I think the least that distros can do, is allow listing all packages and system settings in config files like `.toml` rather than having to type in every single package to install, or click through system setting GUIs to setup. Would that require using a whole programming language or system like NIx? While NixOS works much differently from most distros, that's the only reason I use it: package and system settings in text files. If I fix something, it's fixed permanently, I don't need to hunt down files in random directories if I want to change a setting. If I ever need to reinstall the OS I don't have to write `dnf install every single damn package` and manually setup all that up all over again. Having daily-drove Windows macOS & Fedora as throughout the years, my setups have felt hacky as well as houses of cards as I've wanted or had to set them up again (I don't mean Fedora specifically, but distros in general). Basically it feels insane that it's the way most linux users and servers in the world operate. If I, a humble computer hobbyist can figure out Nix, why don't more users do so, and why is Nix so niche?

I want to see either a persistent rectangle box on the edges of the region being recorded (anything outside the box isn't recorded), or dim the parts of the screen that aren't being recorded. I looked for screen recorders for hyprland & wlroots and didn't find any with this functionality. wf-recorder + slurp works for me but I want a boundary visual.

I know I could and should encrypt whole drives but I want another layer of protect specific folders when my devices are unlocked, a password. I want the folders to behave like regular folders where I can add or remove files as usual, without a clunky UX like password protected zips. I looked it up and didn't find any straightforward solutions.

Fastbackgroundcheck. com says there's info on me on truthfinder, spokeo, peoplefinders and instantcheckmate. When I try going through all four of those sites takes a super long time, including a few times in the past when I tried getting reports on myself. The progress bars reach 100% and reset continously. If these sites are legimate like some reddit users claim, then why or be upfront about wanting me to pay? Right now I'm convinced that these sites are snake oil, maybe they work if you pay but the behavior of the free options turn me off. They act 100% like typical scam websites, the kind that asks you to complete three surveys on external sites with fake progress bars. Basic info like my full name, address, age, and siblings can be found with search engines easily but I feel like there's no point in trying to wipe it if there aren't methods that could definitely work.

I haven't played Minecraft since 2015, but I get the feeling I might again in the new few years as I wanna find new hobbies. I know that game has changed a whole lot but I don't have any official online data on it. I've had this Microsoft account for over a decade and its probably full of personal information that I wanna let go of, I've already exported all my data. I would need to pay $30 for another copy of Minecraft, same price I paid in 2013. I just did a bunch of searching and its not possible to transfer my Minecraft license to another account.

Dear Rivals @Game NewsRecently, we've received feedback fromplayers regarding an issue where someindividuals playing in compatibility layerprograms have been mistakenly flagged ascheaters, even without using any cheatingsoftware. This has resulted in bans. Wesincerely apologize for this situation andwant to assure you that we do not & will noban players who are playing fairly andwithout cheating. We have identified the specific reasonsbehind these false bans and have compileda list of affected players. We have liftedthese bans and want to express ourheartfelt apologies for the inconveniencethis has caused. Our mission is to provide all players with afair, just, and enjoyable gamingenvironment. Therefore, preventing andidentifying cheaters is one of our toppriorities. We have invested significantmanpower and resources to improve thespeed and accuracy of our detectionsystems. With any any ongoing detectionsystem, there is always room forimprovement. We appreciate yourassistance in helping us tackle thischallenge. If you encounter any cheatingbehavior, please report it immediately; ourreporting system will respond promptly. Ifyou believe you have been wrongly banned,you can appeal to our customer supportteam, and we will review your case andrespond in a timely manner. You can reachthe support team via either in-game or inDiscord! Thank you for your understanding andsupport! (edited)

Basically create an alias for every combination to prevent privacy cross contamination. For instance, not only should you make an email alias for an Eventbrite account, but for every organization you sign up for events with. You are required to enter an email (any email) for the event, which can be seen by both Eventbrite and the organization. If you enter in the email of your Eventbrite account then the org could give that away, resulting in email spam and you can't be sure if it was either Eventbrite itself or the org that sold you out. If that happens then you would probably want to delete email address but then you have to change it in other places you need to send/receive emails from. Another example is Discourse forum sites. While Discourse is open source and self-hostable, you may not always be sure if a Discourse site is self-hosted or using paid hosting. A lot online places have both their own website and a separate discourse site. Bitwarden's forum site doesn't have a sign-in option using your Bitwarden.com account, and Raindrop.io uses canny.io to track app feedback which has also uses its own login. (I'm actually glad I made an alias for every single Discourse forum site before realizing all of this).

