111–120 of 168 posts
>Apps No. Stop using smartphones. GNU/Linux and FOSS only.
Being downvoted on "hacker" news for wanting to use only FOSS devices. (As a side note, you can use a FOSS smartphone like PinePhone)
> you will appreciate not having ads targeted to you or your devices constantly connecting to transmit data to servers. Why would I appreciate seeing more generic ads?
I've been actively degoogling my life for about 10 years, mostly kicked off by Snowden's revelations. Off the top of my head, here's what's left: • Youtube Too much content there to stop using. I almost never use it while logged in. I never subscribe: I bookmark the channel. • Maps Too useful to stop using. Haven't tried alternatives, but open to recommendations. Business locations and open/close times are must haves…
Good list to chime in on. Youtube channel subs etc can be handled with some privacy adds by using NewPipe on Android. Features are never ending. People interested by LineageOS may also be interested in GrapheneOS, and their Play Store related handling. Tangentially related: Aurora Store in place of "actual" Google Play app/Google Play Services. Signal or meet.jit.si for video calling. Chromium. Pain in the ass, but w…
GrapheneOS looks cool, but it only supports Pixel phones? (I have a Moto X4)
I'll look into the Aurora Store.
Duo's call interface is practically identical to POTS calls on smartphones, so I use it to call my mom.
Signal can do video? Didn't know that.
I set up a private Jitsi meet server two years ago, but it insisted on directing mobile browsers to the app. I was able to configure it to not do that, but friends complained about high battery usage. Has that changed since? Regardless, I'm not sure how I could call someone on it, aside from sending them a link and hoping they open it. It's more of a videoconferencing system.
I've used Chromium on a few Linux installs, forgot it supported Windows, too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I recommend hosting an e-mail server by yourself As someone who did this from about 2001 until three years ago, I strongly suggest most people don't bother with this route. GMail, Outlook, etc, all throw so many arbitrary and ever-changing security conditions to accept mail, it really isn't worth the hassle - or the lost clients from mails that don't reach their walled-garden end-points. I've used Fastmail for a fe…
I'm still self hosting after more than 15 years and I think what matters most is the reputation of your IP address, so it can be hit and miss depending on where you host your mail server...
I still host my personal email address, but I lost a few jobs sent to my work address by inadvertently being 'rude' in not responding to cold emails from GMail addresses I had in fact responded to. THAT was the situation that really irked. Such a stupid logic, or lack thereof.
Google Drive -> Mega.nz
- YouTube has content that I enjoy and isn't available elsewhere. I know that it stores my history but I find its recommendations and multi-device support good enough that I consider it worth it. (Also, FWIW, you can disable the history using [0], it also has an autodelete, though I don't use it)
- I drive and in my region, nothing is good enough for driving directions aside from Google Maps. I've tried all the other major apps on iOS like TomTom, Sygic etc. but they just don't work well enough.
- Again, while driving, I use Android Auto on a device dedicated to that purpose. It's also the only situation where I use Google's voice recognition. I do so because I speak English in my daily life (e.g. song titles) but my region is German-speaking (e.g. places/street names/business names/addresses) and I need to be able to use both while driving. Only Google Assistant/Android Auto can be configured to recognise two languages.
[0]: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols?settings=yout...
A few weeks ago there was a post about Kagi[0] which is a paid search engine, I tried the trial and used all my searches, then immediately became a customer and have no regrets. [0] https://kagi.com/
A few weeks ago there was a post about Kagi[0] which is a paid search engine, I tried the trial and used all my searches, then immediately became a customer and have no regrets. [0] https://kagi.com/
10$/month for a search engine that is basically a nice google/bing Proxz is ludicrous. For that price you can just run your own searx instance
I don't use any of Google services or products. Fairphone 3+ with /e/OS Firefox + uBlock + uMatrix + NoScript Duckduckgo Tutanota (mail, calendar) and ecloud (mail, calendar, notes, tasks) Quad9 DNS SyncThing OpenStreetMap Magic Earth DeepL
+1 for DeepL, it's better than google translate
> Using Google on your device stores your location every time you turn it on. It stores your search history across all your devices in a separate database, meaning even if you were to delete said history on all your devices, Google would still have a record of it. All of this can easily be disabled on the setting page for your Google account? And, location history is off by default.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-location-tracking-lawsui...
> Google has systematically deceived consumers about how their locations are tracked and used and has misled consumers to believe that they can control what information Google collects about them