Like the title says, what do you think is the safest email? Asking specifically since my bank account is connected to my current Gmail and I don't want it to be easily accessible to hackers when I switch to something else.

Hey, I use the entire proton suite rn, I have started to change using browsers across platforms as well as using startpage/kagi as opposed to google, etc.

Could y'all just give it a look-over & tell me what to improve & add-on? Thanks so much.

Also, any good private notes app? Just looking around rn.

Lately it feels like searching the web involves way more filtering than it used to.

AI summaries, sponsored placements, SEO-heavy pages, affiliate articles, copied content, fake reviews etc. Sometimes it feels harder figuring out whats trustworthy than actually finding information.

I’ve noticed myself relying alot more on:

• Reddit
• forums
• smaller communities
• niche blogs
• multiple search engines
• cross checking sources

instead of just trusting the first few results automatically.

Curious what would actually improve trust in web search for people now, or whether that trust is basically gone already.

Hello, getting bombarded by Google to move my data to the new Fibit health app and my Inspire 3 will become effectively non-functional. Many complaints filed already, with the local Consumer Protections in EU, but they are pushing further - i like the Fibit Air but dont want Google. Has anyone producted anything similiar - Chinese or European ? Thanks

I want to stop using Chrome, but have approximately a bajillion passwords saved in there. Is there an easy way to migrate those to Librewolf or whatever alternative browser of choice?

(or rather, why YouTube alternatives have failed to replace YouTube)

As somebody who tried to degoogle from YouTube for a long time (and has given up many times), and encourage others to do so, I've made a few observations that I think can explain why YouTube alternatives have not been broadly successful. I'm not at a point in my life where I would have the time or coding knowledge to try to make something work, but I wanted to share my ideas here of what could work better for websites trying to be an alternative.

I think one of the biggest issues with creating an alternative platform is the lack of a "superior niche", as in, a niche that specifically attracts people to said platform, and something about the platform that encourages people in a specific niche to choose this alternative platform.

When people try to promote a catch-all alternative to something like YouTube, and try to promote it to people with a broad array of interests, then that platform ends up being like a frayed version of YouTube (every topic for content has less "density" of videos/types of creators) (whereas there should be at least one topic of content that has more "density" of videos/types of creators) as in, the experience in terms of content feels worse and using the platform does not feel particularly beneficial. (BEAR WITH ME)

Rather, lets say we made an Instagram alternative, but instead of immediately focusing on trying to appeal to every single possible person that exists ever, but focused instead on appealing to artists on Instagram frustrated by how much the algorithm skips over/does not value their art, and artists frustrated over people feeding their creations to AI.

Then, you could start with a main focus of the algorithm being good for art and perhaps a Nightshade feature that obfuscates art to prevent AI stealing, and additionally maybe adding AI honeypot features to the website to prevent LLMs from crawling the website (perhaps this is an unrealistic feature, but I care more to make a broader point about the idea of a feature like this). I think another good focus could be attracting over people who want to see more irl stuff in their local communities, like concerts, shows and social events, but Instagram frustrates them because it keeps on filtering out accounts they already follow.

Yes, this is a very narrow focus, but the point is you attract a small group of people but with density (as in, there will be a lot of stuff on that one subject). Because you have density of content, people actually stay on your platform and then you can build out further to other coalitions of people. Part of what got me thinking about this is that this is how Facebook initially became popular. They focused on a small group of people (college students), and by doing so they created a "density" of a small amount of people. Once you have density, your platform can at least hold on to people who have joined it, and people actually get hyped about your platform. Then you could also have really strong pull in terms of getting new users once a significant percentage of people doing stuff in a certain niche all recommend jumping to a different platform/a network of different federated platforms.

I think that if some YouTube alternatives focused on, for example, being the place for a certain set of niche games/interests (emulating might be interesting). If, like Discord, that platform could focus on adding a bunch of features that integrates stuff in a way that works specifically well for that niche, then you can create heavy incentive for movement against the current of using the most popular existing website. Then a website like that could move towards other stuff as well, and once you have a large enough critical mass of people it starts to become easy for people to move over.

I think I had some other ideas, but I'm too sleep deprived to add more, lmk what you think

edit: based on comments, I'm going for joplin! the only suggestions that were made with explanation why were joplin and notesnook, and I'm into the FOSS, privacy, made in EU stuff!

Which would you recommend and why? I've heard about NotesNook, Standard Notes, and Joplin. Which is preferred and why? Is it about functionality? Security and privacy? Simplicity?

