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Cake day: January 23rd, 2022

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  • I’vw become so brainwashed by the FOSS Difference™ that if I see something exclusive to proprietary OSes, I assume it’s 99% marketing and not actually an important nor useful feature. I have no idea what HDR is, but it sounds like a marketing acronym for something that’s done worse than the FOSS equivalent

    Also, my life is objectively better since I stopped using Adobe outside work.




  • He’s outspoken and the youtube algo seems to be pushing his content to everyone now. He used to be focused on Right To Repair, but has since branched out to privacy and FOSS

    He’s not particularly “bro”-y, but with the direction his rhetoric is headed, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him making guest appearances in the conspiracy corner of the grift-o-sphere

    references sexual assault when talking about the behavior of software vendors with their customers

    Yeah, that kinda pushed me away too. I get it, it’s an apt comparison for people who feel entitled to completely invade your privacy and do whatever they want inside your home, and it grabs the attention of the people who have just accepted no privacy as the norm… But it still makes me really uncomfortable




  • I’ll give you the most extreme solutions I can think of, and let you decide how much of each you want to enact.

    First and foremost: use a secure and privacy friendly OS—Qubes on a burner pc or GrapheneOS on a burner phone—with secure and privacy-friendly networking—use DNS-over-HTTPS, or self-host as much of the infrastructure as you can, consider a VPN, keep the device on an isolated VLAN—use a secure/private web browser like LibreWolf.

    General rules of online interaction apply for maintaining privacy within the servers: e.g. don’t talk specifics about your location, your age, your physical appearance, your childhood, your employer, etc.

    As with most modern apps, the web app is necessarily less intrusive than the installable binary. Use the web app when you can, and limit your usage to only when you can use the web app on a computer and network you own—privacy enforcing habits are more important than all the software stopgaps in the world.

    If you absolutely must use a binary, consider breaking Discord’s TOS and using a modified front-end: I know some people who use Aliucord for Android, and I just this moment learned about GoofCord for desktop

    don’t install/run any software without verifying the integrity of the developers/distributors and binaries yourself, or building from source and verifying the code

    It’s better to have Discord stealing your browsing data to sell you shit than have some random github malware rootkitting your phone.



  • Re the comic: great art! Can’t wait to read more. I’m already curious about these characters and their setting.

    Re the topic: I have to agree with Benno Rice here. While systemd is far from perfect, there is a lot that it got right, and there are a lot of reasons it became the most widely adopted init system—no, it’s not because the project owner is well-connected, that’s for Apple and M$. We should learn from that, instead of outright dismissing the users that have reasons for wanting/using it.

    More generally, this falls under the “should the tech adapt to the user or the user adapt to the tech?” debate. Systemd chose to aim for broadly applicable while still being easy to use for beginners who just want to “set it and forget it” (the tech adapted to the user). Meanwhile, savvy users have figured out exactly how they want their init configured, and the bare minimum they need to do so, so they’re willing to learn a different system (the users adapting to tech).

    I’m not even close to saying systemd is The Best™, nor even that it’s good. But it is good at what it wants to be, and it satisfies the overwhelming majority of gnunix users. Instead of writing them off as misguided followers of evil, maybe we should listen to their needs and try to find a way to tailor an init system to them.

    Spoiler: we don’t do that because they want something that takes care of everything systemd does, that’s as widely supported, and that requires minimal setup and maintenance. They want systemd.



  • I’m seeing a few comments suggesting OpenWRT, which is what I use and love: the correct response to this level of capitalist tomfoolery should absolutely be to 1. buy hardware that supports FOSS out of the box, or 2. install FOSS firmware.

    BUT: OpenWRT isn’t for everyone. Installation on supported devices is usually pretty easy, but it does require being invested in setup, maintenance, and understanding of the software. There is little built-in handholding, and most setup beyond basic functions requires reading the docs and wiki; sometimes, some functionality requires running commands directly on the device rather than the LuCI web-interface.

