Mastodon: @RmDebArc_5@toot.io

  • 6 Posts
  • 49 Comments
Joined 1Y ago
cake
Cake day: Apr 11, 2024

help-circle
rss

AFAIK per EU law the collected data has to stay in data centers in the EU, ChatGPT and Gemini at least pretend to conform while Deepseek explicitly states that the data is stored in Chinese data centers.


I personally use Mullvad, although it’s not as customizable as Pihole/NextDNS.


PlaytronOS Alpha 2 released with expanded NVIDIA support, more handheld PC support and more
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28642900 > Release notes: > > **Hardware Support** > > * NVIDIA support for Turing (GeForce GTX 1600/2000 series) and newer cards > > * Support for dual-GPU systems such as desktops and laptops > > * OS upgrade from Fedora 40 to Fedora 41 > > * Support for portal-based Wi-Fi connections > > * These devices have been tested by Playtron and are known to work: > > * AYANEO 2 and 2S > > * ASUS ROG Ally > * Lenovo Legion Go > * Valve Steam Deck LCD (NVMe only) > * Valve Steam Deck OLED > > **New & Updated Features** > > * Full cloud save support with conflict resolution for Epic Games Store and GOG.com games > > * App details page with game metadata and actions > > * Full support for mouse and keyboard input > > * New sound effects > > * Basic avatar system > > * Select custom game input configurations some text > > * A limited selection of inputs are provided by the Playtron team as part of the Alpha 2 launch > * Input configuration creation will be one of the features of our upcoming tool Playtron Labs > > * Timezone support > > * Up to 2x battery usage improvement in OS > > * Over 100 bugs identified and fixed
fedilink

I think the fediverse does have a privacy problem, however as long as your account can’t be linked to you (malicious instance, your email being breached) it doesn’t matter all that much (at least for my threat level) because the info is confined to the fediverse, where little can be done with it, especially if you swap instances/accounts commonly. Yes, one could create a profile on you based on what you upvote/downvote, but they can’t for example use that to serve targeted ads, because the fediverse doesn’t have a ad network and when visiting other sites they can’t associate your profile with you (assuming you don’t reuse your username), unless I am forgetting something.

tldr: The fediverse isn’t private, but the data is practically useless


For example “yt-dlp select resolution” or “yt-dlp audio only”. There are some more, it feels like the pages I mentioned are just generally ranked higher.

Also really appreciate the dedication, I think Mojeek is probably the only search engine that listens this much to user feedback. Is there a Lemmy community or something similar where one kann submit queries like these?


The searches I have trouble with are mainly support for software. For example, searching for “Kdenlive audio visualizer” results in a Kdenlive tutorial that has nothing to do with audio visualization, Kdenlive release notes and a link to a no longer available Kdenlive docs page. Searching for most stuff with “yt-dlp” will result in the top pages being the alternativeto.net page and some other pages like the GitHub topic that don’t help with the problem at all. While most of the time when trying to get software support you will find a solution, but you will have to search a lot harder. Still, I’m amazed at how much the results improved since my prior use of Mojeek. If it continues to improve like that I’ll definitely give it another go.


I made this post a while ago, some parts aren’t correct anymore but it’s still pretty good. I use DuckDuckGo because I rely heavily on its image search filters, but I’m trying to move to a multi engine system. That will likely involve 4get because it’s FOSS and Brave because they have their own index that actually isn’t bad (Brave will be more of a backup solution).


I had used it for some time, but the results were really bad. They have gotten much better, but be aware that you will need to use other search engines. Privacy wise they do collect some basic information such as what you search for and what browser you’re using, but they don’t collect your IP so that it shouldn’t be associatable to you and they never share this info. To my knowledge they have not been involved in any big controversy’s so far.


Proton use wine and bundles dxvk and other tools, so it also has the same issue.

Windows doesn’t support any of the mentioned file systems out of the box, but there is a btrfs driver available.

