Discussion Ethically Online

Le Pertti

Le Pertti

0.05% Game dev
Oct 10, 2018
8,993
23,245
113
46
Paris, France
lepertti.com
So as we all can see with every big tech company and their services bowing to fascism I thought it would be a good idea so have a thread where we can go over different ways we can untangle ourselves from the worst of them.

Personally I have already deleted everything Meta and haven't really found good replacements for them. I am now looking to get rid of Google stuff, thankfully I dont use android so it is mostly just the emails I need to replace. While there are many good alternatives, it does need to have IMAP support and being able to create several accounts for free. I know Parsnip has undergoing this project too and maybe could share a bit?:)

Anyone else started replacing stuff, what and where did you go?
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Nebulys, FeedMeAStrayCat, Kal1m3r0 and 3 others
I'm still trying to understand how Amazon recent change (no ebook download via usb) will fuck me up, personally.
Glad I systematically DeDRMed every purchase I ever made with them, but as for the future...
 
  • Hug
Reactions: lashman
Le Pertti said:
it does need to have IMAP support and being able to create several accounts for free. I know Parsnip has undergoing this project too and maybe could share a bit?:)
Click to expand...
Free as in actually free, because as the saying goes, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.
Or do you mean free aliases?

I've been using mailbox.org for a while now, their cheapest plan is 1€/month with 2GB of mail storage and has 3 extra aliases. It's what I started with and while 2GB might not sound like much, it was plenty for me.
I did ultimately end up switching to the 3€/month plan late last year, mainly for the 25 aliases.
So now I have a set up of basically bunch of tiers, my login email which is completely private and not actually in use anywhere, my main "professional" email, a gaming related email and a forum email.
And since I upgraded my plan and have aliases to spare, I also use a few specialized emails like for example microsoft, google, cdkeys and aliexpress all have their own addresses.
And also since subaddressing/plusaddressing is a thing I use that in addition to all the aliases.

I still have 5 gmail addresses in various states of dissolution, 2 of the accounts have been fully migrated and empty since summer 2024, and I'm just keeping them around for a bit in case I forgot some account somewhere that still use them. I haven't set a solid timelimit on it, but I supposed if the account doesn't get new emails in like a year or so, it's probably safe to delete.

My eventual goal is to just have one google account that I would use for whatever android stuff I need it for, the aim is to also remove the email service from that account. But it's going to take a while before I'm there.

The big issue obviously with all of this is that it's a huge pain in the ass to change the addresses in all the accounts you have accumulated over the years, but I just do them here and there with no rush.
It's especially annoying when you have to contact support or whatever to change it, and there are some accounts I have ran into where it's just not possible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman and Le Pertti
Kal1m3r0 said:
I'd get a Kobo
Click to expand...
In my case, obviously. Plain and simple. Since the news dropped I already bought and DeDRMed two Kobo books. I don't read often enough and never on an ereader or I would have already ordered one of those sexy Kobo color, whatever the name. Still very tempted.
But some of my mother's fave authors are Amazon exclusive.

Apparently you can still get the file from the kindle app on pc, but I'm this instant trying to make sense of what voodoo I did to crack a KFX months ago. It's not pretty.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kal1m3r0 and lashman
Le Pertti said:
lashman posted, holy shit did my thread suddenly become urgent!

Yogthos (@yogthos@social.marxist.network)

Google’s new policy tracks all your devices with no opt-out using fingerprinting to create a unique profile for targeted ads. 🤮 https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/googles-new-policy-tracks-all-your-devices-with-no-opt-out/ #google #privacy
social.marxist.network social.marxist.network
Click to expand...
I guess if you buy an Android device, if you care about privacy, the first thing you should do is look into installing a custom ROM, and use an open source alternative to the Google Play Services like MicroG. For YouTube, stuff like ReVanced Manager exists, and that can use MicroG and add additional privacy settings. Shame that Linux compatibility on phones is still hit or miss, because from what I've tried of Plasma Mobile on a cheap touchscreen laptop, it's not the worst thing.
 
