4 Solutions for Audacity's New Privacy Policy (Data Collection/Sharing/selling) On Linux

Full Post/Writeup https://politictech.wordpress.com/2021/07/04/3310/

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POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

Thankfully we have tools to remedy data collection. One such tool is Firejail.

If you love Audacity, there are a few potential options for you.

You could:

A.) hold back Audacity updates in your package manager.

Or

B.) use Firejail to restrict Audacity’s access to the internet, which will completely cut off it’s ability to share your personal data.

Use this command to open Audacity while restricting networking:

firejail –net=none audacity

(You can also optionally use –private to further compartmentalize the program)

C.) Use Bubblewrap as an alternative to Firejail sandboxing

D.) Run Audacity inside a Whonix jail or a virtual machine with network restrictions.

E.) Torify Audacity (or use under other non direct connection- this protects IP address but not neccessarily metadata regarding your usage/OS)

Example Command:

sudo torify audacity

SHORTCUT EDITING (FOR FIREJAIL OPTION B):

Now replace the exec= line on all shortcuts for your devices. Be it: Linux Laptop or Pinephone or Pinebook or Pinetab, or otherwise.

If you have a Pinephone or other .desktop Linux shortcut, this means editing the:

Exec=

line inside that .desktop file.

Example line inside

Depending on system, your shortcut files may be found in .local or at /usr/share/applications.

Example Shortcut/Button directory location (~/.local/share/applicationseach application has its own .desktop file):

/usr/share/applications/

Or:

~/.local/share/applications

You can use this same option (firejail –net=none) for ALL apps on your system which do not require networking to protect yourself from needless data collection/backdoor communication.