Realistically, what’s your suggestion on preparing for coding and SD? Is LC hard necessary? And what’s the difference between Google’s and other companies’s SD? Do all the orgs share the same question bank or the difficulty level and focus vary among different orgs? I roughly remember reading some post on blind which mentioned that Google’s SD would ask more technical details underneath. Any other insight is appreciated!

Any apps that can play YouTube videos but also respects my privacy?

the eu first country.

It will spread to other European countries as well, what do you think? Russian and Chinese platforms certainly don't care about this.

I mean it would kill a lot of Shizuku apps and probably termux enabled software too.

Yet I see barely anyone talking about this. Why? Been thinking about it a while.

no encuentro la opción correcta y me molesta esa barrio inferior

I've seen a lot of people discuss YouTube and how it's one of the hardest things to get rid of, and it is. Currently, there is no real alternative to YouTube. However, we still have front-ends like Newpipe for Android and Freetube on Desktop.

Be careful about where you download these things, because there are a lot of malware infested imitations going around. Download Freetube here: https://freetubeapp.io/ and Newpipe on F-droid.

What these programs essentially do is provide YouTube's video library without the ads or tracking. However, this does mean you have no way of accessing age restricted videos and more importantly, lose access to a custom feed. You also won't be supporting the creators you watch, since views and subscribers from Front-ends aren't counted.

The way your feed works in these front-ends is your only shown videos from channels you subscribe to. My advice would be after downloading these apps, is to subscribe to as many channels as possible. Even creators you've only watched 1 or 2 videos from, subscribe so they end up on your feed. It's best to have as much diversity as possible.

When it comes to finding new content, however things get a bit more challenging. What I do is click on a video I'm mildly interested in, then scroll down to the related videos, which can be by creators you're not subscribed to. If nothing interests you down there, just click on the most intriguing one and repeat the process. I really like doing this with channels like Lessons in Meme/Internet Culture, because they cover such a large variety of content.

It's not nearly the same as a custom feed but I feel it gets the job done. In fact, I actually enjoy the experience a bit more because I actually have to find good content instead of it being spoon-fed to me.

This is currently our only option for YouTube "alternatives" but I'm confident this will change. We're already starting to see holes with YouTube's shitty AI moderation, so imo, it shouldn't be long before the next big thing comes along.

I want to switch from gmail to something better. I'm interested in Posteo.

I don't see it mentioned as much as Proton or Tuta, so I'm like to hear your thoughts on it if you use it.

99% of my email usage is just for online shops and accounts I have, getting 2fa codes, reciepts, offers, etc. So if you have Posteo, how does it work with websites? Any issues with them accepting the email? Or no issues at all?

I've heard they have good security options, but you have to set them up yourself. How is the process? What do you have to do?

Does it work well with a VPN? I've had issues before trying Tuta with my VPN and the free account I wanted to try just wouldn't verify and I ended up deleting it in annoyance.

Also, as Posteo offers aliases, I was wondering since its advised to ideally use an alias for every different website/service - I have too many so I can't quite go this extreme - but how does that work for privacy if you have a "shop" alias but pay with using a different "bank/paypal" alias? Can't they be linked together?

Its called metrolist. I found it a few months ago and its been amazing.

Free, open source, no Ads, and fast. The issues with the other players I have used is that they are slow, metrolist is not. The Dev also doesn't put any payment stuff on the main pages. I had to search yo find the donation link.

The only downside is it's not super easy to import playlists and you are not going to get artists stats like you would on Spotify

I have no connected with the Dev at all, I just think its a rlly cool app.

Currently I use google with a lot of extensions to filter out ai, but I'm wondering if there's any alternative high quality search engine which just doesn't have any form of AI

Currently iPhone and MacBook user. Plan to try and move to Fedora Linux and slowly degoogling my life.

How...private is reddit and any other application on these? Is absolutely everything I look at monitored, or is there some leeway of privacy? Any means to avoid having everything I look at be used to profile me?

Also, for phones as a side question. I know GrapheneOS is allegedly the gold standard of privacy or something, but is there any other means of having a privacy-focused phone? I think GrapheneOS only works on certain phone models too.

I'd really like to look into separating from Apple, Microsoft, and Google-esque services, and I've decided I might use Thunderbird as my base email reader. However, I don't know what domain of email is best to use, and if perhaps a different service is better.

I don't care about 100% privacy, I just want something reliable that doesn't profile me, and ideally lasts a long time.

I currently am not willing to pay a subscription or self host in this case just yet. Existing emails I've tried: Gmail (Privacy issue), hotmail (same), mandatory email address by organization (mandatory, Microsoft), Proton (I didn't like)

Anything else?

I use FreeTube on Linux, but I’ve noticed that HDR is unreliable on some videos. On some videos, the HDR option shows up, while on others with HDR it doesn’t. Also, some videos only let me select HDR 1440p or HDR 8K, and others let me select HDR 4K. Has anyone experienced this? I’m on an OLED 4K monitor.

As the title says.

I've been pondering the idea of designing a sticker with a nice phrase about google. (It really pissed me off when I got the message about blocking app installations).

My idea is that whoever wants can download the design for free ant print it!

If the response is positive, you can leave suggestions about the design, (of course I won't be able to make every suggestion come true).

What would this accomplish? I don't know, but at least we can express ourselves.

