I mean they do have good infrastructure anyway, so it wouldn’t even cost them anything

NFTs require arbitrary data storage, which not all blockchains support (or are prohibitively expensive).

You cant remove pocket and telemetry without recompiling. That’s why its not just a config file.

please do not bring over reddit memes. Eventually someone will not understand the irony and keep doing it for real. thanks

Do not use “paste” that already has a low viscosity at room temp, it will get more liquid as it heats up. Good thermal paste doesn’t even cost much, and a syringe last for years of regular service on multiple devices. Repasting is not difficult.

Droidify is the best! Best performance and UI of all compatible clients, and even handles 3rd repos that wont load on others.

Thanks for the heads up, my setup is indeed 6-12 months old. My thoughts on the linked list:

• uBlock origin is the #1 recommended plugin, and can make some other plugins redundent, see below
• Decentraleyes only helps only for some scripts/sites and may be fingerprintable. Considering that it targets major CDNs and it’s widespread use, I still think it’s benefits outweigh the possible downside, especially if used in conjunction with a good VPN, so its optional but I’d keep it.
• Privacy Badger used to be unique in that it creates a custom blocking list based on your behavior. There was some security and privacy vulnerability with this method, so it’s no longer done. It depends now solely on a pre-trained list just like uBlock origin, offers no additional features and should be removed.
• Cookie extensions may give you a false sense of privacy as they do nothing for IP tracking or other vectors. However they do patch one area, and are useful if used correctly and together with other methods.
• noscript is technically covered by uBlock origin as well, but the UI is far superior and you’ll be using that a lot.
• Canvas Blocker was an optional plugin to begin with, and starting Firefox 120 the FPP (Fingerprint Protection) can subtly randomize canvas, hopefully with less problems. You should be using this build in feature instead of the plugin.
• Font Fingerprint Defender is the one plugin that broke tracking on fingerprint.com, combined with VPN IP change, despite javascript being enabled. If you care about privacy, and not anonymity, you should still be using this.

Edit: Crossed out slightly out of date recommendations, see comments.

Do not confuse privacy with anonymity. Your goal is not to defend against governments or other entities with limitless resourced, but against profit oriented companies. By reducing the amount of data you leak and obfuscating what is left, your data becomes progressively worthless as you improve your setup. This is a good thing, because companies will focus their limited resources on areas with a higher profit margin.

Given your description, I think the network side of IT security is pretty much top notch, firmly in the top 0.1% if not 0.01% of users. However most of the tracking happens at the browser level, so it alone does not protect you that much.

Firefox is a solid base, but it is optimized to not break any websites, rather then providing maximum privacy. You can try to tweak settings manually, but I’d rather recommend you to use LibreWolf on PC and Mull on Android. Both are pre-configure, hardened versions of Firefox, that also have proprietary Mozilla features like “Pocket” and some telemetry removed form the source. A standard install has basically no downsides, 99.9% of sites work normally and privacy is quite good.

Librewolf has ublock origin pre-installed and pre-configured with sane defaults. I’d recommend the following additional addons:

• Decentraleyes: Local CDC cache to reduce third party requests. Improves privacy, performance and doesn’t break anything. No configuration needed.
• Privacy Badger: Prevents some interactive features (disqus comment section, embedded youtube player, etc) from loading until explicitly confirmed with a mouse click. Also prevents some tracking in the background, but that might eb covered by ublock already.
• Cookie AutoDelete + I still don’t care about cookies: This combo silently suppresses all cookie pop-ups, allows them for the session and cleans up afterwards. This is different then disabling all cookies, and does not brake websites then rely on them while providing all privacy benefits.
• Disable WebRTC: WebRTC can leak your IP address, but disabling it breaks eg. real-time video calls. This plugin is a simple toggle, only turn it on when you need to.

