![](https://0.s3.envato.com/files/103091313/justyna_g_025-590.jpg)

Hello Steemians,
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This is my first blog post here. I'm very excited to see where this experiment in social media is going. What really strikes my about this form of social media is the difference between the economics from more old school platforms and on the other side Steem. Strangely enough when we make content on tradional forms of media we are actually contratary to what you would like to belief serving their goal instead of ours which is entertainment. They run their platform for the sole reason of making money for themselves.

This is where steem is different. Instead of making money for THEM based on the content WE create we are the one's who recieve the fruits of our labour. And on top of that we don't have to share our private information because of their data aggregration policy. It doesn't stop there. The same goes for your mail en search behaviour and every other site which uses services like Google Analytics or Adwords.

But simply using steem as your chosen social media platform doesn't liberate you from the shackles of evil corporations. You really have to make a difference in how you use the internet as a whole to free yourself.

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I will give you a tutorial on how to proceed in doing so!

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![](http://rsnijders.info/vakblog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/startpage_frontpage.jpg)
First of all you should stop using Google as your standard search engine. There are a lot of different possibilities but I use StartPage. It takes your search query and enters it in the Google search engine for you so you don't have to. It acts like a middle man. It filters alle the variables which could be linked to you. You will get the same results as you would get normally and it will respect your privacy. You can choose on their homepage to make their website as your standard search engine.

http://www.startpage.com/

There are some others alternatives which you might want to look at:
https://disconnect.me/
https://duckduckgo.com/

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![](http://screenshots.nl.sftcdn.net/nl/scrn/6654000/6654535/mozilla-firefox-with-msn-01-535x535.png)
And on the next. You should use a browser which respects you as a user. Don't use Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. Insteads use Firefox. It's open source and doesn't track you in any way. On top of that it's very customizable. That means you can use plug-ins which is very important for the next step.

https://www.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/new/

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After you installed Firefox there are a few plug-ins that can help you in your quest for free internet that should be mandatory.
![](http://www.bestplugins.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Adblock-Edge.jpg)
The first one is Adblock Edge. The internet is filled with so called trackers. This pieces of software follow you everywhere on the internet to collect private information about you. With this plug-in you can stop that! And with the added advantage of blocking all ads :D

https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/

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![](http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/gg/up/sshot5076d6e003f24.jpg)
The second one is HTTPS Everywhere. It makes sure you will have a secure https connection to every web server you visit. So no one else can eavesdrop on what you are doing. It's also handy to make sure no one with malicious intent can  possibly steal your bank information (but ofcourse this reason will not be relevant anymore because we won't use the tradional banks anymore soon after every one adopts Steem :P).

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

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That's it guys. I really hope you like my first post. Soon more will follow. Let me know what you think or if you have anything to add or if you have any questions feel free to ask!

Peace