virtualbriefcase

@virtualbriefcase@lemm.ee

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I am tired of corporatist technology and I need help to get away from it.

I am a phone scroller and social media reader and a YouTube watcher. My phone and by extension my Google account are my mobile office. I regret having to buy an Apple Mac Mini but I am not giving up Logic as my DAW. I got away from overpriced Samsung devices a few years ago and have a fairly bloat-free Motorola. Now I want to...

virtualbriefcase,

My advice would be to look into things one at a time while also avoiding taking the sledgehammer approach. Based on what you mentioned, some things you might want to look into:

Look into some encrypted cloud storage/backup options. Filein comes to mind but there’s plenty. I’d recommend against self hosting your own cloud in most cases (like nextcloud) in most cases it is both less secure and less private especially on a VPS - and if its on a home server it makes your backups less redundant.

Try doing more stuff in web browsers, web wrappers, or front ends. Unlike an app, there’s a lot less sneaky stuff a web browser can do, even if it’s the same platform. The Brave browser does cookie isolation and progressive web apps well, it might make a good second browser dedicated to progressive web apps. Apps like newpipe are great for YouTube and piped/invidious for yt or nitter for twitter are two good examples of front ends.

Installing apks is easier than you might think, and if you install FDroid it’s three clicks (download, allow installation, install) and worth checking out. Once it’s installed you can treat it like any other app store, and in combo with Aurora (on FDroid) you can get about any app without going through a Google account.

As for email, you can forward emails from a gmail account to a proton account. And as for content, consider trying to follow via RSS (you can follow just about anything with RSS one way or another).

For social media look into activity pub and nostr. Just about any alternative social media is going to have the crazies from one or both sides of politics kicked off of mainstream platforms, but federated and decentralized platforms allow you to pick and choose a lot more.

Last, as the phone goes, whenever possible try disabling background data and setting aside pre-installed apps you don’t want to use and going from there. A step up from that would be to uninstall/disable them (either in settings or adb bridge for those you can’t disable). Custom Roms would be the biggest leap, and the most technological. If you’re going to buy a phone with the intent of installing one, Graphene beats everything else hands down while still being one of the easiest to install.

Good luck

virtualbriefcase,

Tbh, there are a handful of reasons to avoid F-Droid, all of which existed long before this. AFAIK nothing with the app itself changed as of yet so I’d hold off on quitting it over this.

virtualbriefcase,

Rufus or registry editing during installation can both dodge the requirement if you need it.

Privacy benefits of Custom roms

So recently my moto G60 reached the end of life with respect to security updates. That was the reason I was using to prevent myself from switching to a custom rom(actual reason is laziness). This phone has rom support for pixel experience and lineage OS. So my questions are if pixel experience has any privacy advantages when...

virtualbriefcase,

Calyx with Micro G does have benifits, but isn’t quite as good as sandboxing, and also doesn’t have some of the other degoogling and security Graphene does.

virtualbriefcase,

Do filters cancel a notification? If so you can send them to a generic folder that doesn’t notify you.

And if you don’t want to give them an email that matters consider simple login. It’s owned by proton and will give you a few addresses for free.

virtualbriefcase,

Not sure you can, unless you’re using a Pi Hole. Vanadium doesn’t accept plugins to my knowledge.

virtualbriefcase,

If you have the time + know how to keep up with Arch, and want the latest packages or need the latest drivers, then go for it.

If you only want an Arch install experience, then fire up a virtual machine and stick with Endeavor or switch to a stable release like Debian on bare metal.

But most importantly, if it brings you value (in productivity or experience) then whatever you decide isn’t a stupid decision.

virtualbriefcase,

69 … Nice.

I hope this doesn’t end badly for VMware. I use VMware exclusively in a professional setting, and partially in a personal setting. With everything I’ve seen it’s by far the most stable (Qemu seems to be close to bare metal in ideal conditions, but can get a little quirky at times to say the least) and beats out virtualbox in both performance and stability.

If it’s mostly in cash & stocks hopefully from my layman’s view they’re buying a valuable asset and not going to enshitify it for a quick buck when the debt bill comes in with an uncertain economy.

virtualbriefcase,

If I vaguely remember, symmetric encryption is more or less halved by quantom computers using the current encryption breaking methods right? That and just the growing computer power IF they continue to grow at a similar rate. 32 bit encryption used to be the military standard, now it’s a joke that a kid’s laptop could break.

Makes it potentially vulnerable to governments who are dedicated, but as long as the common laptop theif doesn’t have a quantum computer or a generic technical literacy and years to wait and we’re not making enemies with governments we’re all fine regardless.

virtualbriefcase,

Bringing back memories of my own. Mandrake in 2004 was a but before my time, but I’m sure I’ve still got my Ubuntu discs I downloaded at the local library and burned myself almost a decade after this Mandrake disk.

Gamepad not communicating with Game

I am trying to get Outer Wilds running on my Debian machine, and the “running” itself was a breeze. It runs perfectly on Lutris. But somehow my controller doesn’t communicate with the game. I did check if it is being picked up at all, and using the jstest-gtk tool, I could see that every input is being registered. Same...

virtualbriefcase,

Is it wireless? If so, and the controller supports it, try using it in wired mode. Sounds pointless, but have had issues with wireless controllers that worked fine when connected via USB.

virtualbriefcase,

Sounds like what you’re looking for is PGP/GPG. Been around for a while, but does the job well.

