Privacy on macOS High Sierra

[Macintosh1984]

Hi!

What do you say about macOS High Sierra and Privacy? You reccomend me to turn off Siri, Spotlight suggestion on search and somethig else on Safari and others Mac preferences?

Because I'm using also Little Snitch, do you reccomed to block some Apple services?

Thanks!

 

[simonsi]

What are you trying to achieve?

In turning anything off you have to consider the change in experience it gives you, that is largely a personal decision.

 

[Macintosh1984]

Well... if you think that query search are anonymize or not (are collected). If you think that personal files are sends to Apple server when use Spotlight, for example.

 

[Bart Kela]

Simonsi is asking how much are you willing to give up.

iCloud? Google? Dropbox? Facebook? Twitter? Turn off Spotlight? Toss your smartphone into the trash?

If you really value privacy, turn off WiFi and unplug the Ethernet cord from your computer. Send letters via snail mail, forget texts, e-mails, Instagram comments, etc.

My mom doesn't have a computer, only has a dumbphone, doesn't text. I set up an e-mail account for her, gets little traffic since we only use it for a handful of signups, etc. Her privacy is pretty good relative to others.

That life is available. You can go off the grid if you want but you will definitely give up some convenience.

Again, this is largely a personal decision.

 

[IPadNParadise]

Simonsi is asking how much are you willing to give up.

iCloud? Google? Dropbox? Facebook? Twitter? Turn off Spotlight? Toss your smartphone into the trash?

If you really value privacy, turn off WiFi and unplug the Ethernet cord from your computer. Send letters via snail mail, forget texts, e-mails, Instagram comments, etc.

My mom doesn't have a computer, only has a dumbphone, doesn't text. I set up an e-mail account for her, gets little traffic since we only use it for a handful of signups, etc. Her privacy is pretty good relative to others.

That life is available. You can go off the grid if you want but you will definitely give up some convenience.

Again, this is largely a personal decision.

I know, Off Topic, but if your Mom doesn’t have a computer or a smart phone, just curious as to how you set her up an email account?

 

[Bart Kela]

Just because one doesn't have a computer doesn't mean one can't have e-mail.

Way back in the early years of personal computing, most people didn't have their own computers. If you were at a university, you could go to the computer lab and sign up for an e-mail account. That's what I did in the mid-Eighties. You'd have to go to the lab to check to see if you got any messages. Back in those days, computer time wasn't free, but many teachers could give out computer lab credits.

Heck today anyone can go to the public library, hop on a computer for free and register for various online services. At least in my neck of the woods, there are probably more homeless people than anyone else on those computers.

I went to Gmail on my computer and signed my mom up for her account. I check it periodically. She doesn't. Think of it as a PO box where I pick up her mail, bring it to her, and read it to her.

 

[Macintosh1984]

Simonsi is asking how much are you willing to give up.

iCloud? Google? Dropbox? Facebook? Twitter? Turn off Spotlight? Toss your smartphone into the trash?

If you really value privacy, turn off WiFi and unplug the Ethernet cord from your computer. Send letters via snail mail, forget texts, e-mails, Instagram comments, etc.

My mom doesn't have a computer, only has a dumbphone, doesn't text. I set up an e-mail account for her, gets little traffic since we only use it for a handful of signups, etc. Her privacy is pretty good relative to others.

That life is available. You can go off the grid if you want but you will definitely give up some convenience.

Again, this is largely a personal decision.

I asked if query through Spotlight collected user habits.
Does the content of the files be sent out to Apple without my consent? I have disabled iCloud, do not use DropBox, I do not use Facebook, etc.

I have nothing to hide, but I do not like services profiled me or read my files.

It is totally different from saying to not use Internet, smarphone, e-mail, at all.

 

[Bart Kela]

OK, I actually took the time to type in "macOS spotlight privacy" into an Internet search engine and the top hit was this Apple support article for Spotlight on Sierra.

I'm guessing that the same applies for High Sierra but you will need to confirm on your own with Apple Support and hopefully they will provide an answer that you find convincing.

I have nothing to hide, but I do not like services profiled me or read my files.

It is totally different from saying to not use Internet, smarphone, e-mail, at all.

Just remember that if you use any Google services whatsoever (starting with Gmail), you are definitely getting profiled. Same with most free webmail services (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.).

The onus is on you to determine whether or not your use of any online service is acceptable for your particular privacy concerns.

 

[casperes1996]

As a general policy, if you don't explicitly give something to Apple, they will anonymise all data they collect with differential privacy, and they won't gather anything that you don't have an option of disabling somehow. Check around your prefferences for checkboxes that say if it sends data to Apple.

 

[Macintosh1984]

OK, I actually took the time to type in "macOS spotlight privacy" into an Internet search engine and the top hit was this Apple support article for Spotlight on Sierra.

I'm guessing that the same applies for High Sierra but you will need to confirm on your own with Apple Support and hopefully they will provide an answer that you find convincing.

Just remember that if you use any Google services whatsoever (starting with Gmail), you are definitely getting profiled. Same with most free webmail services (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.).

The onus is on you to determine whether or not your use of any online service is acceptable for your particular privacy concerns.

Thanks, that was the info I was looking for.

For Gmail, if you disable web history and other features, but especially do searches without logging in, the impact on privacy is minimal.
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As a general policy, if you don't explicitly give something to Apple, they will anonymise all data they collect with differential privacy, and they won't gather anything that you don't have an option of disabling somehow. Check around your prefferences for checkboxes that say if it sends data to Apple.

Thanks!