There also is the more inconvenient option of creating symlinks for the games on a supported file system: Guide


WINE does not officially support NTFS as it is not optimal on Linux, even if you can technically read/write to it. So save yourself the headache and simply install your games on something like btrfs, xfs, or ext4 instead for playing games on Linux.

https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/FAQ#does-wine-run-on-all-unix-filesystems



I have a WebOS tv and the answer is: just don’t. It’s open source in a similar way Android is, spy’s on you, has way less apps available and can’t/is really bad at basic shit


Discord would be the obvious answer, but I understand why you might want to use it, my recommendation is using a client that disables some of the tracking like Vesktop. Spotify is also a major privacy concern, it can be replaced by Spotube (and to a lesser degree by Audiotube) which removes most tracking and is three and convenient. Also I’m not sure if I would keep using chromium, especially with manifest V3


The video is also on Odysee, but for me there is no marking.



cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42362729 > > There's a lot of blog posts and news articles being written right now centred around Microsoft's plans for updates to Windows 11, and potential kernel changes, with some thinking this means big things for Linux gaming. > > > Sorry to say, but I'm here to bring a more realistic take and to help keep all your feet on the ground. > > quite relevant to [yesterday's discussion](https://lemm.ee/post/42265523).
fedilink

Not OP, but for me bazzite has been great. The only issue I encountered was with a KDE extension breaking KDE on the next update, but I could just rollback and remove and admittedly you could only encounter this problem if you tinker with the desktop a lot


Don’t no which websites you are talking about, but a bunch of websites (looking at you Reddit) block VPNs based on ip. Your only option is changing server until you find one that isn’t blocked or using Tor


Yeah, as much as I love Kodi it is simply not meant for what I want to do, streaming that is.


Personally, I just use a raspberry pi with flex launcher. Not sure about remote though


Not trying to discredit the tool, but why the hell do they recommend edge as a private browser alternative?


They are trying to have it as a preinstalled OS on PC handhelds that want a more dedicated gaming experience. They are already working on a device made for it


But what about server side logging? Even if the server is open source how can one that they are actually the code they publish without changing anything if there are no audits?


Firefox doesn’t enable it by default, so if you turn it of any chance of being perceived as just another Firefox user is gone. It may not be a measurable difference but as basically no site respects it and those that do aren’t a big problem in the first place it doesn’t matter all that much


Their privacy is better than regular Firefox due to disabling telemetry etc, but librewolf does way more to protect against fingerprinting. The browser itself is quite good, although it shows that it’s in early development. Also I disabled send a do not track signal as it is used for fingerprinting



Floorp has/had some proprietary components. These were source available (not open source) at one point, but the repo has been archived and the official flatpak is still marked as proprietary, however firedragon (a floorp fork) still uses the source available components and other forks remove them entirely (although this results in missing features). Overall the whole thing seems pretty sketchy and if you currently use floorp I’d switch to firedragon or wait until this project matures unless you trust floorp completely.


Zen Browser for Privacy
So I came across this Browser, it's Firefox based, has some useful features and disable the telemetry by default. The [privacy policy](https://get-zen.vercel.app/privacy-policy) seems good to. It is still in alpha but I was curious if anybody knows anything about the project that would speak against it privacy wise?
fedilink

Chrome, Discord and Youtube (premium)? The council does not approve /j


That’s not entirely correct, invidious doesn’t act as a proxy. From the invidious faq:

By default, the video stream is fetched directly from Google’s servers (googlevideo.com) in order to reduce the bandwidth required by invidious, meaning that Google will be able to see your IP address and some other data commonly sent by web browsers, like your user-agent string.


Emulation is a great for offline gaming. You can also find some great FOSS games on flathub like srb2, srb2k and Mindustry. You can also get old books for free on Project Gutenberg and audiobooks on Librivox. In Germany (and other European countries) there is state financed tv which has free drmfree adfree and (relatively) privacy friendly streaming services. Newgrounds also is a treasure trove, especially for music. Also there is piracy


It is open source and on the Mozilla store, did you get the right one? The idea is that you whitelist the websites you trust so only trusted sites can execute js. A lot of websites have js free alternatives like libreX/Y instead of google. There also is GNU librejs which only disables js that doesn’t show its source code. It being a main component of the tor browser tells you a lot about the threat level it’s for. As I understand it the difference to ublock is that it’s lists are on a “allow all but” basis and noscript is on a “block all but” basis.


