Having said that, I only say it's sus bc of the vibes

I just noticed today that Signal (not talking Molly) is now available on F-Droid via the "Guardian" repository.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.

I have degoogled my phone few years ago it really hit me how much the phones depend on Google services. Few examples from of my daily usage when I compromised:

1. Communication

I'm in students group, people there have own group chat on facebook messenger. They share info regarding tests, deadlines etc. Basically standard uni messaging. Unless I had fake Facebook account to be there I would have to collect all info by myself. The alternative is a discord server, which in privacy terms is questionable choice too.

At least I have few friends who use Signal or Element, but it's minority.

What do you usually use and offer when people ask you for contact?

2. Banking app

Banking app I used has blocked me from app after few years of using it when they realized I have it from "unofficial" source - Aurora store. That motivated to switch the bank and app, which doesn't really on Google Play services. The easiest way to do that was browsing Huawei app store and finding the most suitable app. Do you use baking apps?

3. Taxi/Transport

Of course theres no way to use Bolt/Uber for transport on degoogled device. What's your way of transport after having few beers in pub? Do you use taxi via calling it directly or use that weird Telegram taxi addon?

4. Map directions

Is there a way to convert google map pins to open source solutions and vice versa? What's your recommended software for directions? What do you use for driving?

5. Fitness

Do you track fitness activities?

6. Phone

Do you have good phone recommendations? I know that GrapheneOS+Pixel is one, but what about others?

Are there any privacy minded step counting apps that are not on different app repositories,?

Internet connected cars is the worst tech "innivation" since internet connected thermostats.

Well, fuck you, Cooler Master.

As soon as I turned my VPN off I was able to successfully send my RMA request.

After about 2 and a half years of battling for my privacy, I'm finally at a place where I can step back and be happy. Technically the seed of privacy was planted 5 years ago, but it hadn't become a goal yet.

I used to use Windows 7 (even 10 and 11, eventually), an iPhone 6, Gmail, Google Hangouts (anyone else remember when it was called that?) and Discord as my main messengers, Snapchat, Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Reddit, ChatGPT, Chrome, Google, Avast and Avast VPN, YouTube, Authy, and so, so much more.

I am so fortunate to be able to be where I'm at now. I use Fedora (Silverblue. I tried secureblue but it was too strict for my taste), a Pixel 8 running GrapheneOS, Proton Mail + addy.io (although I try to use email as little as possible), Signal and SimpleX Chat, a "self-hosted" music library, some cheaper ways to stream movies, Lemmy (duh), HuggingChat (because I don't have the hardware to run my own model quite yet), Tor Browser and another (I want to avoid arguments about my browser choice), SearXNG, Proton VPN (until I can get Mullvad VPN paid for), FreeTube, Aegis Authenticator, and a plethora of other software.

I got quite lucky with device compatibility. My computer and laptop just so happen to be compatible with every distro I've tried, and I've sure dragged them through hell to find the one I want. I'm blessed to have been able to snag a decent phone for GrapheneOS, and so glad to have automated the transition from Spotify.

It's been a good run. I'm glad to finally be satisfied with where I'm at. I started to see the fruit of my labor months ago. Now I can rest easy and do my part to help others become more privacy aware. I'd love to hear your story too, maybe mine isn't far off!

Bonus story: The straw that broke the camel's back that caused me to fully switch to Linux was Windows 11's Efficiency Mode. It's a cute feature that throttles the performance of programs to save on carbon emissions... and (at the time) you couldn't disable it. You could disable it per-process, but it would re-enable itself shortly after. ChatGPT was becoming quite popular at the time, but Efficiency Mode slowing down the browser made it nearly unusable. I did look for ways to permanently disable it, but either I wasn't experienced enough or it didn't exist yet. Well, no way except to replace Windows altogether!

I visit sites by Wiley, Elsevier, and Taylor and Francis a lot recently because I am trying out to do research in a specific topic.

Despite using uBlock, I find that some ads creep through. Also, they have trackers everywhere. How do I go about identifying their trackers?

That's it, I get an error message whenever I try to post or comment if I'm connected to my VPN, butnot trouble if I just get disconnected. Does not fit the idea of decentralized social media I had, but overall I'm mainly curious as to the reason why it is so.

