Libb

I havent switched operating system yet due to fear of losing my data.

If you value any data, you should already have backups (plural), right? So, if you decide to switch OS you don’t need to worry about your data since you have backups (plural). Hint: if you don’t do backups already, start now with or without OS switch.

If i delete google play services, will my phone not work correctly?

Depends what you do with it. What OS you use. My spouse is using /e/OS and she has access to all the apps she needs, but I reckon you probably don’t use the same app as we do (we’re both 50+) ;)

I have been replacing my apps with open source apps, is that helpful?

Depends. It’s probably a good idea but if you use open source apps to access and use non-privacy respecting services, well, they won’t help much.

What vpn should i use? I have malewarebytes.

One you trust. I use Mullvad and Proton. Both are paid for.

I’d wrap it in a towel inside the box. Have you considered making a DIY Faraday cage? I’ve been thinking about it but my physics isn’t very good

I may consider doing that, thx.

Thx a lot for the explanation :)

I’ve heard the name, but don’t know what a docker is used for. Kinda like a vm? Not really a geek, I’m afraid ;)

Either someone randomly downvoted (ok, bye). Or someone thinks downvoting me is punishing me in some way for daring say something they don’t agree with (no idea how that could be punishing me, but hey). Or someone is too lazy to explain their reasoning. In any case, I don’t think it’s worth much consideration.

And, yep, as far as I’m concerned I consider this an OK approach. Not faultless, but usable ;)

Not much

• Full disk encryption on my computers.
• Password manager, for strong & unique passwords everywhere
• Linux as my OS
• Firewall.
• Backups: local (encrypted) and remote (encrypted).
• Computers are all wired to the network, no WiFi.
• Also, I use my phone as a… phone and for little else.
  I mean, there is a 2FA app and the few mandatory apps I must have access to (finance, and banking) and that is it. No social, no games, no nothing. Not even email is configured on that trash piece of corporate spyware. I sincerely consider it a threat to our privacy so I don’t trust it beside what I have no option to trust it with. I also suppose that this device, even though I deactivated the setting, is constantly listening to what we say nearby. So, when I don’t need it, I store it in a thick box to reduce whatever it may be recording.
• I use as little digital tools as I can. I went back to analog (ie, for my agenda and I hardly see any reason to go back to digital). I take all my notes longhand too, and it’s been more than a year I have not read an ebook as I went back to analog there too. Why? No spying, no tracking of what I read and what I write. And no sudden ‘termination’ of services or ‘removal’ of a book from my device for any reason.

I really, really don’t understand how people see LLMs as the only options for stuff like this…

We can’t tell that is what the OP thinks and I would rather not assume anything. But if that was the case, I would imagine OP is from this generation that seems to have completely lost connection with the written word. It’s a huge loss for them (and for the whole society), a dramatic one even but one can’t realize how tragic it is, and how much they are losing, if they don’t have an opportunity to experiment what it’s like to be writing (and reading).

To the OP, if you’re wondering about writing in a journal (paper or digital, it’s up to you but be assured it can be private), feel free to come say hello in the !journaling@sh.itjust.works. I’m the admin there and if there isn’t much activity going on, I’m pretty sure this kind of situations may be of interest to way more people than we imagine. At the very least, if you have questions I will do my best to answer them, hopefully others would chime in too ;)

Edit to clear: not being able to read/write long-form content anymore is a tragic loss for younger generations, and that will cost dear to most of them because the few that will have learned to master those ‘low-tech’ activities, and to focus their attention, will outperform the others and they’re the ones that will get the all the rewards we associate with ‘winning’. But if they’re the ones that will pay, for the most part they’re not at fault. It is us, the adults that were supposed to be educating them, that are responsible. We failed. Hard. Now, they will pay the price.

But lately I’ve been in a rough state mentally (I say lately but it’s always been with me) and having GPT guide me and being able to just dictate what I think helps me a lot on various levels, for various reasons.

Do you mean you use it to brain dump your thoughts and things like that?

If so, have you considered simply… writing stuff down with a pen on paper? Aka, journaling.

I’ve been doing that for, well, almost all all my live (started as little boy, I’m now well into my 50s) and it has always been tremendous help to better understand whatever is going on in my head/happening around me/with other people/the world.

Pen and paper journaling is also 100% not online, unless you want it to be. And it’s cheap, when it’s not completely free ;)

Those two services have strengths but they also have some drawbacks, that are more or less painful depending one’s needs. If there are people out there who feel so empty that they can’t stand any critics concerning a product they think is great, well, what can I say? I’m so sorry for them.

Get that shit off my eyeballs, I paid for this product.

You should try Proton, then /s

Proton constantly tries to push you to upgrade to the next plaid plan too. So much so that that couplet with still zero fucking support for Proton Drive under Linux are the two reasons I have cancelled my paid Proton plan… and I had been paying for years.

what can be downsides?

The same that pushed you to stop using FF the browser to begin with?

I mean, if you worry about FF/Mozilla doing naughty things with your browsing data, should you not worry as much if not more about the data you ask them to sync for you and save on their very own servers?

For the time being, it’s not a definitive decision as I’m waiting to see what they will do next, I’ve quit using FF (using Waterfox instead) and for me not using FF obviously also meant to stop using their sync feature.

They sell ads and they work with MS (Bing). But they’re EU (French) and I hope more respectful of our privacy because of GDPR.

It’s my fallback engine but my main search engine is Kagi, even though it’s US and paid-for (no-free tier, beside free trial).

I know saying good things about a paid product is frowned upon around here but I certainly won’t lie, or change what I think in order to please some random self-proclaimed vigilante. Imho, Kagi works very well and, as long as you can afford it, is worth every single cent.

It’s ad-free, tracking and seo-crap free too. Comes with some nifty features (to further filter and control the type of results you see, for example). I also love their ‘small web’ search that focuses, well, on small websites by default. That’s so cool. Plus, it gives excellent results that must be among the most useful I’ve ever gotten… like in the 90s and 00s when Google used to be disruptive and useful to its users, not to advertisers ;)

Note that they have their own ad-blocker (not as good as uBo, mind you).

I don’t know it, my first question would be: who really owns it?
Then, I would immediately be suspicious of a deal promising me a 90% discount… But that’s just me.

Are you trying to be hired by Google? Then, maybe ;)

More seriously, I don’t know if this matters. Do people really care about the address?

I’ve been using my own domain names for decades, what I’m using behind that name doesn’t show. But I’m also old enough I don’t need to worry about (un)pleasing any potential employer.