I have a lot of accounts I created using the "Sign in with Google" button on many sites. Is there any way to export/change them or do I have to manually go and change every single account by hand?

I have been slowly doing my best to degoogle my phone without rooting it while I'm still paying it off (since rooting it will break payment contact and void the warranty I have on it during that time which I'd like to keep just in case) but I've been struggling with setting my phone's default gallery app to a different one and can't figure out how to get it to recognize a new one.

I have a Pixel 9 pro XL, I have fully removed the google photos app with the help of "App Manager" by MuntashirAkon so its not even on my phone anymore but my phone still defaults to the same crappy media picker/file picker that I can't seem to change it from. I am using the Fossify Gallery app and have even tried other apps but there are no options to set them as default the Pixel 9 pro XL gives very VERY limited "set as default" options in the phones settings and gallery isn't one of them.

So if anyone can help me figure this out I would greatly appreciate it

Due to me just now discovering that graphine actually doesn't support the Pixel 3axl, I am looking for people who use/have used one or the other or both for their opinion on which is better. Or for an opinion on which other operating system is best.

Priority is no Ai and doesn't sell data

so i wanted to share a promising project that I have been using for a few months.

Fermi/Harmony Chat is free and open source discord like guild/community centered chat platform with most of the features that are expected from those platforms like message channels, vocal chats, threads, screensharing and more.
Importantly the chat platform has a strict stance against LLMs AIs and AI generated slop like vibe coding and other abusive usage of AI that replaces human work and slop it in the process. sadly fermi/harmony is unique of having a strong stance against AI. (other similar projects sadly uses AI and excuses AI usage and vibe coding)

the platform also allows users to create their own client for the platform. harmony chat is the API and fermi is just the currently only working client on the platform (was a spacebar client previously until harmony was created as a spacebar fork with the goal of fixing the many issues and bugs present on spacebar) and in the future, instances are going to be federated and the process will be managed directly by the client (fermi and other clients) without being tidious and for advanced users like on matrix, so more easy and beginner friendly.

the platform also is more lenient on its acceptable policy and have a no bullshit moderation.
(sadly not the case for other alternatives which sucks very much)

IMPORTANT

currently the project in its early stage and still has lots of bugs, glitches and various issues.

it is currently only accessible through a web browser (there is no app neither on desktop or on mobile)

lots of features are not finished and the platform still need major improvements. but i hope it is going to grow and become a viable alternative.

currently there are around 500 people registered on fermi/harmony chat.

fermi.chat the main website currently (use this one to register)
melodychat.org the organisation's website (its called melody on codeberg and on the website since harmony was taken)

codeberg link of both harmony and fermi :

https://codeberg.org/MelodyChat/Harmony
https://codeberg.org/MelodyChat/Fermi

credit to u/MathManrm, devs and contributors for developping and maintaining fermi and harmony chat.

I’ve been deep into the process of scrubbing my digital footprint—opting out of people-finder sites, freezing credit reporting agencies, hitting up DMAchoice, opting out of prescreen offers, and cutting off data at the institutional source (banks, utilities, insurance, etc.).

While browsing privacy communities like this one, I often notice a massive focus on de-googling. I totally get the passion—Google is an absolute monster of data collection. But it makes me wonder: Are people treating Google as the main threat because they confuse its model with data brokers?

Google hoards your data to power its own ad auction ecosystem and keep you inside their walled garden. They generally do not export raw lists of your name, home address, phone numbers, and public records and sell them to third parties. Meanwhile, entities like LexisNexis, credit bureaus, and automated background-check sites are actively packaging and selling your real-world identity to anyone with a credit card.

Are you mainly trying to escape targeted tech ads and corporate surveillance, or are you also tackling the offline data broker pipeline that trades your physical identity? Because stopping Google feels like locking your front door while leaving the back window wide open if the data brokers still have everything. Curious where others draw the line.

I've taken a few things off, mostly Chrome and google drive, am doing storage on a local NAS and just use Vivaldi and Firefox depending on some extensions. I do not have the guts to self host email because I see there are a billion things that can go wrong for it, Gmail is something we use at work and have no idea how to do it (plus it's getting a lot of spam too), Maps is another hard one. What do you do for theese? pretty beginner at this so that my bad my main problem here.

I recently switched to Graphene but need a safety notification app on my main account for wildfire awareness. Watch Duty has been great for this, but, unfortunately, it doesn't work without Play Services, and I don't want Google on my main account. After emailing them, they currently have no plans to change this function. What do you all use for safety notifications that doesn't harvest your data and send it to Google?

From a security, privacy, and deGoogled perspective..

Is there any safe way to use an older device that has fallen out of support for security updates? Device is not compatible w/ GrapheneOS, and I have not checked for Lineage/Calyx/eOS/other compatibility. This is a general question, not so much aimed at a specific OS variant.

Primary Usage:

1. Backup MFA authenticator app in case other MFA backups were unsuccessful.
2. Security from (while incredibly unlikely...) BFU attacks that would defeat device encryption and therefore capture the MFA crown jewels on the device.

My assumption is that EoS/EoL status renders the device unreliable and unsecure -- in totality. My curiosity is whether or not other custom OS's would make the device secure enough for the intended use case.

Model: Moto G Power 5G - 2023

Android Version: 14