Hello, I'm wondering if there is a way to download webpages anonymously, without actually having to visit the website. I want to access this website, but it requires Javascript. So, instead I'm just wondering if theres a way to download the webpage (I want to download the webpage with its functions, like any audio features along with it, for say, Ultimateguitar.com). I recall there being some GNUWebProxy downloading tool or whatever, I just forgot the name of it.

Thank you!

This post is not really about questions I have. I just feel like I need to write this somewhere to express my concern.

First of all, online stores have become a huge part of our society and I admit I heavily rely on that. That alone could be privacy issue but I’d ignore that for the sake of not missing the point of this post.

The problem is rather in the way these online stores send out their receipts. You might already know that emails are by default not client side encrypted. That means your email server admin (Google if you use Gmail, Apple if you use iCloud mail. And Proton if you use Protonmail. Yes Proton claims it stays encrypted as soon as the emails arrive to their server but who can really vouch this? It’s behind the curtain anyway. ) has access to your receipts including of the past.

Now email has been around for a really long time. And the client side encryption part has been worked in a lot of forms such as S/MIME. But none of the online services really implement it even though they contain critically personally identifiable info such as items I bought along with my name & address.

And the thing is even though these online sellers acknowledge this privacy risk, they don’t have options to not email us receipts. For example, Amazon has a dedicated page on their site where I can see the list of everything I bought. That’s literally enough for me. They can stop sending me the receipts in the worst possible way! At least they could provide us with better way (even WhatsApp will do) yet they don’t. This is a severe privacy issue.

I can’t help feeling, with all the sophisticated technology we have at hand, that we deserve better.

So, I had an idea for an Invidious alternative that would be pretty difficult for YouTube to block. Basically, YouTube can block instances because it is really easy to detect which IP is making a lot of requests. But what if everyone using Invidious were an instance? Like, if one person wants to watch a video, they would get it from a random person using this software. I don't really know how it would be done—if it would be something like torrents, which have a direct connection, or if it would go through some server in the middle. This is just a suggestion; I don't really know how I would implement it. But if it can be done and someone wants to do it, it would be great.

Edit: switching to https://sky.rethinkdns.com/ worked, thanks for all the suggestions!

Hope this is the correct forum to ask this question.

I've recently switched to RethinkDNS and quite like it. I've run a PiHole on my home network for a while, and Rethink finally gives me the same functionality and customizability while away from my house.

When I'm at work at [REDACTED BIG CORPORATION] my Internet won't connect at all while on company wifi with Rethink active ("No Answer" response to all queries). I just turn DuckDuckGo app tracking protection on instead (also technically a VPN according to my phone), and the Internet works. CyberGhost VPN behaves the same as Rethink, so I'm unsure why DDG doesn't run into issues.

Does anyone know of a way to automatically swap between VPNs while on certain networks? I'm sure it is possible to do so with a GPS fence and SmartThings, but I don't want to give that app (or any for that matter) location permissions.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this (I'm fine using apps outside of Google Play, as you can infer from my use of RethinkDNS and DDG in the first place), I'd love to hear them!

Cheers, Hank

I use the built-in sync service in various Firefox forks to sync bookmarks/history/tabs, using the default Mozilla servers.

When I went to "Manage Account" to review and prune the devices ("services?") linked with Mozilla Sync down to what I'm actively using currently, and noticed "Mozilla Monitor" in there.

I can't find any info on why Mozilla Monitor required sync credentials, and I don't remember Mozilla Monitor telling me it would be gaining access to my sync data, nor can I find any way to review what data "Mozilla Monitor" has access to.

Any ideas?

For now I'm signing out that entry, while I consider other sync options.

Edit: changed title from 'Mozilla/Firefox sync - why is "Mozilla Monitor" a signed in device?'

I'm thinking of paying for Mullvad, but I don't want to waste my money if I won't be able to use it. My ISP blocks Tor (at least that is the conclusion I have come to - I can only connect via a bridge). Is there anything I can do to make sure I will be able to use Mullvad before I end up paying for it?