I just did this on a website that said my Simplelogin alias isn't allowed for signup, but changed it successfully after the fact from a disposable email.

(I'm aware that many Lemmy users hate Reddit. this discussion would be useful for anyone that Lemmy users that also use Reddit) This came as a big surprise to many users on places like r/help and r/bugs, including me. Reddit made this post last week on it: [Say goodbye to new.reddit on Dec 11, 2024 : r/modnews](https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1h7hcun/say_goodbye_to_newreddit_on_dec_11_2024/). Seeing this r/privacy post: [sh.reddit (shreddit) is a Google spyware machine designed to de-anonymize you : r/privacy](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1h7ywdr/shreddit_shreddit_is_a_google_spyware_machine/), New New reddit (2023 Reddit redesign) pings Google repatcha on *every single page load*. I saw the comments but its not clear how to counter this other than using old.reddit.com (which I like even less than 2023 reddit) or using 3rd party apps.

https://windowsreport.com/mozilla-firefox-removes-do-not-track-feature-support-heres-what-it-means-for-your-privacy/

https://windowsreport.com/mozilla-firefox-removes-do-not-track-feature-support-heres-what-it-means-for-your-privacy/

For instance, People I know that are using Eventbrite for private event registration. To sign up for the event with or without an account, you have to write and confirm your email in the boxes, I did some looking up to see if hosts can see the email. I didn't find any answers so I made a Reddit post asking, and got a reply saying "No, they can't. Eventbrite deletes them as soon as you submit the form." I wanted to be sure so I created a private test event and registered for it in a private window. I then went to my event dashboard and clicked on the ticket # where I can in fact view it (the email shown is made up).  I only asked Perplexity after trying to find out myself. [It did in fact find the answer](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/can-you-view-attendees-emails-x8kNhu_oQYS44DI1bNv43A) ([link #8: View your Attendee Summary report](https://www.eventbrite.com/help/en-us/articles/761718/how-to-edit-and-export-an-attendee-summary-report/)): "Review attendee purchase details like email address ..." I've found LLMs and search tools like Perplexity to be unreliable for answering questions like this for websites, as well as software. Which means I may not turn to them in cases where they actually would help. It's too bad they hallucinate a lot too. 

This is straightforward with browser addons like uBlock Origin where you can add and choose blocklists, but I did searches for doing so system wide and using a VPN but didn't find clear answers. I could use a DNS service that provides blocklists but isn't it best practice to leave DNS to the VPN provider? I looked up blocklists and VPNs but didn't find relevant results. On Android, I didn't find any apps that let you filter blocklists and using your own VPN other than Rethink, but the blocklists feature requires using Rethink's DNS. So what's the best way to filter ads and trackers on both 3rd party apps and on OS's like Android (specific Samsung phones) while still using a VPN?

I've had a Galaxy S22+ for 2 years and still want to use it. When I look up how to maximize privacy on Android, many results say to install custom ROMs which I can't since its a US model and the bootloader is locked. I just want to minimize tracking and sharing of personal information. I could use a firewall app like RethinkDNS to block trackers, but could I completely block tracking from Google and Samsung? Are there any lists of packages to uninstall to improve privacy? (I've used ADB to remove a bunch of bloatware. Ex: `pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.arzone`)

Like when I read [3 Billion National Public Data Records with SSNs, Addresses Dumped Online](https://reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1emmz1r/3_billion_national_public_data_records_with_ssns/), am I supposed to access that data dump or something to see if I got pwned? Are there equivalents to [haveibeenpwned.com](https://haveibeenpwned.com) for this type of stuff? Any guides on what to do when these happen? I feel like I'm doomscrolling or watching the news, and feeling depressed about the world as a result because I should be doing something but I can't or it seems like I can't. Even though I know better than to put such personal info online, but that doesn't eliminate the odds of them getting into breaches like these, and having started to be careful about digital privacy has opened my eyes to the sad state of privacy.

I tried looking for lists but didn't find any. The Work Number is US-specific and where your employers input your salary data for future employers to see. You can opt out here: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze/.

One example would be state disability programs, they already need my real name and identity to work with me. Are there any downsides to sharing a simplelogin alias containing my real name vs no containing my real name? I just think it would be easier record keeping for them.

I just tried changing my email on studentaid.gov to a simplelogin alias (using SL is a habit at this point) and I got notifications that emails from it were bounced while trying to verify the email change with sent codes. I looked it up and found a bunch of Reddit posts about issues with SL and iCloud.