WhatsApp kind of has ads, in the form of advertised channels and still sucks up your data. For simplicity use Signal, for decentralized and number less registration use Simplex, and if you want the maximum privacy use Briar (Briar has huge trade offs for more privacy, so unless you gotta leak some documents or something I wouldn’t use it)


I don’t think they don’t care, they have been adding Linux versions for all of their apps (except drive of course). The CEO themselves said in an interview that a Linux client for drive is inevitable and they will make one, but one of the hardest clients to develop.


Services like this could be useful if you already have a connection through something encrypted (encrypted mail, matrix, …) but the files are too large for sending without this.


You don’t have to use all the services, most of them have an excellent free tier. My setup is paying for VPN, using the free tier of pass and self hosting my email and cloud storage.

Legally they (and every other company) are required to hand over data to the police, however they can try to have as little data as possible. While Proton doesn’t take as extreme measures to protect your privacy as for example mullvad, they have no log policy and such. I believe the case where they had to collect data (IP address, which they normally don’t collect) they received a legally binding order from the Swiss government which normally is used for serious crimes. Every company has to follow these orders, so this isn’t a proton thing but rather a Swiss law thing.


I would recommend looking at this site. My personal recommendation would be simplex chat. It’s decentralized, doesn’t require a phone number and supports forward secrecy.


So the solution for signals problems is a matrix based app that doesn’t even have passcode rekeying? Also it seems like the source code of the app isn’t available and they literally advertise that they will hand over to the government on request


Onetab is recommended by Firefox, so it gets monitored for security in some form, but regarding privacy it sends your visited domains to google to get the favicons but the rest of the privacy policy seems very good. As with any proprietary software, you can not really know if it is safe, you just have to trust it. As an alternative I would recommend Tab Stash, it does the trick for me


In the settings of your browser click add search engine, and the paste this link



SearXNG searches google, bing etc. for you and shows them to you. Speed depends on server speed and user number. Even if you don’t self host you can change the search providers in the settings, which can have an effect on result quality, but the less you choose the faster


Lilo is more feature complete than Ekoru and allows you to choose a charity (including ocean cleaning), maybe check it out


I have tried all the engines for this post and Ekoru has been working fine. I’m using the Firefox rpm on Fedora, slightly hardened, no VPN, Quad9. Make sure the Ekoru extension is up to date and has all the necessary permissions or alternatively try lilo



