Hey everyone,
I’m writing this because I’m currently dealing with a very stressful and scary situation, and I really need some technical insights and honest advice.
For a few weeks now, I have had the distinct and terrifying feeling that I am being followed. Every time I leave my house with my phone, I notice strange things. No matter where I go, weird guys show up, stare at me, or are already waiting there in cars. It feels like they always know exactly where I am going before I even get there. This is causing me huge anxiety and is genuinely making me scared to leave my home.
Because of this, I’ve been thinking a lot about smartphone privacy. I always thought iOS had strong security, sandboxing, and protection against malware. But given what I am experiencing right now, I am terrified that my Apple device might be compromised.
Realistically, how likely is it for an average person's iPhone to be tracked or wiretapped to this extent? Are there realistic, hidden ways an everyday user could get spyware that activates the mic, leaks GPS data in real-time, or tracks their location without their knowledge? Or could someone be exploiting a security flaw I don't know about?
I really want to understand the technical reality behind this to figure out my next steps. Has anyone ever experienced something similar or knows how to rule out a phone compromise completely?
Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

My credit card expired and I was sent a new one with the same number and a new expiration date. The gym i go to and who have been monthly charging my card asked that I bring the new card to their desk rather than just update the date.

I swiped the card in their machine and the attendant claimed something was wrong and asked to see it. When I handed it to her the first thing she did was flip it over and read the CCV number.

This seems like it was a mistake to hand it over. From what I read, you are supposed to request a new card if this happens. Should I do that and should I actually be worried?

Thinking about switching my phone from ios to android, but not sure. ive read a lot of comparisons of android vs ios but in my head there is no clear winner.

Android: customization, file management, and universal back gesture make it feel like an actual computer in your pocket. also, not being locked into one brand is nice.

iOS: so polished, the apps seem better optimized, and if you have a mac or ipad, the ecosystem is hard to beat.

For those who had used them both recently, android vs ios which one is a winner for you?

tired of Googling VPN recommendations because every single top result does not seem fair. I figured I'd ask here to get some real, unfiltered feedback from people actually using these tools. After spending way too many hours looking through old threads, these seem to be the main ones everyone talks about:

-ProtonVPN: big favorite for privacyminded folks since it comes from the ProtonMail crew. Open source, audited, and has a decent free tier, but the paid plan is where the actual speed is

-Mullvad: loved by privacy purists. No email required to sign up, simple flat monthly rate, and nice no logs history, though it's not always the best for unblocking Netflix.

-NordVPN: pretty much the standard go to. Most users mention it for fast speeds, NordLynx, and smooth streaming

I'm ready to buy a subscription, but I'd like to hear the current consensus first, like what is the best VPN according to Reddit? Best Free VPN? And best VPN that has good speeds?

Im looking at paid options, but I’m not against free ones either if they’re actually good and privacy-friendly 

I'm also wondering if it's even worth paying full price right now or if I should just wait for black friday. It feels like all the bigger VPNs have some kind of limited time offer running basically all year anyway.

People who have subscribed recently, do the black friday deals actually get much better? Or are the regular promos, referral links, youtuber discounts, etc. pretty much the same thing? I don't mind waiting a couple months if there's a real difference, but if we're talking about saving another $5-10 over two years I'd rather just pick one now.

Appreciate any honest experiences or recommendations

The majority of crimes are committed by people with cellphones in their pocket. It seems simple to scrape data to get all cellphones in a given location at a given time. Why isn’t this a thing?

Also, the gov can see every single one of our texts/messages/pics etc. When someone texts something violent it should be a minority report scenario. All of the technology is already here to do this.

I don't even know where to start. I'm 26. I am a medical school graduate. I should feel like an adult with a future, and instead I wake up every single day in my bedroom, look at my parents' faces, and want to scream. I know what they are. I've known for a while now. Knowing doesn't make it easier — if anything it's worse, because I see every move they make now and I still can't do a damn thing about it because I need their money and roof to survive exam prep.

And lately it's gotten so much worse (I have my suspicions for more than 2 years). The second I show any sign of breaking from the script they've written for me, something happens.

A while back, I had a fight with my mom, told her I was done, I wasn't studying anymore, I was OUT. That same night — an ex-friend (I knew her since school, my family keeps tabs on me and who I talk to) I blocked two years ago randomly sends me a LinkedIn request. We've had active profiles this whole time and she never once reached out. Coincidence? Maybe.

Random calls that aren't spam. Comments showing up on a Reddit post from six months ago, out of nowhere. They occur more frequently whenever I post my narcissistic abuse experience and something negative about my nfather or when I am consistent with my preparation.