I want to keep a timeline of the places I go like Google Maps can, and export it to mac for my diary*. The maps app doesn't have to be great, it just needs to keep a timeline in the background, I would still use Apple Maps as my main navigation app. *(ideally I can automatically export it somehow, perhaps with the Shortcuts and Scriptable app but just tell me any apps with a timeline and export feature)

That's a use case for aliases, catching if any company or service gives out your email to be abused by advertisers and whatnot. I tried looking for stories but didn't find any, I wonder if you have any to share.

I want to be logged in so I can do most things on Reddit like post and comment. I want it to be a web frontend rather than an app because I keep many tabs on Reddit open in my browser while doing research on things (like digital privacy for instance!). I did some searching and didn't find any currently working frontends with login support.

It seems like the main benefit of such frontends is the lack of trackers and fingerprinting, but what if the browser, like Firefox, already did that with UBlock Origin and fingerprinting protection?

It's now been two weeks since I created an account and tried making a post, but immediately so I got a message saying my account is on hold. I tried emailing Jonah Aragon who's listed on the site, and messaging the mods on the forum, but still haven't heard back. Any ideas for what to do? This is really annoying.

**Solution:** I came up with this uBlock Origin filter rule: `startpage.com$removeparam=/abp|lui/`, I started by removing all the paramters and then took them out one by one while testing if searches made on [startpage.com](https://startpage.com) worked with them: `startpage.com$removeparam=/abp|t|lui|sc|cat/`. I also got a [response](https://reddit.com/r/StartpageSearch/comments/1e1jn1f/comment/lcuxsmp/) from [u/SPSupport](https://reddit.com/user/SPSupport/) that the paramters don't show when I search from the URL bar with my search engine set to [https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?query=%s](https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?query=%s), which I did. I want to be able to see the search query in the URL, and have a URL that I can always go back to if I restart my browser. I set the HTTP request method in settings to GET instead of POST since that shows the query, but it adds a bunch of extra paramters: - The URL I want: https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?query=wizard+of+oz - The URL I get: https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?query=wizard+of+oz&abp=1&t=device&lui=english&sc=evp2qxFIy8iZ00&cat=web

I tried Startpage and Searx but when I search things celebrity info or health conditions, the kind of searches where Google and other 1st party search engines would show info cards on the right, they show them on the left above all the search results rather than on the right side like Google search does. Its bad design because I have to scroll down to see the results when I wouldn't have to otherwise, and I'm used to the Google search layout, it probably takes some getting used to for other people as well. Its a waste of screen real estate on wide screens, it looks like the UI was made for mobile only.

I'm eligible for the US Lifeline program to get a phone number for free. I would use it on websites that require a phone number, like Discord, which doesn't accept numbers on services like Google Voice, and replace my personal phone number with it wherever necessary. And I would start using my personal phone number only with friends and family. I would NOT be using a provided lifeline phone, but rather a sim on my iPhone.

SimpleLogin doesn't allow too many aliases for a given site like Reddit, even with a custom domain. I get that services don't want to ruin their own email domains, but I should be allowed to do whatever I want with my own domain.

I want to use Telegram on the web without needing to have a desktop or mobile app installed. I only rarely use Telegram.

If you quit YouTube then you also quit all the content on YouTube that isn't elsewhere. The best solution if you still want to use it is to use 3rd party apps. Personally I would actually count that as having no reliance on Google in particular anymore. If a video platform owned by Google wasn't the most popular then it would be another platform. I don't think you should think of 3rd party apps as YouTube frontends, but rather, apps that scrape videos hosted on Google's servers.

I only just thought of this. I have the same cartoon-y profile pic from a foreign TV show on a bunch of my accounts, I wonder if its unique enough and worth tracking.

By data I mean anything / everything: telemetry, contents in emails and files, and other user data. My school uses Google Workspace and I don't like the idea of having to depend on it but I can't change that. Give me tips and advice.

Isn't the value of two factor auth that it requires a physical device (your phone or computer) with the auth key to authenticate you? Then why don't many two factor auth apps seem to support syncing? If it's fine to do so, are there any open source cross platform apps that sync keys?

All I found was [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Simplelogin/comments/y4qwgb/comment/isfqkaq/) about the difference. >Premium domain is only available when you have premium, because fewer people pay and fewer people use it, so there is less abuse and the domain name has better reputation, so when you public domain is not working, using the premium domain may be able to register.-