Mine is mostly mp3, and the player is MPV. I would not notice higher quality amidst the street noise or listening through laptop’s subpar speakers anyway.
If you are into collecting, that is. I am kind of triggered by the binary “physical vs. non-owned” because physical is not for everyone, if I was dead set on paying and the media was not available DRMless, I would rather buy a digital copy plus pirate a DRMless one corresponding to it. Buying a disk only to throw it out after ripping is wasteful. If you keep them, they take up too much space and are too inconvenient to use compared to a few external drives.
I mean, disks take up a ton of space - not everyone is comfortable with that either. If I did that, I would have had to throw out or bother selling the disks.
Once the original media is gone so it the right to watch it.
But who would check that? A raid? This is so pointless. You are not using it, you have paid for it, you are just occupying space with a useless piece of plastic…
I don’t like physical copies. For convenience, I would be ripping it anyway, and then what? CDs and DVDs take up way too much space, then I would have to eiher throw a perfectly working disk away (which just feels bad) or bother selling it (which is not even guaranteed). I understand it if you’re into the collecting aspect, but I am personally not. If I was really set on paying for the media, I would rather go for a DRMless purchase. Or if it is not available, do it like with my Steam games - buy a DRMed copy and then pirate a DRMless one corresponding to it.
Session is also sus because you effectively cannot host a node, last I have seen. They claim it is “against a Sybil attack” but all it does is making sure only people wih large disposable funds can have nodes, and the effect might be the exact opposite.
Simplex is more interesting in this regard because while I am concerned with initial centralization (the default servers), they made hosting your own easy. But I personally stick woth imperfect yet trusty XMPP.
Last I have seen, it still requires a number to register - it just doesn’t have to be public.
What gets me the most is the requirement of a smartphone to register. No way I am trusting my non-public chats to a phone, so that means either Waydroid/VM (which creates issues with copypasting) or signal-cli (which is fairly inconvenient).
Not quite Europe, but here we have mandatory KYC on simcards too (you can get an illegal anonymous one still, but this is a different story). Guess what, it does nothing to prevent simswapping, it very much still happens.
I’ve been a social media hermit for the past 3 years but recently I’ve given up and created a few accounts across different apps again. It’s unreal how strict the requirements are now....
Unless you mean “accidentally being somewhere in the background of a stranger’s photo”, yes. I usually opt out of being photographed, was never forced into this.
By the way, the earlier posted article restoreprivacy.com/protonmail-discloses-user-data… had an update starting at the paragraph with title Update: Statement from Proton and additional commentary
I do not blame Proton for complying with a request - it is a completely expected action from a company. However, I would blame them for advertising that makes them seem safer than they are for people who don’t know better.
Browsing the web I came across this (meta) search engine. From the first glance, it seems promising and giving quite a good results to my searches. Definitely better than Google, Bing or DDG, which tend to be full of SEO/ads/AI bullshit these days. Does anyone use it?...
Would not mind self-checkout if they accepted cash. Although a cashier is not a big deal either, not like they talk with you aside from “do you have a discount card?” or “do you need a bag?”
No thanks, I would rather not have to use Waydroid and deal with Google’s services because of course you didn’t make the app available on your website or on F-Droid.
Oh, nice! Where was the VPN server, if you remember? Also heard of it being possible on a real Android device, but not on an Android VM so even harder to fake.
I do pirate games that I buy on Steam - just to have a backup copy in case something happens to my account. I want to truly own my media. Nonetheless, this is the only place I have paid for media since we ditched the DVD player)
What I looked for were product categories. Ye, seen these models. $200 is very, very expensive for me, it would be weird to spend on a player more than you would on a phone.
I personally use it for my domain name and a VPS. Not exactly illegal or requiring personal information.
As for cards that “you can buy in brick and mortar stores” - a) they will be affected by the same sanctions as normal cards, b) not even a thing in a lot of places (like, the only ones I have seen here are only sold at certain banks and only payable with a bank card). But yea, might indeed work well in certain cases!
Winamp has announced that it is opening up its source code to enable collaborative development of its legendary player for Windows (about.winamp.com)
‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services (www.theguardian.com)
Chat Apps, Government Ties, and Transparency – Threema (threema.ch)
Why the state monopoly on identity is worse than Big Tech (medium.com)
Stack Overflow Users Are Revolting Against an OpenAI Deal | WIRED (www.wired.com)
Members of the software developer community have reported deleting or altering their posts to prevent them from being used by OpenAI.
Instagram locked my account and forced me to appeal and send a picture of my face, so I sent a picture of Shrek. They deleted my account
I’ve been a social media hermit for the past 3 years but recently I’ve given up and created a few accounts across different apps again. It’s unreal how strict the requirements are now....
Does self-hosted VPN make sense?
Hey all,...
Encrypted services Apple, Proton and Wire helped Spanish police identify activist | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
By the way, the earlier posted article restoreprivacy.com/protonmail-discloses-user-data… had an update starting at the paragraph with title Update: Statement from Proton and additional commentary
Does anyone use https://presearch.com/ (presearch.com)
Browsing the web I came across this (meta) search engine. From the first glance, it seems promising and giving quite a good results to my searches. Definitely better than Google, Bing or DDG, which tend to be full of SEO/ads/AI bullshit these days. Does anyone use it?...
People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Could Interact More Easily with a Robot than with a Human - Reasons and Limits (www.mdpi.com)
Published: 12 February 2024, PDF available, 43 pages
Telegram founder and CEO alledges signal has backdoors, they don't provide reproduceible builds, etc.
Here’s what he said in a post on his telegram channel:...
"Everything being a sleek App, instead of being a clunky website. Which is definitely the way to go." - Mrwhosetheboss
(...
Proton Mail Discloses User Data Leading to Arrest in Spain (restoreprivacy.com)
Prime Video subs will soon see ads for Amazon products when they hit pause (arstechnica.com)
As if the Prime Video app couldn’t get any worse.
I used an original iPod in 2024, and it was pretty fun (www.spacebar.news)
The Bitcoiners were wrong: a blog post about privacy and bitcoin, and how they failed to design a cash alternative (unfathom.ing)