Search engines and privacy
So with the recent Bing situation I wanted to take a second look on private search engines and sharing my conclusions of each search engine. Here is my list of private search engines: [Duckduckgo](https://duckduckgo.com/) I really like Duckduckgo, it has all important tools, decent result quality and a great image search function. Instant answers is very useful. My main problems are the reliance on Bing as the index and the choice of Apple Maps as mapping solution. Apart from the situation with the browser and Microsoft tracking Duckduckgo has a pretty clear record and the privacy. [Startpage](https://www.startpage.com/) Startpage is another great option. Apart from mapping everything is there and, while not as good as Duckduckgo's, the image search engine good. The results are based on google and on par to better than those of DDG. The main advantages over DDG are European base (Netherlands) and the anonymous view, which basically functions as a quick access VPN, but sadly breaks ad/tracker blockers. Privacy for regular search is equal to DDG, but you have to disable JS to get rid of some telemetry. It is owned by an [advertising company ](https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/) [Swisscows](https://swisscows.com/) Swisscows is okay. It is also Bing based, but slightly worse than DDG results. It lacks image search filters and mapping, but offers a music search which allows you to listen to ad free music. It also has an anonymous view, but it's not interactive. Privacy is similar to DDG, but has more telemetry and (temporally) stores your IP. It is from Switzerland, it also has a very strict anti gore/porn policy that sometimes makes normal search terms inaccessible. [Qwant](https://www.qwant.com/) Qwant used to be very solid French search engine, has dropped in quality. Similar search quality to DDG, image search like Startpage. They use Bing in combination with their own index. Then problems: They share your IP with Microsoft and they replaced their main advantage, openstreetmap based independent mapping service, with AI summary's that require an account. Worse privacy than all the above. [Ecosia](https://www.ecosia.org/) Very similar to DDG. The main differences are that Ecosia is based in Germany, it plants trees to fight climate change, but also forwards your IP to MS. [Brave](https://search.brave.com/) Braves main advantages are being independent, both with the search and the AI, and the goggles that allow you to customize your results. Search results are slightly better than DDG, image search is bad, no mapping is available. Brave has had invaded privacy in the past, but currently the privacy is good as long as you disable statistics. The company itself is a bit concerning and the CEO is homophobic. [SearXNG](https://github.com/searxng/searxng) SearXNG is self hosted and open source, it uses various search engines as index and has a ton of extra feature like music search, fediverse search and a bunch more. While it has the most features and best privacy of all options, public instances are sometimes slow and the results aren't really good. [Kagi](https://kagi.com/) Kagi is in principle a decent quality search engine, but it is paid and has some problems that are only getting worse. For those interested read this [blogpost](https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html). [4get](https://git.lolcat.ca/lolcat/4get) 4get is a open source, self hostable search engine. It acts as a web scraper for various search engines, also supports Soundcloud. It has great privacy and good results, but it lacks mapping and the official instance requires a CAPTCHA per 100 searches [Yep](https://yep.com/) Yep is an independent search engine. It is private and has good results, but lacks image search tools, video search and mapping. [Presearch](https://presearch.com/) Decentralized independent search. It has good results but lacks image search tools, is sometimes unreliable and has intrusive advertising A quick fire round of search engine that have decent privacy, but I wouldn't use due to result quality: [Ekoru](https://www.ekoru.org/) Like Ecosia, but for cleaning oceans, Bing based, few features, requires extension. [Whoggle](https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search) Like SearXNG, but with less features. [Metager](https://metager.org/) Meta search engine with multiple search back ends, mainly Bing (Yahoo), completely powered by renewable energy [Mojeek](https://www.mojeek.com/) Independent UK search engine with few additional feature, is supposed to be unbiased [LibreX](https://github.com/hnhx/librex)/[LibreY](https://github.com/Ahwxorg/librey/) Like Whoggle [AstianGO](https://astiango.co/) Slightly modified version of LibreX by the Devs of the Midori Browser [Ghostery](https://ghosterysearch.com/) German independent search engine, regular web only, offers tracker analysis for websites [Stract](https://github.com/StractOrg/stract) Open source, self hostable, independent search engine [Lilo](https://www.lilo.org/) Like Ecosia, but with fewer features and the option to support various projects [YouCare](https://youcare.world/) Bing based search, shares your IP with MS, does "good deeds", some missing features [Giburu](https://gibiru.com/) Google based proxy search [Gigablast](https://gigablast.org/) Open source, self hostable, independent search engine [Mwmbl](https://mwmbl.org/) Open source, independent, self hostable search engine. Only web results [Marginalia](https://search.marginalia.nu/) Open source, independent, self hostable search engine. Only web results, offers filters That would be my list. I'll still be sticking with Duckduckgo but I'd reconsider if Startpage improves it image search. Brave will probably never be my default, but it has proven it's role as a more private backup. Comment if I missed any search engine Search engines I didn't include due to horrible privacy [Bing](https://www.bing.com/)/[Google](https://www.google.com/)/[Yandex](https://yandex.com/)/[Yahoo](https://www.yahoo.com/)/[You](https://you.com/)/[Baidu](https://www.baidu.com/)
fedilink