If you are willing to do some fine tuning or accept broken sites, consider also:

• noscript: Most privacy leaks happen because of Javascript, but disabling it basically makes the modern web unusable. noscript offers a middle ground to enable/disable javascript on a domain-by-domain basis. Can be annoying at times, but arguably the best way to defend yourself.
• Canvas Blocker: WebGL powers most of the advanced visuals, and can read out a lot of data that is used for fingerprinting. This plugin can randomized requested data to protect you, but it also brakes sites in weird and unexpected ways. It’s powerful, but I rarely use it these days.

And finally consider some obfuscation techniques to throw of the remaining trackers. Right now I only use one, and highly recommend it because of its effectiveness:

• Font Fingerprint Defender: Using javascript, websites can read out the list of installed fonts on your device. Some programs install fonts in the background when opening a document with missing fonts, so this list is highly unique for each user and effective for tracking. The plugin throws is some noise, and causes automatic systems to detect you as a new unique user each time.

All of this throws off the vast majority of trackers, and puts you in the top 0.1% of users. Yes, this also makes you kinda “unique”, because websites may notice the effort you put in to defend yourself. Bad idea if you try to hide from the government, you should be using TOR for that anyway, but great to signal companies that you are not worth the squeeze.

Keep your head up bro. The situation is not as terrible as it may seem, but companies want you to believe that, so that you don’t even try.

Good stuff

For electrical engineering there is KiCad, which is pretty good overall. Only reason I’m still using proprietary software is because I’d have to recreate my libraries and it will be a huge pita.

For mechanical design there is FreeCad, which is usable for simple geometries, but if you come from a proprietary CAD software you may find it lacking.

I highly recommend pdf-exchange editor. It’s not FOSS either, BUT it does offer a perpetual offline license, has a portable version and works even better. They do have a free reader version, so you can try out if you like their UI before you buy the full version.

Same here. I wonder if there is an easy way to leave an old phone with whatsapp at home and forward the messages to my daily driver. Would prevent the zuck from reading out my contact list at minimum. I know he still has everybody else’s but still.

Our community always cared a lot about decentralization, so naturally we had to have our own instance, even before the reddit api exodus. It only made sense to use the instance of the community I vibe with. Besides this, we offer:

• closed signup to limit bot account creation, you need either manual verification or a signup fee for anonymous users
• high performance instance which is entirely community funded with the signup fees + anonymous donations
• unlimited access to the fediverse, there’s no de-federation unless required by law

based

Armbian is a thing, and devices like the RK3588 are powerful enough for light desktop use. Performance is still far below that of what any Intel or AMD based system can provide.

On Android, you can use Shelter (available on F-Droid) to install a second, independent instance of Element to the work profile. That way you can stay logged in with two accounts and receive notifications for both.

If you enter a matrix user name on your profile, Lemmy adds an extra button on your profile to “Send Secure Message”. Example: https://monero.town/u/shortwavesurfer

I don’t know if this behavior is default, or if you have to configure something for it, but I think it’s a nice way to bridge forum-like communities with chatrooms (matrix itself can be bridged with irc, discord, telegram).

Exactly. Monero, cash and precious metals are the only private payment methods, but Monero is the only one that works over the internet.

Librewolf on desktop, Mull (and Fennec) on android. If some important site is broken, I have some chromium based backups without any modifications, which I wipe every now and then.

For Librewolf there are a few interesting privacy addons, most importantly Font Fingerprint Defender. It scrambles the list of installed fonts on the system, so if websites analyze those in order to track you, they will detect you as a new unique user every time you visit their sites.

Greetings from our instance monero.town :)

First things first, you do need a wallet to receive, store and send monero. Good options are:

• official GUI wallet from getmonero.org (PC)
• cake wallet (android, IOS)
• monerujo (android)

Second if you do any open source work, consider putting up a donation address. Donating with Monero is easy, cheap and quick, which makes it a nobrainer. Depending on what you do, you might want a separate wallet for that (maximum anonymity), otherwise a sub-account or sub-address give sufficient private for most users.

Finally if you need larger amounts to spend, you need some exchange. The most popular P2P one is localmonero.co, trocador.app is great if you have other crypto already and kraken.com is the best KYC exchange.

Have fun, and feel free to ask any of us if you have any other questions.