Refurbished Refurbisher
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Privacytools.io actively promotes VPN services that advertise heavilly on YouTube, and have no good track record, like NordVPN (which is at the top of their list of VPNs), which leads me to believe that they are paid by NordVPN to promote their service.
Mullvad (the most trustworthy VPN IMO in terms of track record) is at the bottom of their list.
At the top of their main website, they also have Incogni as a recommendation with what looks to be a referral link. They also have a referral link for Startmail, Internxt (whatever that is), and probably others as well.
On their front page: “Sponsors can be exempted from the criteria.”
Anyone trying to recommend privacy services who also accept sponsorships are not trustworthy.
Also, on their crypto page, they recommend both AgoraDesk and LocalMonero, both of which shut down last year, which leads me to believe that some of their information is also out of date.
When I look at PrivacyGuides, I see none of these issues, so I recommend PrivacyGuides over ptio. In fact, on their VPN page, not only do they recommend relatively trustworthy VPNs, but they also have a big red warning about VPN usage and what to expect in terms of privacy that ptio does not have.
Only if it’s illegal to begin with. We need to abolish copyright, as with the internet and digital media in general, the concept has become outdated as scarcity isn’t really a thing anymore. This also applies to anything that can be digitized.
The original creator can still sell their work and people can still choose to buy it, and people will if it is convenient enough. If it is inconvenient or too expensive, people will pirate it instead, regardless of the law.
The maintainer of IronFox and Phoenix.js are the same person.
See this git history: https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox/-/commits/dev?ref_type=HEADS
IIRC Sony allowed Linux to be ran on both the PS2 and PS3 so that they could sell the systems as computers in the US instead of video game consoles, since computers have a lower import tax rate compared fo video game systems.
This was, of course, until Sony removed OtherOS support in the PS3 firmware 3.21 on phat models after shipping Slim units without OtherOS and then got sued for it. It was removed because George Hotz found an exploit in OtherOS that allowed for full access to the hardware, as OtherOS did not have full access to the GPU hardware of the PS3. Ironically, this made the PS3 more of a target to hackers, since hackers generally just want to be able to run homebrew on their devices that they bought. This is why the Xbox One and Series consoles were never hacked, since they allow for homebrew via DevMode.
So you’re posting on the privacy community. Point 4 makes things very difficult, as every smartphone by default ships with either Google apps or Apple apps pre-installed, both of which collect data and send them to their respective companies.
What is your threat model?
The only way to get away from Google or Apple is to install a custom ROM, and OnePlus currently has the best phones for that at the moment, not including Google or Fairphone phones, since they offer unlockable bootloaders. The 12R currently has an AOSP port for it, and the 12 has a WIP port that has yet to be released to the public (but can be compiled from source).
Also I’m pretty sure NVK only works on 2000 series and up anyway, since Nvidia only released the blobs for those cards.
Basically, gotta deal with proprietary drivers until you eventually choose to upgrade the GPU in however many years, when you should probably choose AMD if running Linux is important to you. Nvidia as a company is just not friendly to the Linux world, and has never been friendly.
People should fully own the computers they buy, regardless of which company they buy from.
This means root access and a replacable primary bootloader, let alone just being able to install apps not on a curated market (what Apple calls sideloading). macOS and Windows both manage to allow root access, and so do certain Android devices (and obviously other OSs as well). Replacable primary bootloaders are more rare, though, especially in ARM devices due to efuse-based secure boot in the CPU that is impossible to turn off. There’s only one phone I can think of that allows for replacing the primary bootloader (Shift 6mq).
We shouldn’t allow for artificial restrictions placed by corporations on devices they sell, because as we have seen time and time again, companies copy each others’ restrictions, especially Apple. Same goes with game consoles, IoT devices, Smart TVs, etc. And before you mention the potential for piracy, DRM is an artificial restriction placed by corporations, and should also be removed from devices.
Anything less means that you don’t own the device that you paid for.
Apple is clearly attempting to comply with the EU DMA in bad faith so that they can maintain as much control over their users and app developers as possible.
The $20 Walmart onn-branded box (2021 version) supports LineageOS. Also the Google ADT-3 box, along with other Amlogic devices.
You will have to build a ROM yourself, since Android TV doesn’t have an open source launcher, and usually comes embedded with GApps. You can replace the launcher with Leanback On Fire, which is a TV-friendly, open source launcher.
Voyager is on Android as well. It’s technically a webapp, so you can run it on any device that supports displaying a webpage.
Example: https://m.lemmy.world
You could absolutely have a profile built about you on a VPN. VPNs don’t necessarilly have to be telling the truth when they say they don’t keep logs. You are entrusting the VPN with all of your internet traffic, which just passes the responsability from the ISP to the VPN provider.
I do use a VPN, but I am aware of its flaws.
Tor and/or I2P is what people should be using if they require absolute privacy (like if they’re a whistleblower).
Which “once in a lifetime” market crash is your favorite so far?