Political Custard

I have AtlasOS. I only use Windows for two games, Rust and Destiny 2, that absolutely do not play on Linux. You will absolutely get better performance because the number of background tasks running all the time is quite minimal - it’s clean and there’s no store, no crappy apps you don’t want. I don’t care about security on the machine because I literally only game on it and maybe a little bit of web research if I get stuck on a game somehow. Anyway, I think it’s good, it’s really how Windows should be - if Windows didn’t get so bad perhaps I wouldn’t have gone to Linux.

You could try dual-booting for a bit to see how you like it.

I was listening to a Linux podcast and one of the people on it said that their partner didn’t mind adverts and didn’t mind their data being mined because it meant that the adverts were more appropriate. I was absolutely stunned, I didn’t think anyone, for one moment, would actually think like this. I had to have a sit down after hearing that. 😅

If I were to ever see an advert on my computer or phone, I would immediately flip out and have to go searching to find out how it got there (though admittedly this never actually happens).

That’s a good idea about the VPN on the router but it’s just my computer and phone that connect to the internet and I maintain a non-“smart” home. It would be nice for guests though. That’s interesting about Matrix, I didn’t know about that. Sadly, for the moment it will be something I have to live with; I’m in a few groups that use Matrix, but it’s good to know though, thanks.

I am finally really happy with my privacy setup, I am not feeling like there’s anything more I need (or want) to do at the moment…

1. NextDNS on PC and phone
2. Linux on PC - I do have a drive with Windows (AtlasOS with no Microsoft login) on it for dire emergencies (Rust and Destiny 2)
3. Mullvad VPN
4. Degoogled phone with LineageOS
5. Non-self-hosted Nextcloud
6. Browsing: FireDragon and Mullvad Browser on PC and Mull on phone
7. FreeTube for YouTube

Matt Mahmoudi, a researcher with Amnesty International, said Israel’s use of facial recognition was a concern because it could lead to “a complete dehumanization of Palestinians”

Oops, bit late for that, mate.

Welcome to the modern day equivalent of wrist tattoos…

Games, for everything else I’ve found a foss alternative that I prefer. I will do a google search once every couple of days if I’m really struggling to find something but even as a last resort search engine it’s been getting worse - I heard they put an ad person in charge of search… so that would probably explain that descent.

The main thing is that Plasma 6 comes with some HDR support and it is possible to have it in some games now as well as in some apps like mpv that also have HDR support.

As for the Garuda Gamer version of the distro, it comes with a bunch of gaming stuff preinstalled and a Garuda Gamer app which makes it really easy to install gaming related apps, emulators, and hardware support for controllers, rgb, and all that kind of thing. It’s just all handled very well and would make a nice distro to recommend to gamers who might want to make a switch to Linux from Windows, mainly because things are made so easy - which is nice for an Arch based distro because you have access to yay without it being overly complicated.

I use Garuda Linux and FireDragon is maintained by the same people so it’s been customised to have the same look. FireDragon was previously a fork of Librewolf (another fork of Firefox I have always liked), so I just switched over to FireDragon to try it out. I’d also used Floorp in the past and really liked that, so to have FireDragon and Floorp become one was really nice. FireDragon is nifty and has the privacy focus that LibreFox has. Garuda Linux is also a really nice distro and a lot of care and effort has gone into it - it also has a Plasma version for gamers… which is lovely for me. It’s late and this is a dreadfully rambling answer… but hopefully you get the idea (roughly!) 😅

The service is really good but I stopped using it when they gave a donation to Bellingcat.

Proton Mail: Imperialist Stooge?

Thanks for the edit and link to discussion, I am a FireDragon (Floorp fork) user and it seems like this issue is in hand and I’m not going to be concerned for the moment.

Yes, it does break things now and again… it really doesn’t like Reddit… but then neither do I! 😆

I cannot really comment; I’ve never used controld… the only thing I would say is that it does look like it has a clean and simple interface, which for some people might be good but it might reduce customisability.

NextDNS would be my suggestion.

https://my.nextdns.io/

The video linked below is excellent, and runs you through the entire process of setting it up and explaining things as you go along. This process will give you a great deal of control over what filter lists you want to use and what settings will be right for you. And afterwards you can use their web interface to check that you have set up everything correctly and that you are using their service. Free until you hit a certain number of requests per month but I think an individual user will never reach that point, I certainly haven’t and I’m online far too much. Techlore, the producer of the video also comes highly recommended for privacy related information.

The ULTIMATE Guide to Mastering NextDNS! by Techlore

You can certainly include all that stuff too, but the banking system provides services for 67% of the world’s population. Bitcoin is owned by about 100 million people.

It’s possible to see an estimate of how much electricity is being used for bitcoin (obviously not the only currency being mined). Higher prices results in more mining so the amount of electricity varies all the time. Here’s a graph showing estimates of energy consumption. I guess you can come up with an estimate because you could have an idea of how much it costs to mine a bitcoin and you would see them entering circulation on the blockchain.

During its peak in 2021 it was using about the same amount of electricity as Norway or Argentina uses in a year (according to a University of Cambridge analysis).

Compared to these amounts the banking system would be using a tiny proportion given that fiat currencies don’t need to be mined they are just created by the banks when they issue loans.

I use Monero for private transactions and I am thankful for the existence of a private, untraceable currency (like most cash transactions IRL). I am concerned by the amount of energy expended on crypto-mining… it is a dreadful use of energy that could be used for far more productive purposes.

Thanks… a year later I found your post. I was looking for info about this after seeing someone with a Keyoxide bit in their bio. I used Keybase.io a few years ago and saw that zoom bought it so… that’s the end of that. Looks like Keyoxide is what I need now. Cheers!

There’s an interesting comment on this post about Graphene OS’ plans in this area, it’s quite a long comment so I’ll link it. The first para reads:

GrapheneOS Foundation has been planning to host a network location service for GrapheneOS and projects collaborating with us for a while now. We’ve received significant funding we can put to use for this to make a high quality, modern implementation on both the client and server side. A new unified app (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons) for gathering data to publish as fully open data could also be part of it. We also plan to make a SUPL implementation as part of the same service as an alternative to our Google SUPL proxy to replace it as the default in the long term.