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.
count_duckula
joined 1 year ago
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.
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.
I exclusively use Freetube for my Youtube needs. It is great when it works. Sometimes you have to find the right Invidious instance for it to work properly. A few times videos play at 720p. I have also noticed search failing for specific terms sometimes - for example "machine learning". I don't know if it is a bug or blacklisted words/phrases.
These are a few reality checks highlighting it isn't a perfect experience all the time, but I will be damned if go back to a vanilla Youtube interface after having gotten used to Invidious and then Peertube.
The upsides are less fluff that is recommended, you control your own feed with the videos from the channels you subscribe to, no ads, sponsorblock, and I guess more privacy.
I have a similar setup and decided to install it on my degoogled phone because I definitely wanted to use a VPN to connect to Whatsapp and my other phone is an older Android without the global VPN option.
I have it completely isolated from my main account by using Shelter from F-droid, installing Aurora store in that sandbox and then installing Whatsapp from Aurora into the work profile created by Shelter.
This way, my main contacts and media are not accessed by Whatsapp. It does its own separate thing and I have no other apps interacting with it.