Not me. I was interested in the tech and innovations that underlie cryptocurrency since the early 2010s and I’ve disliked and distrusted Musk for as long as I can remember.

At that time the reddit hive mind loved Musk and was positive towards crypto, now the Reddit Hive mind has realized they actually hate musk and categorically hate crypto. My views haven’t changed (Musk is a shitty narcissistic human, and crypto solves some useful problems despite a deserved reputation for attracting a lot of scammy projects and people).

It’s a word that has become popular in general in the last year-ish. But if you hear it more here. It is likely because it is a term used to describe the dynamic that pushed people from Reddit and other platforms to Lemmy. So you will here it more here, since pretty much everyone here has been personally affected by it.

Basically we are a self selecting group of people who chose to leave (or minimize use of) big tech platforms. And are therefore much more likely to be aware of the problems with those platforms.

But that wasn’t the question.

Considering that in this analogy you’d be asking the mugger to be your protector it is still unreasonable.

Particularly considering there are plenty of reputable and privacy respecting vpn providers

Yeah voluntarily using a VPN from Google (the largest tracking and Adtech company), is like voluntarily seeking out Mob “protection”

I think Konquerer is no longer actively maintained.

Fun fact (which you may already know) the two most popular browser engines today are based on KHTML)

Google is in the process of undermining the effectiveness of uBlock Origin and other adblockers on Chrome and other Chromium browsers. I believe that change comes into effect this year.

But even before those changes were announced, uBlock Origin’s creator and main dev has stated that uBO is most capable on Firefox.

I just wish that a free-speech-absolutist-billionaire would buy the platform so things like this wouldn’t happen anymore. He could even rename it something cool (like ‘Y’ or ‘Z’) to get some street-cred with edgy middleschoolers…

If you form your understanding on topics you don’t understand based on what “gatekeeping morons” think or do, you are going to be perpetually misinformed

You can use a second router and pass through the WAN. It’s a bit complicated to explain in a comment, but it’s also not too difficult. Is your ISP ATT?

NextDNS and pihole serve the same purpose and are redundant. Personally I prefer NextDNS but it wouldn’t make sense in ops meme

Pihole is a great project, but it is objectively less capable than uBlock Origin.

That is not a criticism of the software. It is just a fundamental fact that DNS based adblockers are less powerful, and less granular/precise than Browser based adblockers.

They do work well in combination though (the DNS level adblockers gives you moderately effective network wide blocking, and uBlock Origin gives you exceptional blocking but is limited to the browser.

There are only *two must have extensions in Firefox:

1. uBlock Origin
2. Your password manager’s browser extension

Beyond that it’s all optional. Most things I used to use extensions to accomplish are now possible to accomplish using Firefox’s built in settings or using uBlock Origin.

There are a few other extensions I use that I consider useful but optional:

1. Dark Reader
2. Facebook Container
3. Libredirect

Flatpak is not designed to solve all the same problems as snap they have very different scopes and goals. It’s really only Linux hobbyists that see these as comparable technologies.

Also the Steam flatpak is unofficial just like the snap, they would be unwilling to support flatpak issues as well.

I think there is no “we” and there is no “them”

It’s an arbitrary distinction between two groupings that are too broad to meaningfully judge.

There is also no point or honor in judging on its own. If you dislike Greenpeace’s approach, find another approach and devote yourself to it, put your money where your mouth is.

Activism is in reality often a choice between choosing the least worst strategy in a context where you have limited power and control, and any decision you make will alienate someone. Particularly the armchair-sitters who believe they are “in the middle” and who’s only contribution tends to be saying empty things like “I believe in their mission just not their tactics” but don’t put forward a practical strategy of their own. This applies to most activism, particularly direct action.

To be fair, the so called “”cheese”” inside the plastic wrap is probably mostly plastic / petro product as welll…

Some of those alternative “YouTube” apps are not limited to YouTube as a backend/source of content. I don’t recall if it’s freetube, new pipe or both that allow using Peertube and YouTube from the same app, which helps bridge the gap in content / ease the transition from an end user perspective.

• Rattlesnake
• Sea Urchin
• Reindeer Hamburger
• Abalone
• Cricket
• Frog
• Alligator

What you are feeling is natural and relatable. You need to find a balance and define your threat model.

Privacy maximalism and/or FOSS maximalism etc is natural impulse when you first begin to grasp just how quietly exploitive, invasive, and commoditized the modern internet is. But it also leads to burnout and can be isolating if you are too rigid about it.

Define your threat model, and your priorities. Accept that perfection is not attainable and do the best you can. It’s less overwhelming.

My advice:

• pick ONE easy to use and well established/reputable messenger that is privacy respecting (Signal is the obvious choice in my eyes). Make it known that this is your preferred messenger (and have a short, not super technical and not super political explanation why you prefer it). Try to get the people you are closest with or communicate with most, and the people you think are most likely to be interested to start using it.
• Then, have a preferred fallback or two (basically the “least worst” mainstream option). Depending on your circle, iMessage, RCS, WhatsApp, or Telegram might be that fallback. None are anywhere near perfect but they also aren’t the worst and sometimes you have to meet people where they are.

I agree with your critique of both the algorithms today and the often relatively low-effort, unoriginal, self-interested, and self-absorbed people that tend to rise to the top of these systems. (While still acknowledging there is a lot of great content as well)

I try my best not to let the Algos shape/direct my viewing.

With respect to YouTube, I:

• Disable the ‘front page’ and ‘trending’ category.
• Disable ‘auto play’
• find content in two ways: directly from a list of the channels I subscribe to, or by deliberately searching for something.

It’s certainly not a perfect approach, but it does a lot to focus my attention on things I actually care about and minimize the effect the algorithm has on what I see or view.