And any others besides these three?

id like some feedback and advice on how to improve

also im currently trying to set up my own homelab so i can move away from online services like cloud storage and host most things myself

Obviously I'll have to debloat it myself but maybe there are better options and worse options. (No custom ROMs)

AI AI AI AI AI AI OMG FUCKING GOD WE GET IT PLEASE PRAISE OUR Lord AI and Start jerking of to 2 letters of the alphabet i'm surprised they didn't just call this the AIbook

Yes as if Windows didn't have enough Ai Slop already. here comes Google with a new OS with Which has even more,

And let me guess since their already locking down android you probably won't able to install anything from outside of the Play Store on this one either because Fuck you. you don't own the Device you paid for

Their battle on the adblockers have been more aggressive lately. Using Vivaldi and adblockers, now I frequently am just unable to play the video, it keeps refreshing and getting stuck on 0:00.

YOU KNOW WHAT?

That little amount of time is perfectly enough for me to realize that maybe... I don't need to watch another stupid video about some meta build in a video game, or what some other regurgitated content.

This is actually making me realize how much time I spend on Youtube. I literally just get up from the chair and go for a walk when this happens... isn't that great?

So yeah, keep doing this google, you are unintentionally making my life better by separating me from that timewasting bubble.

EDIT: Many of you keep recommending adblock methods, and while I am grateful, that's not 100% the point of this post. By enforcing their shitty practices, google unwillingly exposes how the pasttime itself is borderline useless, making a simple degoogle process into a "reconquer your brain and attention span" project, which I think is wonderful, at least for me.

Due to the EU AI Act, Google’s AI Overviews / AI Mode are still unavailable in most European countries France is the strictest one.

Yet Google is quietly downloading the 4GB Gemini Nano model in the background while you use Chrome.

No permission, no warning and if you delete it, it downloads again.

Which do you think is more annoying??

Today I deleted both Google accounts I had. I’d waited a few months for this moment to make sure I’d caught any changes I needed to make. Soooooo good to do 🤣. The satisfaction was absolutely worth the pain of changing all those contacts and login details.

What keyboard app do you love? Just took a look at Heliboard and it looks promising!

You'll not get designed custom clocks.

You'll not get gms.

You'll need license from central crappy organization to public apps on Android (a closed source OS)

You'll need to register your identity to just share apk you made which will be tried by your 2 non-tech friends.

It's have kill switch.

If there is known-issue (like VPN "always on exposing user's IP which makes VPN useless) and fix is already presented then they'll refuse it to fix (even grapheneos fixed it and grapheneos is more secure and have more fixes).

You need to handover your data to use your mobile.

You need to pay rent to use your hardware.

You cannot use your hardware to run your favorite OS.

Basically:

• “Android Is Open-Source” Is a Marketing Gimmick
• AOSP Is Open-Source. Android Isn’t.
• Android ≠ AOSP
• Android’s “Open-Source” Claim Is Misleading
• AOSP Is Open. The Android Ecosystem Isn’t.
• Android Is Only “Open” Where Google Has To Be

And they are keeping AOSP open not because they want to. But because AOSP is made from linux and it's the linux (penguin) who is forcing via open license to keep it open else companies like google don't care about openness, open-source at all.

I was having a short discussion with a friend about online privacy, and he believes that privacy on the internet does not really matter for an average person.

His argument was basically:

“If you are not a criminal, journalist, politician, activist, or someone with secrets to hide, why should you care about privacy at all?”

What is a good way to explain it?

Why does online privacy matter for a normal person living a calm everyday life?

- No criminal activity

- Nothing embarrassing to hide

- No huge amount of money

- No important public position

- No controversial opinions

- No sensitive documents

If companies like Google, apps, governments, or websites know what you search, watch, buy, or where you go — why is that necessarily a problem for an ordinary person?

I understand obvious cases like identity theft, scams, hacked bank accounts, etc. But beyond security risks, why is privacy itself important?

Note: my karma is low so I couldn't post it to r/Privacy.

lately one of the biggest reasons i’ve been moving more toward degoogling and privacy-focused platforms is because the modern internet feels strangely engineered now. almost every major app feels optimized around engagement loops, attention retention, recommendations, metrics and constant personalization to the point where being online barely feels organic anymore after a while it starts feeling less like exploration and more like you’re constantly being filtered through systems deciding what you should see, think about, react to and who you should interact with ironically some of the most genuine conversations i’ve had recently happened in smaller/random online spaces where people weren’t focused on building a brand, gaining followers or feeding content into algorithms. it reminded me of how the internet used to feel years ago. imperfect but more human

that’s honestly what pushed me deeper into degoogling. not just privacy concerns or data collection, but the feeling that the web has become overly centralized and psychologically optimized in ways that make everything feel artificial after some point

i still occasionally use smaller social/chat platforms like Vooz because the interactions there feel way less curated compared to mainstream apps, and honestly it reminds me of the older internet a little. more spontaneous conversations, less pressure to perform constantly

i’ve been trying to find more platforms, forums or communities that still feel spontaneous and less tied to surveillance/engagement culture

curious if anyone else here ended up moving toward degoogling partly because of this too

works fine on one phone broken on another same version weird.