    This kind of understanding and investment should be the end-goal of all privacy-oriented tech users. Technology is complicated, and each layer of handholding that devs add also necessarily obfuscates behind-the-scenes functionality, which runs counter to privacy and security. That being said, the barrier for entry to privacy-respecting tech shouldn’t be “a masters in CompSci,” and thus any alternative to major tech brands is still a step up from just accepting what they give you. Just be aware that your current firmware may be a stepping stone towards software freedom, instead of a stopping point.


  • OpenWRT is really hard to get onto routers

    I bought the Nanopi R4S, and it was extremely easy to switch out their modified OpenWRT for vanilla (literally just use a command/program to install the image on an SDcard). Granted, I did have to find a solution for wifi, but even that was easy with the Belkin RT3200s and the instructions (more in-depth, but still hand-holding). I also flashed it onto a Netgear AC1200 using nmrpflash, which sounds imposing, but really just entailed installing the pre-reqs, hooking the router’s ethernet port directly to my PC’s and running the command.

    I did have to do my research to arrive at my decision to buy these specific models for their compatibility with OpenWRT. If you don’t, you might end up with something that requires popping open the shell and setting up serial comms, which is a pain.

    As far as I could find, out of the three Wifi6 enabled Asus models (RT-AX###) that are compatible with OpenWRT, 2 require ssh and running commands that are given in the guide; the other one, and all of the supported AC### models, seemed to work using ASUS’s built-in web-app to upload the OWRT image. I wouldn’t say any of it is easy, but I also can’t agree with “really hard.”

    Another consideration is setup and maintenance. Proprietary firmware tends toward being as “click here to set and forget everything, here are the only 3 pieces of info you need to know from now on”; OpenWRT is definitely more hands on and requires a lot of RTFMing and routine maintenance.





  • Louis Rossman is my Alex Jones. He’s angry, compelling, and talking about something that makes him seen like a conspiracy theorist to normies. Unlike Jones, though, he’s usually right (if not always, I haven’t fact checked everything he’s ever said). It’s extremely cathartic to see someone use such extreme rhetoric to talk about privacy and software ownership and right to repair; e.g. it’s not “advertiser’s entitlement,” it’s “rapist mentality.”

    Ironically, youtube’s inability to completely differentiate between people at the same IP has accidentally gotten my non-techie roommate into him too. I never shared his videos with her, never said anything about him, and one day I hear his voice as she browses the web. I’m so proud of her.


    My least favorite thing about the “engagement friendly” slop in youtube’s search results is that it takes up HALF of the results. Because clearly what I expect from SEARCHING for something is to dredge up a bunch of shit that ranges from tangentially related to completely unrelated.

    For example, I too just searched a song. Let’s see how that went:

    7 results
    4 “people also watched” videos
    5 results
    2 “More from [band name]” videos
    2 results
    3 “people also searched for” suggestions
    2 results
    3 “For you” vids (IS IT THE FUVKING SEARCH RESULTS I ASKED FOR??? BECAUSE IF NOT, IT’S NOT REALLY “FOR ME,” IS IT?)
    2 Results
    3 “From related searches”
    2 results

    That’s 20 results to 15 irrelevant pieces of ADHD triggering visual clutter. Luckily the results were actually relevant, unlike whatever you’re getting.

    To all the commenters saying “I have X, I don’t have this problem”: I have adblock, I don’t have this problem, YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT:

    YOUTUBE SEARCH IS BROKEN BY DEFAULT. The largest video sharing site on the internet is BROKEN BY DEFAULT. It shouldn’t require extra software to function properly when functioning properly requires less work on the server’s side


  • “I am a new linux user. After 15 minutes of research on google, I found a few forum posts and some niche websites that said SystemD was bad, so I took it as gospel. Now my system doesn’t work as simply as it did with installer defaults? How do I make everything Just Work™ after removing any OS components I don’t understand the need for?”