  • Like
  • Eyes
Reactions: lashman and Le Pertti
So far from what Ive seen in regards to mail, Infomaniak seems like a good option, each account gets two email addresses and has imap support. Haven't tried to do several accounts yet, since it uses phone to verify it might be that one can one create one account.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
Le Pertti said:
So far from what Ive seen in regards to mail, Infomaniak seems like a good option, each account gets two email addresses and has imap support. Haven't tried to do several accounts yet, since it uses phone to verify it might be that one can one create one account.
Click to expand...

what about tutanota?
 
I'm looking to untangle myself from WhatsApp and Facebook, but so many of my friends use it.

Sometimes though, you just have to rip the bandaid off. If I do it, others might follow.

Or they won't and I'll be forever alone.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: lashman and Le Pertti
Nebulys said:
I'm looking to untangle myself from WhatsApp and Facebook, but so many of my friends use it.

Sometimes though, you just have to rip the bandaid off. If I do it, others might follow.

Or they won't and I'll be forever alone.
Click to expand...
Getting rid of everything meta has definitely been very isolating. Lost touch with so many! But at least it prepares me on how to move forward, that I won’t take connections for granted and actually make an effort to save phone numbers and such.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman and Nebulys
On reddit I've seen there has been a big push to switch from American owned to European. Not to say European automatically is better. But still nice to see that people are quitting shitty places.

One switch I forgot to mention before, is that I finally quit Wordpress after using it for almost, what 20 years lol. I instead built my own blog engine! Since I embed lots of videos on it, I noticed my site was littered with trackers from google. Solution is that I reuploaded everything to peer tube and going to later edit all posts and re=embed with the latter, should finally remove all trackers. Except for trailers that are still on YouTube. Thinking about making a trailer channel on peer tube just to upload those, but not sure about the legality of that...
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman, Nebulys and Kal1m3r0
I think shifting from US to Europe is a good move in general.

But in my view, try to run things locally where you can and anything you need to backup offsite should be encrypted on your end before uploading.

I haven’t looked into it too much but I’m definitely looking to boycott America in general where I can. I know the mango Nazi isn’t all of America’s fault, but I have to vote with my wallet.

It’s so hard though, because US tech is rammed so far up our asses that it’s almost unavoidable in some way.

I’m dreading having to replace my iPhone once it’s too out of date to use, because it will involve giving some US tech company a large chunk of my cash, or that plus all my data if I go Android. I know there’s options to strip Google out, but it doesn’t seem feasible at the moment.

The whole thing is very depressing at how much they’ve taken over our lives in so many ways.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: lashman
Nebulys said:
I think shifting from US to Europe is a good move in general.

But in my view, try to run things locally where you can and anything you need to backup offsite should be encrypted on your end before uploading.

I haven’t looked into it too much but I’m definitely looking to boycott America in general where I can. I know the mango Nazi isn’t all of America’s fault, but I have to vote with my wallet.

It’s so hard though, because US tech is rammed so far up our asses that it’s almost unavoidable in some way.

I’m dreading having to replace my iPhone once it’s too out of date to use, because it will involve giving some US tech company a large chunk of my cash, or that plus all my data if I go Android. I know there’s options to strip Google out, but it doesn’t seem feasible at the moment.

The whole thing is very depressing at how much they’ve taken over our lives in so many ways.
Click to expand...

For me I will still use Apple for pretty much all my daily use tech, and then Steam and Xbox for gaming. For me the switch will be mostly in areas where it's personal, like social media, mail and stuff like that.

In general I do think there will be a huge push for European tech the next decade, just hope that the tech that rises up to the challenge aren't broligarch wannabes.
lashman said:
you should definitely do that!
Click to expand...
Won't that be a problem legally? Can I just rip trailers from official YouTube and repost them?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nebulys and lashman
Hey guys, I'm trying to get away from using my Google account as much as possible, and I'm wondering if there is any way to change my registered email address here on MetaCouncil?
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
Deepo said:
Hey guys, I'm trying to get away from using my Google account as much as possible, and I'm wondering if there is any way to change my registered email address here on MetaCouncil?
Click to expand...
That is a good question! That could be kind of essential now that many are changing their emails. I tried to look in settings but I cant find anything that would suggest being able to do that, not sure why.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
It took years for my parents to learn whatsapp i’m not doing it again
Deepo said:
Hey guys, I'm trying to get away from using my Google account as much as possible, and I'm wondering if there is any way to change my registered email address here on MetaCouncil?
Click to expand...
Yes you can, gotta ask lashman I think
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
  • Like
  • Gib
Reactions: Li Kao, lashman, Le Pertti and 1 other person
Kal1m3r0 said:
I'd get a Kobo
Click to expand...

