Recent post to my Facebook "friends".

 Cut my "friends list" down by over 300 people. The purge of FB has begun for me. I know I am beating a dead horse, and I should do it already. But I wanted to try something first. I wanted to get my list down to people I really know. That is until or if I leave at all. But make no mistake, how I use the platform has changed and will continue to change.

1. I rarely look at my newsfeed.
2. I reserve my opinions for other ways of communicating.
3. The only reason I have held on to FB this long was for my business use.
4. I will never publicly publish anything on my personal page again.
5. Soon, I will remove ALL FB apps from my phone. It is an incredible security risk.
6. We have a real-life connection if you are still on my list. I care about you, and I care about the 300+ I removed. But I prefer face-to-face interactions.
7. I no longer need to post everything I am doing. It is no one's business. What I am doing, who I am doing it with, and where I have been or am going.

I am looking into a new device that cannot spy on me, listen to my conversations, and pretend to be off when it is running in low power mode and still listening and tracking me. I know how this sounds. It sounds like a bunch of tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theory crap.

But I assure you, our smart devices will be used against us. You don't have to wait for it to happen; it already is. All you can do is limit what you allow it to track.

Here are a few recommendations for you:

1. Don't use Google, Bing, or other tech browsers to search for anything. Use Duck Duck Go or something similar.
2. Uninstall Chrome and other big tech browsers from your phone and computer. I recommend using Brave.
3. Limit any app's ability to use your device location.
4. Leave most social media platforms, and for those you "have" to use, only use it from a PC, never your phone.
5. If you are concerned about your digital footprint, search for delete me and use their tools to remove yourself from the web.
6. Move away from any "free" email service. Look at alternatives like proton mail. It comes with a small fee, but you get end-to-end encryption, and the key is not stored on their servers. They do not use bots to read your emails and advertise to you like Google does.
7. Use cash as much as you can when shopping in person. Your bank sells your purchase info to advertisers who target you based on your location, what you buy, and when you buy. Use apps like Cashapp for online purchases so your bank cannot track your online spending activity.

Please look for anything you can do to make it as hard as possible for folks to track you. Did you know the Government uses your bank and credit card records to record and track certain purchases? That may not bother you, but why would they track Ammo and Gun purchases? It is a fact that the FBI and ATF have already shown up at people's doors asking about these types of purchases.

We live in some extraordinary times. Some forces are coming against us that none of us are prepared for. The last thing we need to do is arm them with our personal info.