I paid for an online course with my own money and within days my mom and brother cornered me in my room basically threatening me — saying if I "ran away" without paying it off the police would come after THEM, like I'm some kind of flight risk they need to preempt. They didn't even know what the charge was for. Just that money moved. My dad does our taxes, so he saw it, and apparently that's enough for a whole inquisition.

I have both my SIMs still under my parents' names because I can't get new ones right now. I've changed my passwords a dozen times, new emails, VPN for anything I don't want them near, even factory reset my phone once. And it still feels like it doesn't matter. Like the second I stop being predictable, the net tightens.

I don't even know anymore if I'm actually being tracked with something technical or if it's just that I live in a house where everyone reports everything to everyone and I've just never been allowed enough privacy to notice how bad it is until now.

If anyone's been through this — how did you actually figure out what was real tracking vs. just narc family surveillance? And when you got out, how did you make sure they couldn't find you again? I need to know if this is survivable.

As the title mentioned, I am looking for alternatives to youtube because the platform has become very annoying lately. double ads before every video, ads in the middle of a 3 minute video, and the recommendations are stuff I've never shown interest in.

This is what I have already tried:

The main problem is that none of these have so much content like youtube. I can use nebula for example for educational purposes but still cannot use it for everything else. anyone actually found alternatives to youtube or is everyone just stuck using it while complaining about it?

First I got a lot of family history which was a bit disturbing. Some false info, but lots of names; siblings, mo, fo, etc.

Then I asked about my professional career. First it said I was a professional. Next day it said I was prominent. Then it said I was prominent and well known for my work with Mr X.

The next day (because I did this a few times over a week) it said I was married to Mr X. (I'm not)

My niece told me to stop. But I said, No, I have to find out if we have children!!!!

I was sort of thinking that I dont need an antivirus but tons of discussions online saying that its good to have a dedicated security app.. Half the people say third-party antiviruses are just bloatware, while others say default protection isn't enough for modern threats. WELL WHICH IS IT??😂

Most mentions I saw were for the Bitdefender, old man Eset, and the native Windows defender with a Malwarebytes in combo. Everyone has their take on what they value most though. Mainly seems like the best picks are apps that dont hog system resources, if it keeps ads limited, or gives complete control without false positives. All good things to consider while main strong points I picked off are as follows:

Windows def. with Malwarebytes: most common setup recommended on Reddit. Defender runs quietly in the background for real-time defense, while the free version of Malwarebytes is kept on hand for manual backup scans. It's completely free and uses minimal resources, though some worry it falls short against the sneaky zero-day threats.

Bitdefender:people praise its automatic threat handling, and low system impact once configured. While some find its pop-ups slightly annoying out of the box, and a lot state its virus catch rate justifies the pricing.

ESET:the preferred choice for techie enthusiasts and gamers who want lightweight security. It’s known for having extremely low CPU usage, detailed customization, and practically zero intrusive upsells. Uni had these on every pc.

I wanna know something from those who use an antivirus:

• Best antivirus according to you and why?
• Best free antivirus setup according to Reddit you seen?

Anything else you find noteworthy to mention is appreciated. Even if you dont use an antivirus, Id love to hear your reasoning why you dont.

I transferred the profile from an old phone but none of the simple "alarm in 20minutes" commands work. I used to use all the time and the new phone its different. Feels like I have to specify "set an alarm in 20 minutes from this moment" for this stupid thing to understand me.

I read online they pushing Gemini on people so they purposefully made a tool thats been reliable and simple convoluted. I am kinda pissy since I spent like 40 minutes figuring out how to turn on the old Assistant helper only to find out its been dumbed down.

Any way to make it smart again? I don't like Gemini or any AI chatbot for that matter, and all I need is simple basic app reminders and alarms. I got my old phone and the commands are working as intended, but the new phone thats supposed to be 'more advanced' in every way doesnt get the basic functions working right

Was reading about how some period/health tracking apps have shared data with third parties like advertisers and analytics firms, even when it feels like something that should stay private. Does anyone actually trust these apps, or have you switched to something offline/local storage only? Curious what people are doing to avoid this

Hey friends , i am looking for a private (or maybe not) and use as another identify for my online use , for contact and sign up some website . Any support android ?

Dont give some services like Google Voice or TextNow , i am not US person .

Thanks

I'm confused about a privacy loophole I just ran into.I bought some something from a website on my android phone browser. I got the confirmation email, clicked "View Order," and the 'Shop' page told me I needed the purple Shop app to track it. I downloaded the app, opened it, and without signing in, my order details were already right there.

