CommonSense 2024, the best antivirus solution I’ve ever tried. Highly recommend it. Compatible with phones, tablets, computers potatoes etc.

Good job. This post shows that it’s s complicated topic, so squeezing it into a binary answer just isn’t going to work.

However, when it comers specific details, such as your data being sucked up to the servers of a creepy company, you can definitely provide clear answers. In situations like this, I tend to make a spreadsheet that lists all the useful details and rates each browser accordingly. Then, you give your subjective weight to each detail, and calculate a weighted average of each brewer. This final score is highly subjective and debatable, but at least you have some sort of answer that helps you decide what’s best for you.

Winamp source code was published on github, but the license said you can’t fork or share the code. Such a license isn’t compatible with github, which is all about forking and sharing.

Yeah, those services can be really expensive, so justifying expenses like that might be hard in a small project.

And if you decide to use an LLM, don’t settle for the first version. Ask thoughtful questions, request relevant improvements, and spend some time with this document. The first version tends to have a bunch of flaws, mistakes and oversights, and the LLM might even be able to find and fix them if you tell it to do that. After a few iterations of ironing out the wrinkles, you should show the document to a real lawyer just in case.

When you start studying a topic like this, you need to define some terms clearly. For example, if hackers grab your passwords, is that a breach in privacy, security or both? If Google is stalking you and knows your every move, desire and plan, what does that violate?

Once you have clear definitions for these things, it would be more helpful to see how different browsers compare on this scale.

Based on the number of partners some companies seem to have, they are far more promiscuous than most humans.

Oh I remember those thoroughly cursed menus where you have to manually disable 256 cookies one by one. Haven’t seen those in a while though, so I guess some piece of legislation is doing its job.

Most cookie consent dialogues:

1. There’s only one big accept button
2. If the decline button even exists, it’s grey whereas the other one is green.
3. The decline option could be buried deep under other menus.
4. The sizes of the buttons

Most companies are trying to actively manipulate you to accept all cookies, but nowadays there are a few companies that don’t resort to any of these dirty tricks.

When I moved, I just didn’t plug the TV in at the new place. Instead, I started using it exclusively as a monitor for my HTPC. Watching online videos on a bigger screen is just so much nicer. Besides, ublock origin is doing a good job blocking all the nonsense a smart TV is designed to show you. When visiting friends and family, I end up watching normal TV a little bit, and I can’t say I miss any of that.

A few months ago, I did a similar assessment where I categorized potential threats in the following manner.

Category 1 - financial impact

A criminal might gain access to my account, steal my money or make online purchases in my name. The impact is potentially great, but the probability is low. Overall risk is medium. Using good online practices helps mitigate the risk.

Category 2 - social impact

I may carelessly share personal information online and coworkers, friends or family may find out something they aren’t supposed to. The impact is medium to high, but the probability is very low. Overall risk is low. Not sharing personal information online helps mitigate the risk. Besides, I don’t even use Facebook, Xitter and other modern online trash. I do share stuff on Lemmy, but I try to keep my personal details out of it. Also, I don’t use my real name here, so a random family members probably aren’t going to stumble upon this account without first putting in some serious snooping effort.

Category 3 - matters of principle

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and all the other large companies are constantly trying to learn as much as possible. The potential harm is low, but the probability is very high. Overall risk is still low. I’m using many techniques to limit the amount of information professional snoopers might get their hands on.

So, category 1 is obviously the highest priority, and that’s where I put most of my effort. Category 3 is nice to have, but screwing up here isn’t going the be the end of the world. If you want to know more about the actual mitigation methods, don’t be afraid to ask.

Pineapple is delicious, especially on pizza.

I don’t even remember all of them, let alone the correct sequence. I’ve also had multiple computers at one time (still do), and usually they have different distributions (still true).

First experiment: Mandrake

First serious use: Ubuntu edgy eft or something

Spiraling out of control: kubuntu, xubuntu, lubuntu, debian, kaos, mint, easypeasy, fedora, korora, rox, manjaro, openmediavault, rockstor, + many niche distributions

Current: arch and debian

Before you ask, no, I’m not a diagnosed psychopath.

I follow the official upgrade method. Can’t be bothered to mess around with anything more complicated than that. Besides, the devs probably understand the system better than I do, so there has to be a reason why that is the preferred way.