Daily Web Usage

2026-10-06

Here are some notes about my personal daily use of the World Wide Web. You may be able to adapt some of these practices to your needs. These ideas can work on Mac, Windows, Unix, and Linux. (version 8)

News

I used to read Google News on my phone with Google Chrome. But I was seeing ads, hate, and misinformation, and a lot of uninteresting articles about media personalities. I found out that Chrome was tracking me every time I visited any web page, in order to target ads and sell my info to advertisers. Furthermore, Google changed its algorithm to give you fewer relevant answers, so you'd keep searching longer and they could show you more ads. I decided to change my tools for Web access and to stop using some Web accounts.

Now I use Safari on the iPhone to find news I care about, and I configure my Safari Preferences to prevent cross-site tracking. I set up about 10 Safari tabs with sites that I use a lot, and point each tab at a favorite site. I have Safari tabs for

Web Usage

I pay careful attention to security.

Browsers

I avoid Google Chrome, because my usage will be used by Google for AI training and ad targeting. If you are concerned about privacy, you should consider using the Tor browser, or Firefox Focus. You can use other search engines instead of Google, like DuckDuckGo.

Social Media

I don't use X (formerly Twitter: ads, tracks you)
or Bluesky (ex Twitter founders, ads coming, tracks you)
or TikTok (ads, tracks you)
or Facebook (ads, tracks you, trains AI on your data)
or Instagram (ads by Facebook, tracks you, trains AI on your data)
or Threads (twitter by Instagram, ads coming)
or YouTube (ads, owned by Google.. they have a new service called "hype" for pay)

Many of these platforms are infested by bots and trolls that spread lies, porn, racism, hate, and AI slop. They track your online usage and send you targeted ads and garbage. YouTube has decided that it is OK to spread COVID and election misinformation. I don't need this.

They were funded with billions from VC investors who wanted to get a big profit after a few years. This forced the companies to go after advertising revenue; in order to make money from ads, they mine customers' behavior so they can target the ads.

Alternative to Twitter and Facebook - social.vivaldi.net

BUT BUT BUT you say, "where will I find JOKES and cute Internet kitten pictures?" Many people really like these on Twitter and Facebook. Me too.

I was testing new browsers on the iPhone to make sure that multicians.org worked OK. A new browser called Vivaldi was mentioned, so I installed it and tried it out.

Vivaldi offered me the chance to sign up for a social.vivaldi.net account. I did. I like a lot it so far:

(You can also view vivaldi.social with Firefox Focus.)

It is part of the "Fediverse" -- a free nonprofit ad-free world of communicating online, supported by software machinery called "Mastodon." There is client software you can install called "Mastodon" that lets you pick which social community you would like to join.

Alternative to Facebook/Instagram: http://pixelfed.social

I was never a big Instagram user and gave up when they started drowning me in ads and unsolicited "reels." The Fediverse people are launching a photo sharing site called pixelfed.org that has

If your have photos on Instagram and you have no local backup, you can follow these instructions: https://www.cnet.com/news/social-media/fed-up-with-instagram-how-to-move-your-photos-to-pixelfed/

Getting Rid of my Facebook, X, and Instagram Accounts

It took me multiple tries to resign from Facebook because the instructions did not work. X and Instagram were easier to escape from.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/meta-found-a-new-way-to-violate-your-privacy-here-s-what-you-can-do/ar-AA1GecPs

Sharing Photos With Friends and Family

People use Facebook and Instagram to share photos with their "friends." But where else are these photos visible? Instagram seems to show you pictures by strangers that it thinks you will like. Are they sending my pictures to people I don't know without asking me?

Frankly I have become more cautious about posting public personal pictures of my friends, family, and travels online. It no longer seems like something I want to do. I don't want to post pictures that let strangers and advertisers find info about me or my friends and family.

Clearview AI scraped 3 billion pictures of people from the open Web, and then sold access to the data to the police. There are tales online of people encountering a billboard that has one of their vacation photos on it, scraped off from Flickr.

Since the 90s, I have maintained a private web site with my personal photos and stories. It is protected by a password that I give to family and friends. It takes work for me to maintain, but random web crawlers cannot get in there to see where I travel, who my friends are, what my grandchildren look like, whether I am home, etc.

Daily Rounds

Every morning I check that my sites are OK and that traffic was as expected, and I read mail and find out the news and weather, and I read the funnies.

I set up my web browser (I currently use Firefox) like this: I create two folders in Firefox's Bookmarks bar, Daily and Fun, containing web site bookmarks for my favorite sites. Currently I have about 16 sites bookmarked.

In the morning, I shift-click on the folder icons in the bookmarks bar, and the browser opens browser tabs for each bookmarked site.

Daily Folder

Fun Folder

If I have time, I shift-click the "Fun" folder to open links to daily humor and entertainment sites.

I used to visit GoComics.com for Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, and other fun strips. But then they decided I had to subscribe, so too bad. I found https://play.usatoday.com/comics -- but it doen't have strips I really love:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/289650693/Calvin-and-Hobbes-Comic-strips-pdf has a lot of Calvin. Hard to find one strip a day.

Daily Work

In the past, when I worked with a team of other programmers, we set up similar daily dashboards on our work accounts, accessed from our company computers.

Home | FAQ © 2010-2026, Tom Van Vleck updated 2026-10-06 08:19