Over all the last ten years or so I have been paranoid about my privacy. When Google reversed its "Do No Evil" motto I deleted my Google account. I was amazed back then to learn that they had account, login name and password for every account I had for the previous ten years, several of which I had totally forgotten about.
I only used private search engines like DuckDuckGo and Startpage.
My hosts file grew to 1.4Mb and included redirects to 127..0.0.0 for every known Google site, especially the analytics, tracker and adbot sites. Also for Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Twitter although I never had a Twitter account and used Facebook for less than a month when it first started.
I never used Chromium browsers, preferring FireFox or other privacy concerned browsers instead. On my iPhone 6+ I installed the Dolphin browser and used it exclusively. I never visited sites like Kubuntu, Slashdot, etc., on my iPhone because I have enough trouble seeing the screen and typing on a regular laptop.
I always used different passwords on every site I created accounts at and never used a password vault which would let me use a single password to access them all.
Then, my iPhone 6+ got touch disease and when I could no longer tolerate it. So on July 25, 2019 I bought a new phone, a Redmi Note 7 running Android 9.0 Pie.
I knew that Android is to Google what iOS is to Apple. Android gave me a choice: use a Chinese Cloud service or use Google or don't sync your apps.
I decided to try Google. And, I wanted my Android to do something my Apple could never do, sync with my Kubuntu 18.04. They both use Linux, right?
The hosts file was replaced. I created a Google account.
On my Android phone I ran Chromium, but installed FireFox also. I also installed the Google Contacts, Mail and Calendar app. I activated the Developer Mode and enabled USB connectivity, along with installed the adb tool on my Kubuntu so I could issue commands to my phone that the Note 7 Android OS didn't have the option of doing.
I had tested Chromium one time under a QEMU-KVM virtual machine running KDE Neon about 3 or 4 years ago. I didn't save any bookmarks and when I was done testing Chromium and I deleted that virtual Neon when I was done.
Use Tor, you might advise? I did on occasions, but even with a 300Mb symmetrical OF connection Tor is slow and even with intermediate server stops with IP swapping and GUID switching Tor users can be tracked. And, as an American citizen residing in a free country I wasn't doing anything that would really require Tor or a P2P connections, all of which I tested and found wanting.
Now, considering that I had never used Chromium beyond that simple test and had blocked, to the best of my ability, all connections with Google, imagine my surprise when, during the installation of Chromium, it asked if I wanted to install saved bookmarks.
Out of curiosity I said yes. Every bookmark on my FireFox browser going back for years and right up to the most recent, including those I had deleted, was loaded into the Chromium browser. 
So, even with the hosts file blocking everything Google related, and using AdBloc, and GhostBusters, etc, and using DuckDuckGo and Startpage, and using the most conservative settings in FireFox, Google was able to keep track of everything I've been doing with my browser over all that period of time. My guess: using FireFox to shop on Amazon or EBay or various other online stores, resulted in one or more of them peeling data from my browser. Google probably got it from one of them. So, forget worrying about the NSA or other gov spooks. No matter what you do your data is flying around the globe if you spend any time on line. Sending 1,400+ Google domain names to the infinite bit bucket probably isn't a 1/10th of the invasive sites they have tracking your. Using P2P (IPFS, FreeNet, ZeroNet, etc...) isn't a guarantee. Maybe Slashdot or the NFOA sold my info? The Dark Web, which uses .onion extensions and blockchain, didn't save the owner of the Silk Road from being surveilled and captured.
Avoid the web and use cash at local retailers? They have surveillance cameras and time stamped receipts. Those two pieces of technology have been used to identify many miscreants.
So, what to do? Smile! You're on candid camera!
*goes back to lurking
I only used private search engines like DuckDuckGo and Startpage.
My hosts file grew to 1.4Mb and included redirects to 127..0.0.0 for every known Google site, especially the analytics, tracker and adbot sites. Also for Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Twitter although I never had a Twitter account and used Facebook for less than a month when it first started.
I never used Chromium browsers, preferring FireFox or other privacy concerned browsers instead. On my iPhone 6+ I installed the Dolphin browser and used it exclusively. I never visited sites like Kubuntu, Slashdot, etc., on my iPhone because I have enough trouble seeing the screen and typing on a regular laptop.
I always used different passwords on every site I created accounts at and never used a password vault which would let me use a single password to access them all.
Then, my iPhone 6+ got touch disease and when I could no longer tolerate it. So on July 25, 2019 I bought a new phone, a Redmi Note 7 running Android 9.0 Pie.
I knew that Android is to Google what iOS is to Apple. Android gave me a choice: use a Chinese Cloud service or use Google or don't sync your apps.
I decided to try Google. And, I wanted my Android to do something my Apple could never do, sync with my Kubuntu 18.04. They both use Linux, right?
The hosts file was replaced. I created a Google account.
On my Android phone I ran Chromium, but installed FireFox also. I also installed the Google Contacts, Mail and Calendar app. I activated the Developer Mode and enabled USB connectivity, along with installed the adb tool on my Kubuntu so I could issue commands to my phone that the Note 7 Android OS didn't have the option of doing.
I had tested Chromium one time under a QEMU-KVM virtual machine running KDE Neon about 3 or 4 years ago. I didn't save any bookmarks and when I was done testing Chromium and I deleted that virtual Neon when I was done.
Use Tor, you might advise? I did on occasions, but even with a 300Mb symmetrical OF connection Tor is slow and even with intermediate server stops with IP swapping and GUID switching Tor users can be tracked. And, as an American citizen residing in a free country I wasn't doing anything that would really require Tor or a P2P connections, all of which I tested and found wanting.
Now, considering that I had never used Chromium beyond that simple test and had blocked, to the best of my ability, all connections with Google, imagine my surprise when, during the installation of Chromium, it asked if I wanted to install saved bookmarks.
Out of curiosity I said yes. Every bookmark on my FireFox browser going back for years and right up to the most recent, including those I had deleted, was loaded into the Chromium browser. So, even with the hosts file blocking everything Google related, and using AdBloc, and GhostBusters, etc, and using DuckDuckGo and Startpage, and using the most conservative settings in FireFox, Google was able to keep track of everything I've been doing with my browser over all that period of time. My guess: using FireFox to shop on Amazon or EBay or various other online stores, resulted in one or more of them peeling data from my browser. Google probably got it from one of them. So, forget worrying about the NSA or other gov spooks. No matter what you do your data is flying around the globe if you spend any time on line. Sending 1,400+ Google domain names to the infinite bit bucket probably isn't a 1/10th of the invasive sites they have tracking your. Using P2P (IPFS, FreeNet, ZeroNet, etc...) isn't a guarantee. Maybe Slashdot or the NFOA sold my info? The Dark Web, which uses .onion extensions and blockchain, didn't save the owner of the Silk Road from being surveilled and captured.
Avoid the web and use cash at local retailers? They have surveillance cameras and time stamped receipts. Those two pieces of technology have been used to identify many miscreants.
So, what to do? Smile! You're on candid camera!
*goes back to lurking
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