Also, I doubt most projects built outside of the UK (or Europe as the EU seems to be moving in a similar direction) will actually comply and backdoor their own software. As long as you have internet they’ll always be actually secure software to download.

virtualbriefcase,

Clients taking it into their own hands reminds me of delta chat. Basically the same thing but the client handles encryption and uses a generic email server as the chat server.

But any good client will handle encryption themselves (heck even “bad” clients will do that). As long as they’re not UK based and don’t neuter the clients for their UK users they’ll still retain proper encryption completely client side (outside of public key infrastructure which is a whole different topic).

virtualbriefcase,

I’ll add one more grip: Amazon integration. It’s been resolved for like 7 years now, but I still hold it against them a bit for placing Amazon search results in my desktop all those years back. Not that I don’t have an Ubuntu server running as we speak, but it still does taint them a tad in my eyes (and probably acts as an anachronism to the “it’s a corporate distro” theme of dislike around here).

virtualbriefcase,

Mozilla’s funding comes from Google (not all of it but enough that all their other finding source’s wouldn’t even cover the bulk of the CEO’s salery). I doubt Mozilla is going to do much.

We can hope it doesn’t bode well for their ongoing anti trust case though

virtualbriefcase,

Yes. Brave focuses on providing random data points each time it’s asked (e.g. screen size). A hardened Firefox will try to provide a generic fingerprint.

Apples to oranges more or less, I’m unaware of any proof that one or the other is considerably better across the board. Though my gut does tell me that randomization is a lot better in the specific situation of regularly signing in and out of accounts.

virtualbriefcase,

I don’t think there is any proven results, but I think the reason the EFF prefers Braves decision is the philosophy that there are so many data points that it could be possible to link you to it using the ones not standardized by anti fingerprinting.

Like police putting out an abp. One describes a guy correctly but generically. One describes a guy with a lot of detail but the wrong race and two feet too short.

virtualbriefcase,

What, social lives? Get outta here with that nonsense and be a hobbit like the rest of us :)

Seriously though, if you’re thinking on a phone I’d reccomend just creating a second profile instead of getting a whole new device. The apps won’t be running when the profile is running, and as a bonus you can usually restrict the profile’s permissions. Also consider checking out web wrappers (e.g. frost) or PWAs.

On a desktop you can always just use the web version, bonus points if you auto clear cookies or have a separate profile.

Edit: if you already have a spare then that might work better than profiles.

virtualbriefcase,

A monopoly in itself is not illegal, it’s the misuse of monopoly power that is.

Now there’s a million ways Google has been alleged to misuse it’s power, which is why there’s a court battle ongoing.

But even if a company has 100% market share (and the government/company/courts/public agree on how that market share is defined) as long as they don’t abuse their power no antitrust violations have occurred.

Edit: under US law. Also not a lawyer.

virtualbriefcase, (edited )

DIY Edition Build it yourself and bring your OS, including Linux. Starting at $1,399.00

I hate to crap on a project like framework too much, but I fail to see the value it brings to the table compared to other options. 900$ for a Chromebook, 1.4k for a “DIY” laptop, 1.7k for the same laptop but assembled.

300-400$ used gaming laptops can be found on eBay, are repairable, and run Linux just as easily (minus maybe switching to official Nvidia drivers, but it’s still only a couple commands a way). For 1k I’m sure you can get a variety of very premium laptops.

Edit: by repairable meant they’re easy to repair if they break, not that they come pre-broken.

virtualbriefcase,

Maybe I didn’t word that right. Meant that they run out of the box, but if they break they can be repaired fairly easily.

Should I install Linux on my smartphone?

I have a Samsung Galaxy J3 (2018) smartphone which currently has the stock Samsung Android OS installed on it. I wanted to install an Android “distro” that doesn’t spy on me, like Graphene OS, but I couldn’t find a ROM for it. Since I would probably need to compile AOSP from source code anyways, I though, why not install...

virtualbriefcase,

As others are saying, that’s not really an option unless you’re really dedicated. IF it has an unlockable bootloader you could technically get to compiling and tinkering to get everything built, but in order to get a phone all set you’d need to get the right drivers and do a whole lot of tinkering (like full time job levels of building and tinkering) kind of deal to get it built. Phone’s aren’t so plug and play like computers.

If you there’s no rom support and/or a permanently locked bootloader but you want an OS without x y and z you can always try to fire up ADB bridge and disable stuff. You could also accomplish the same by rooting, though it’s a bit of a security risk (though not as overblown as some people say IMO).

virtualbriefcase,

I disagree with this post being downvoted. Manjaro has had a number of issues, including forgetting to renew a cert a few times, accidentlly Ddosing Arch, holding back repo updates but not AUR updates breaking systems, and some allegations of missused funds.

If you’re searching for something, I would also personally reccomend against Manjaro, simpy for the reason that you are less likely to wind up with something broken on most other distros. I do know some people who swear by Manjaro though, and if you’re using it or set on it then that’s fine too (the best OS is the one that brings you the most value).

–

To acutally answer the question above, though, the best distro is the one that you prefer. Platforms like Steam manages it’s own updates and software so the stable/rolling debate doesn’t really apply here. Same with anything installed with distro agnostic package managers (Flatpak, Snap, Appimages). As far as most gaming setups drivers are the only real difference between distros (and you can always change that yourself manually).

virtualbriefcase,

Am late to respond, but according to google translate and a quick internet search it might be from the national tea museum in China:

tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g298559-d513668…

Best guess anyway.

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