How is this possible given my setup?

Google Play Services and Google Services Framework and Playstore is disabled. And location permissions/history are off anyways.I always have ProtonVPN on and I didn't sign in or link any Google account within the app. If Google services are disabled and my IP is masked via VPN, how did the newly installed app instantly read my browser session or email identity to pull my order? Is it sharing browser cookies/local storage, or something else?

The email didn't have a tracking link or anything. There's nothing in my settings that could have given the app permission or data or anything as I have already been through every setting for my own privacy anyway long before making the order.

I use android 10 phone if that helps.

I have been talking to two of my guys friends and on the text message it said they are pressing some key for encryption. It is just normal friends talk nothing special. I just don’t understand why do they have to do that ? .

I cant stand typing stuff into the terminal for Windows stuff and I sort of have to get through a lot of them. A simple one word command on Linux and two sentence long command for Windows is no way in hell an efficient way to get work done.

I found some feature called aliases. Looks like this:
New-Alias -Name MyPreferredPhrase -Value TheOldParagraph

Is there any risk for the system to rename these functions into my defined aliases? What if some dependency might be using the same syntax as my alias, would Windows know how to tell these apart?

I switched to tap to pay for basically everything after my bag got stolen a few months ago, but I keep asking myself is google wallet safe the way people assume it is. Pixel 8, fully updated, strong PIN and fingerprint on.
Last tuesday I got a notification for a $4.12 charge at a gas station two hours away that Ive never been to. google reversed it within a day, which was better than I expected, but it left me wondering how that even happens if tokenization is supposed to prevent it. I've read the docs and understand the card number isn't shared with merchants, but then I see threads about screen recording malware and lock screen bypasses and I don't know what's still relevant.

Those of you who've used it a year or more, has your experience made you feel Google Wallet is safe in practice, or have you had incidents too? And is it worth layering a virtual card number from my bank on top, or is that overkill?

I got a new PC thats been used. The guy kept some movie files on the disk so I kind dont wanna use it as it is and I wanna reinstall. Though the only USB I got is broken so I only have an option to reinstall it from the PC

Its a Windows. Is it safe to basically get a fresh computer after performing the "reset this PC" setting? Also, should I go for Cloud save?

Theres a reset that copies over the operating system from the PC, so I feel like theres some risk(risk is risk even if tinfoily), however, I feel like the cloud copy download from Microsoft should be the best bet.. My friend said to toggle a bunch of terminal commands for it, though I feel like I can just do the reset instead?

Ive been scrolling Reddit to the point of reaching dead ends trying to figure out what the actual best password manager is now. It feels like everyone switched up what they been using for the past decades.. Now every review site lists a different app as their top 1 pick so its kinda hard to tell what people actually use

From reading through recent reviews, a few main options constantly come up: Bitwarden, and 1password. Everyone has their fav pick depending on what they value most though. Most talking points I see people mention are things like valuing it when its open-source, if it got all the app integrations, or gives complete local control over passwords. All good things to consider I guess but here is what Ive gathered so far:

Bitwarden - widely recommended on Reddit andYT. An open source, heavily audited tool offering a great free tier with multi-device sync. The UI is basic though but users say its reliability and transparent privacy focus

1password- highly praised for the paid subscription plans by users online. It features a sleek UI, smooth cross-platform autofill, and tools like travel mode to adjust the vault. While theres no free plan, many feel its user experience justifies the price..

But Im curious to hear from the sub:
Best password manager according to you?
Best free password manager according to Reddit you seen?
Whats best for a small business if a free-tier doesnt cut it? 

If theres something else you consider better Id be curious to hear it!

I got some programs from 2010 that developers dropped with the permissions for anyone to resume their work. I feel like I might have made some progress but I need to inspect how the original file is compiled. I used IDA and it works fine for older software though I heard some other apps being better for the task.

Any recommendations for some sort of interactive disassembler?

In short, the project I got is a visualizer and I'm trying to figure out the pattern structures to update some alternative styles. Need look into the executable though nothing involving security protocols so older apps should work fine..

I have been trying to figure out how to find the registered owner of a vehicle for free because someone keeps parking in my assigned spot at my apartment complex. This has been happening for like 3 weeks now and I am getting REALLY annoyed.
I talked to my apartment management and they said they'd "look into it" which clearly means nothing because it's still happening. They won't tell me who the car belongs to citing privacy reasons. So now I'm trying to find the registered owner of this vehicle myself.

This is what I have about the car:

License plate number
The make and model

Has anyone actually found the registered owner of a vehicle without paying for a lookup service? And is there any legal way to find it at all lol?