No problem, glad to have more people know about it, it’s very useful!

Unfortunately, no. I believe you can’t really get this level of control without root access.

Ah right, airplane mode makes a ton of difference. I also tend to have it enabled as much as I can, usually when I’m home (and thus reachable through VoIP services) or at work. And I (almsot) never turn it off, I just leave it in airplane mode. I limit the charge to 75/80%, with ACCA, so I get even less juice.

And I’m sorry, I also dislike big phones with huge screens and batteries, there’s no real need for that. But I know that you can fit better batteries in smaller phones as well. My previous device was smaller than the Pixel 4a, but had a bigger battery, while having almost identical weight.
I wish manufacturers would make smaller phones, really. I’m very unsure what other device I will get after this one dies or gets broken…

After my 6 year old Redmi 4X’s screen touch decided to die, I got an opened-not-used Pixel 4a (in perfect condition) at the end of 2022, because it was one of the few small-ish phones that had good modding support (Pixel phones are ofc known to be very good to degoogle). I love it. Feels good, works well, has a great camera (got a GCam mod too), etc. Only downside is the smaller battery (3100 vs 4100 mAh), but honestly it isn’t that big of a deal, I can just carry a powerbank on my backpack or, you know, use my phone less.

Back then, it was the perfect choice for me. Now, I don’t know, haven’t been keeping up with current models.

Mandatory link

That’s the “Local link” I included in the post body.

I understand.
You could look into getting a domain either way, it really is pretty simple — you go to a registrar website (I like porkbun.com), choose your domain name and purchase it. To get the email stuff going, it’s just a bit of copy pasting between their guide and the domain’s control panel.

Like I said, this domain stuff is useful outside of Migadu and similar services, but for a more 0-config option, I think disroot is alright. You also have a mailbox.org and StartMail (from StartPage).

If you have your own domain, I recommend Migadu. They take care of all the boring parts of hosting email, while being cheap and very reliable. All you have to do is[1] follow their guude to setup some DNS records and double check everything is right. After that, you have a working email account with unlimited addresses, inboxes and a bunch more nice features.

[1]: Besides getting a domain name, which you should get anyway, since it gives you more control over your digital identity and makes it much easier to migrate providers in the future.

I just upgraded my Lemmy instance’s hardware and finally got IPv6 support :D

Yeah I feel you. It’s often hard to be fully alert of what you’re sharing all the time. I have slip ups but it’s usually fine, I’m only mega careful regarding things that could give away the city/town/village I live in, and where I work. If I ever really want to talk about it, I will use a different (often temporary) alias.

Great comment, cheers!

While this may be a good end goal, these comments are really more harmful than anything else. Removing your dependency on some proprietary service can be very far from trivial, or even doable, there is a wide-range of internal or external factors preventing you from ditching it.
For example, part of my work and a bunch of good online friends of mine use Discord, so I keep it around. If you do any social gaming as well, you’ll also most likely find it hard to ditch the platform, as it’s grown deep roots in the community.

Anyway, it’s better to take small steps in the right direction than trying to make a U-turn and fail miserably.

Interesting, my Discord profile is also very hardened, and while it prompts me for confirmation, it’s always doable in a moment

If you’re on Tor, that’s the very unfortunate reality atm. If you’re on a VPN, you may try switching providers or servers inside the same provider. I can recommend Mullvad, which works very well, even if you get some CAPTCHAs.

Yeah, they have upped their “paranoia” quite a bit in the past couple of years. A while back, I discovered smspool.net while trying to register for Claude (wanted to give it a shot, was disappointed) and was so satisfied by their interface and prices I’ve used it again in 3 other occasions. There may be other similar services out there, you should give one a try next time Discord prompts you for a number.

Depends a lot on your threat model, of course, but here’s what I do:

• use a temporary (but recoverable) email
• use smspool or similar to verify my phone for less than a dollar
• run Discord in a hardened Firefox profile (hardened browser settings + uBlock)
• turn everything relevant off in Discord settings just in case
• don’t share PII in conversation
• use a VPN (or Tor)

Using a hardened browser and not giving them your real phone are likely the most effective steps, everything else is either less relevant or overkill. As I said, depends a lot on your threat model and on your requirements (some things may be unachievable if you’re forced to use Discord by your employer, for example).