I decided to use my phone to read after my Kindle broke. I use KOReader. I would like to not support proprietary products as much as I can, just my personal philosophy since the last 7-8 years. So far I can’t complain about my setup, and there is one less device to lug around. I do miss an e-ink display sometimes though.

I switched to Pipepipe from Newpipe because I wasn’t sure Newpipe was being maintained. Pipepipe has SponsorBlock.

Most of the Paradox games support Linux natively. I play Europa Universalis 4, Stellaris, Crusader Kings 2 (haven’t bought 3 yet but it has native support), Hearts of Iron 4. Victoria 2 doesn’t have native support and I didn’t get Vic 3 but it is supported. Rimworld is native, so is Factorio.

Have a look at what you want to play on protondb.com and figure out if gaming on Linux works for you. Baldur’s Gate 3 has a gold rating (gold being one level lower than platinum - the best rating for non-native games) which for all practical purposes should work.

EDIT: I recommend installing Proton Glorious Eggroll in addition to the native Proton on Steam if you can’t get a game running with the native Proton despite protondb reports saying the game works. The installation is fairly straightforward, just read and follow the installation instructions on the page.

That is the fundamental problem with email as a protocol, yes?

Zero knowledge inbox, externally audited code, a company actually caring for user privacy definitely is a win for me when the alternative is Google hoovering up your data. Is this what you meant by saying it is the next best thing?

How much more private than end to end encryption do you want? Unless you mean something else by private.

It maybe comes from an all or nothing mentality. I would have tremendous Schadenfreude if Reddit does indeed die, but the culture there changed and I don’t really care if all of Reddit migrated here. As long as Lemmy is active enough, I am content.

I agree. I only use Brave for very specific purposes - somehow my bank doesn’t like my Firefox configuration, and mostly to access Google maps. Otherwise I use Firefox and its profiles for all other activities.

Depends on if they used cryptographic signatures. Those would be impossible to spoof because any change in the client would change the hash completely.

I couldn’t have been more eloquent myself.

If you don’t mind paying, Protonmail. I pay €12 per month for mail and VPN combined however it is cheaper if you only want the email option. I haven’t used Gmail in about three years now.

Degoogling is a long and difficult process. I highly suggest you start with small steps. For example, you could start using Invidious to watch Youtube videos. It is definitely not without bugs and you will run into issues. Change your search engine to Duckduckgo or Brave or whatever else you prefer. For general searches, these are good enough. Unfortunately, for addresses and navigation, Google Maps doesn’t have a good enough competitor that I know of. I urge you to make Firefox your daily driver if you are still using Chromium-based ones. I have Brave browser as an alternative for sites like banking or to access Maps or Google search. Start an alternate Protonmail account while still using Gmail. Be warned though that the free tier has 500MB, the paid tier 500GB.

If you want to go full hardcore, look into Graphene or CalyxOS as a replacement for your Android. I specifically bought myself a Pixel phone so I can get a degoogled OS for my primary phone. I still have a secondary phone running Android for banking and paying which I turn off when I do not use it. Look into Shelter to freeze apps. For example, Uber doesn’t need to know your whereabouts when you are not specifically looking for a cab.

But please, please, DO NOT start doing everything all at once or you will get overwhelmed. I now almost fully use open source stuff, and I pay and donate for services. I think this is the only way to show support for the projects you love and to have a voice against big tech/ad tech.

Europa Universalis 4. Actually most Paradox games.

I go back to World of Tanks every once in a while but it is impossible to enjoy it even though I want to. The concept is great, there are tactics involved, but the skill ceiling is just too damn high. So now whenever I get the urge to play, I instead watch a couple of streamers. Skill for his entertaining streams and well, skill (but he gets annoying when he starts raging about not being able to achieve his personal goals), and Dez for the generally chill vibes.

World of Tanks would have been a great game had it not been plagued with the entire pay to win aspect. And don’t get me started on the whole crew training and retraining nonsense. I hate that aspect of the game, and still don’t understand it. Do I keep the trained crew in a tank I enjoy playing or move them onto the next tier tank and then have terrible stats on the new crew and lose interest in the tank I started enjoying? Uff!

I agree with what you say as one aspect of it. But there could be insidious uses of your data. What if your insurance company pays a couple of raccoons to sort through your trash and find out you eat fatty burgers and fries for most meals? When the raccoons get back with that report, what is to prevent your insurance company from raising your premium since you are at risk (according to them) of a heart attack?

I’ll finally know all the answers in the next episode of No Such Thing As A Fish!

I have always used ctrl-r but I just checked and both work. TIL.

ChatGPT is an engineering marvel in that it has understood the semantics of language. However, it has absolutely no idea what it is talking about beyond generating the next token in a string of what sounds like natural language. I wish more people would understand this nuance.