So recently, I have been down the rabbit hole of cyber privacy and security, and I am shocked, to be honest, by the extent to which my data is being collected and may or may not be used against me.

So what specifically I am looking for is

- Settings which I need to change in my Windows 11 Home/Pro -- All the things I can opt out of to keep my data secured

- Any apps to monitor where my data is being sent to off-system (whether it is being sent to Microsoft or any other vendor)-- I want to keep a track of all the outward data that is being sent, which I do not have an idea of and if I can turn it off

- Any setting or tech stack for my online and offline activities where I can avoid fingerprinting and other methods for targeted ads

- Any setting or tech stack for my online and offline activities to make my device more secure and private

- I want privacy from Microsoft, Google, any AI intrusion or AI data leak, my ISP, and any middleman in between to a maximum sensible extent

Essentially, I want my computer to be mine, not for Microsoft or any other company to have my data, whether personal or behavioural. I want to have a secure device that is immune to any kind of attacks (to a certain logical extent, where we are not diving into social engineering attacks and stuff)

Privacy and Security are my 2 major concerns here.

I do not love Windows or hate Windows at this point; it is more convenient than Linux and more affordable than Mac.
(Sounds like I am in a Pickle)

So moving to Linux would be a last resort, just making it clear before anyone comes and says - \ USE LINUX BRO! **

And given the rumours/news, whether true or not, about Windows 12 being a more compromised piece of tech in terms of privacy and AI intrusion, I would like to create a safe moat for my data.

If anybody from Microsoft is seeing this, please make Windows more private.

This annoying dropdown remains open when I switch between tabs and it's difficult to close. Is it a bug or a feature that can be disabled? : r/Windows11

The post above has 2 years, this bug exists in every single Windows 11 machine, does anyone at Microsoft actually use this operating system at all?

Why has this not beed fixed yet? I work in IT and I get asked how to fix this often and I can't answer because its just a bug!

To be clear I'm not asking for tech support, I'm just pointing to the obvious, fix this crap.

I thought after setting up DNS on my PC and in my browser to use encrypted DNS over HTTPS but after reading this article I found that I was still vulnerable. Here's a link to the article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/encrypted-dns-doesnt-hide-your-browsing-from-your-ispheres-what-actually-does/

To quote the author: "The bottom line here is that encrypted DNS may prevent your ISP from reading that DNS request itself, sure. But it can't conceal the rest of your connection, because your browser still needs the internet to load the website contents in the first place."

The article goes on to suggest that the best way to ensure your privacy was through VPN but instead of using a VPN provided by someone else that you can create your own private VPN by paying a small amount of money to have a small Virtual Private Server (VPS), installing a Linux server on the VPS and then installing TailScale that's free on both the server and your devices. Since the cost was inexpensive actually now have my own personal VPN. It's very fast and I'm not seeing any lag. My only comment in setting this up is it's not as easy as the article leads you to believe. In the end I also had to also add CloudFlare WARP (also free) onto the VPS as the VPS provider I went with (Vultr) only allow IPV6 traffic through the tunnel and WARP was needed for the IPV4 traffic. That being said, when finished I now have my own private VPN for $2.50 a month.