The cyber truck is almost rugged enough to Brave the Home Depot parking lot (so long as it’s been recently paved.

Make:

• Bouncy things less bouncy
• Pokey things less pokey
• Gravity less gravit-y

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..

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.

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 think Signal won’t leave unless they have to (have to meaning if the only alternative to leaving is to undermine user privacy/security which they will not do)

And if Signal has no other alternative than I can’t see how every other e2ee messenger wouldn’t also face the same difficult choice.

Edit: also what does exiting the EU actually mean? Like what would prevent you from just continuing to use the app?

Goood god 😮

I think you may have an unhealthy relationship with Extensions. 🙃

Remember that everytime you install an additional extension you are effectively expanding your circle of trust, giving some company or developer privileged access to your browsing. The only extensions vetted for security by Mozilla are the ones with an ‘Recommended’ badge next to the name. Each additional extension increases the risks to your privacy, your security, and just generally increases the potential for issues.

At least some of the extensions on your list are violating your privacy/exist to harvest your personal data, profile you, or sell you things.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use extensions at all. But it does mean you should be thoughtful about what you install. Should do your due diligence, look into extensions before you install them, and understand the developers motivations for giving you something for free which costs them time and sometimes money (There are legit reasons but also common malicious reasons). And it means you should be cautious and reluctant to install too many new extensions.

If I were in your shoes with this many extensions, I wouldn’t be asking which individual extensions to get rid of, I’d start with a fresh Firefox profile, configure it roughly like this, get rid of all the extensions except uBlock Origin and Bitwarden and maybe violent monkey if that is something you rely on. And then slowly reads extensions as needed, one at a time, spending time to research it a bit before installing and researching if there is a better way to accomplish it.

With no other extensions Firefox + uBO can be really powerful and flexible, you’ve just got to spend some time learning how to use them. There are a few others on your list that I use also, but I’d say start with the basics and build from there. Also if you feel you need the shopping and deals extensions at least consider putting them in their own profile that you use only for shopping.

It is, the term for this type of system is called Social Democracy which is not a synonym for socialism, but people (Americans at least) confused and conflate the two terms to the point that they’ve become one and the same in the minds of many people who don’t really understand the terms or their origins.

That is objectively not socialism (any definition of socialism that begins by defining it as a form of capitalism is fundamentally confused)

That said, I’d agree that it is a widespread misunderstanding today. And what people mean when they say socialism is usually actually social democracy (which despite sounding like the word socialism is a mixed system based on capitalism)

Using that misunderstanding as the definition I would definitely live in many of those countries. Many have some of the highest qualities of life in the world, low rates of poverty, universal access to good healthcare and education, and good social mobility.

E.g Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Germany

Wefwef

Credit scores need to go away too, but if you are unironically comparing a credit score with what China is doing, you are either extremely naive or extremely biased.