names or IP addresses of additional sites you don't want your computer to access. (Your kid playing games you don't approve of, for example).
Another thing you can do is install the TOR browser and browse anonymously. That is best done from a virtual machine, which is easy to set up in Linux. I haven't used Windows since I retired in 2008 so I don't know how Win10 is with virtual machines. But, Win10 is one big tracking and snooping OS anyway, so forget about maintaining any privacy, with or without hosts files, if you are running WIn10.
Those who want to go deeper into privacy can take a loot at the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) at
https://ipfs.io/.
but if you are going to act as a host you should have at least 100Mbps or larger connectivity. IOW, a fiber optic connection. I have a 500Mbps connection.
Another Peer-to-Peer (P2P) FS is Freenet:
https://freenetproject.org/index.htmlLike IPFS, it uses a blockchain technology to link peers together into a network. However, it has a nice feature that allows you to set up a specific blockchain link to another individual, called a "Friend", which is a direct link between you and your friend for the exchange of information. Your information is encrypted before it hits your wifi and is decrypted on your friend's computer after it arrives in memory or storage. The encryption key is something that should be exchanged personally and not sent by mail or Internet. Several friends can join in a single network.
If you run IPFS you can act as a "host" for other folks who also use IPFS. They build their website on their on system and then store a copy on your system using a blockchain hash key. You can access that web page residing on your system IF you have the public hash key posted on his site, but you can't change it. You can limit how much space each IPFS user has on your system and how much bandwidth is used in total by IPFS. When I was experimenting with it several years ago I had almost 600 users, at 50Mb @, on my system and they were using 1/2 of my 40Mbps bandwidth.
40Mbps wasn't big enough, and I doubt that 100Mbps would be either. Perhaps 500Mpbs or 1Gbps. So, you can see why IPFS isn't really going anywhere. The blockchain technology has a built-in weakness that would prevent BitCoin, for example, from being used world-wide by 7 Billion people to do daily transactions. That's also why IPFS won't go world-wide either, but probably can be used by unsavory groups to coordinate their activities. That's why I believe that, eventually, the development, dispensing and use of P2P networks will be outlawed, just like I believe that cryptocurrency will be outlawed too.