I got a Kobo Clara, my first and only ebook reader so far, because of the 1984 thing. I love it so much.


When using AI, as much as possible, I use free open models running on my own hardware for a multitude of reasons. If they're going to scrape public contents, the culmination of those works should be in public hands free to use. It's a big ask.

For llms, koboldcpp is a one-step download that utilizes llamacpp and will run modern llms. The more vram the better but you can use system ram too.
There are excellent text to image (flux), text to audio (llasa for now), and text / image to video (wan) that you can run on your PC rather than paying for a closed, for profit service.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nebulys, Kal1m3r0 and lashman
Not sure it’s ethically an alternative, but I got one free year for Le Chat AI, so going to give it a try. At least it should be a better ethical alternative than chat gpt
 
YunoLunia said:
Since i bought a desktop pc im repurposing my Laptop as a server and making my own "cloud"

Installed Ubuntu Server with docker, Portainer and Nginx proxy manager.

So far im experimenting with the following

Immich (Photos)
Vaultwarden (Bitwarden)

Looking for other services i can self host.
I have setup OpenVPN in my router so i can connect outside my network without opening port.
Click to expand...
Some good ones I use:
  • Jellyfin
  • Arr apps
  • NextCloud
  • Hoarder
  • DumbPad
  • Gitlab
  • Uptime Kuma
 
  • Like
Reactions: DeleteMe and lashman
The point of version control is to have version control. So that you have historical versions and can roll back and such. I'm obviously stating the obvious, but having a local svn means that you have access to it all the time.
Naturally the smart thing is to sync offsite so that when your house burns down you'll have that backup, but that's just smart in general.


Speaking of, I really should set up mine at some point. As soon as I set up my build environment again I'll do that as well.
Probably.
:wd_warren:
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
Parsnip said:
The point of version control is to have version control. So that you have historical versions and can roll back and such. I'm obviously stating the obvious, but having a local svn means that you have access to it all the time.
Naturally the smart thing is to sync offsite so that when your house burns down you'll have that backup, but that's just smart in general.


Speaking of, I really should set up mine at some point. As soon as I set up my build environment again I'll do that as well.
Probably.
:wd_warren:
Click to expand...
But couldn’t just copy paste the folder if it’s just local? lol old school like!
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
Le Pertti said:
But couldn’t just copy paste the folder if it’s just local? lol old school like!
Click to expand...
Version control on my server helps me keep track of different versions centrally, and I can pull what I’m working on to my multitude of devices using a Git client. Doing copy paste relies on you remembering to do it, and remembering how it’s organised.

Git is not backup, it’s version control. But I do backup my Gitlab data so it does kind of function as a de facto sync and backup solution. The only data I don’t have sovereignty over is the encrypted backup that goes to some cloud storage company I’m paying to keep it offsite.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
Nebulys Yeah of course, I was mostly just joking with Parsnip :)

Speaking of backups, I have version control, but I just never remember to actually push anything.XD

Also what alternatives are there to GitHub for more "ethical" version control? I have seen codeberg
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman
Gitlab seems decent to me, but I haven’t researched third party hosting.

If you self-host, Gitlab or Gitea.
 
I used TortoiseSVN a billion years ago but that was more to keep track of changes in a couple of open sauce projects and I never really explored its full feature set.
Looking at it more closely, it would probably serve my needs just fine at least for now. Just running on local repo and doing daily backups offsite would already be a step up from what I'm currently doing.
Or more accurately not doing. :grinning-face-with-smiling-eyes:

Should probably do more research on this either way. I've seen Gitea mentioned in a quite a few places and they actually have a Windows solution as well, so that's potentially a good option if I want to run a server locally.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nebulys and lashman
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom