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#1
Computer Affairs / Re: Email / Photo / Browsing /...
Last post by HVC - Today at 12:45:06 PMDon't all these just use Amazon servers anyway? Not to dampen the mood.
#2
Computer Affairs / Re: Email / Photo / Browsing /...
Last post by viper37 - Today at 12:36:15 PMQuote from: mongers on Today at 07:44:09 AMOn google and phone I read a research paper a while back that showed google download 10time the amount of personal data off a phone as compared to apple, so if that's the choice you might be making, then perhaps Iphone* is the way to go.On Samsung, I believe we are mostly locked in with Android.
The AI is apparently useful. Will get to test soon. It's one of the reason why it exchanges so much data, when you use the AI.
On other phones, you can de-Google it. More private, less features.
#3
Computer Affairs / Re: Email / Photo / Browsing /...
Last post by viper37 - Today at 12:23:47 PMHere is a guide from Europe about de-Americanization:
https://eurotechguide.com/
Somewhere I have something else on another computer.
Off the top of my head:
MS Office.
For home: LibreOffice.
Business: La Suite Numérique. It has something to replace Teams and Zoom, will be part of France business tools by 2027.
Password management:
Bitwarden. Free to use for home, premium version at 20$US /month.
VPN: Proton VPN.
AI: Lumo by Proton is private, slow and half braindead. But it's almost working. If you need the stuff, there are LLMs you can compile on your computer.
E-mail:
I use Thunderbird as my e-mail client, then set whatever e-mail provider I want through there. I use my ISP + Proton mail (free) + my own domain + Hotmail + Gmail. Hotmail and Gmail are needed for Windows and authentification.
Anthentification:
I'm still using Google, thinking of switching to Proton's auth.
Browsers:
Firefox is my main browser on all computers. With a Firefox account you can share addons and bookmarkes through all computers. I like that feature. All major browsers offer this now. Optional feature, you use it or don't, it works equally well.
Ublock Origin is a must have extension. If a site breaks, disable it for the site.
History cleaner, it clears everything the browser hasn't on exit.
Vivaldi as an alternate. Based on Chromium. I rarely use it, but sometimes if a site requires Chrome, I take it.
Edge. It's there, can't remove it. I prefer Vivaldi, but that thing is there, nagging me to be the default browser after each major Windows update. I don't know the consequences of a forced removal, so I'm leaving it there. I've kept MSN.Ca as my opening page, so I keep updated on the very important news about our Royal family.
This is a site about OpenSource alternatives. I don't specifically seek Open Source alternatives, imho, if it works, it works. When it stops working, I find something else.
https://www.opensourcealternative.to/
https://eurotechguide.com/
Somewhere I have something else on another computer.
Off the top of my head:
MS Office.
For home: LibreOffice.
Business: La Suite Numérique. It has something to replace Teams and Zoom, will be part of France business tools by 2027.
Password management:
Bitwarden. Free to use for home, premium version at 20$US /month.
VPN: Proton VPN.
AI: Lumo by Proton is private, slow and half braindead. But it's almost working. If you need the stuff, there are LLMs you can compile on your computer.
E-mail:
I use Thunderbird as my e-mail client, then set whatever e-mail provider I want through there. I use my ISP + Proton mail (free) + my own domain + Hotmail + Gmail. Hotmail and Gmail are needed for Windows and authentification.
Anthentification:
I'm still using Google, thinking of switching to Proton's auth.
Browsers:
Firefox is my main browser on all computers. With a Firefox account you can share addons and bookmarkes through all computers. I like that feature. All major browsers offer this now. Optional feature, you use it or don't, it works equally well.
Ublock Origin is a must have extension. If a site breaks, disable it for the site.
History cleaner, it clears everything the browser hasn't on exit.
Vivaldi as an alternate. Based on Chromium. I rarely use it, but sometimes if a site requires Chrome, I take it.
Edge. It's there, can't remove it. I prefer Vivaldi, but that thing is there, nagging me to be the default browser after each major Windows update. I don't know the consequences of a forced removal, so I'm leaving it there. I've kept MSN.Ca as my opening page, so I keep updated on the very important news about our Royal family.
This is a site about OpenSource alternatives. I don't specifically seek Open Source alternatives, imho, if it works, it works. When it stops working, I find something else.
https://www.opensourcealternative.to/
#4
Computer Affairs / Re: Email / Photo / Browsing /...
Last post by viper37 - Today at 12:02:16 PMQuote from: Jacob on February 03, 2026, 04:25:11 PMThere's been a good amount of talk in certain quarters about moving away from the software services of the Silicon Valley oligarchs, for a variety of reasons...Firefox is good. LibreWolf is a stripped down version of Firefox. to each their own.
Have any of you moved your email and photo hosting? Browser? Search? Social media? How has the experience been?
I'm mostly using Firefox and Duck Duck Go, but I don't know if it makes enough of a difference. My wife's on Bluesky and is done with Twitter.
I wouldn't mind switching away from google, and I need a new phone so some sort of decision has to be made soon.
Recently I saw LibreWolf touted as a reasonable browser, but again I haven't quite made the jump.
The bitching about Firefox is for 3 reasons:
1) Telemetry that you can disable in the settings
2) Google (or Bing?) as the default search engine that you can easily switch to anything, or add anything else you want that is not listed
3) AI that can be disabled and will be easier to disable in the next update toward the end of the month.
Search:
Startage, DuckDuckGo and Google as fallback option. I don't think I can work without Google. I do not remember the details, but there's an antitrust suit against them in the US about blocking access to competitors as the default search engine, which prevents said competitors from getting revenus that would help them get better. So, essentially, that's the problem. They collected all our data, got so good that they're hard to live without for 100% of our search things.
And Gemini is fracking insane as it can even look through Gmail. Duh... So much for privacy.
Social Media. Here is where it hurts. If you want privacy, it needs to be decentralized or small. Languish is small, it's private. No one is collecting and selling our data, someone is paying out of his own pocket to host us. If it's big, it has to be decentralized to share the hosting costs. And most protocols don't talk well to one another.
BlueSky is a good Twitter alternative. Mastodon is a bad Reddit alternative. Connect to a Canadian server to see some content, but then connect to an Iranian server and you won't see the Canadian servers and boards.
But it's quite private, relatively anonymous in the sens that no one is gathering your data to sell it to big corp so that AI chatbots can have their own private discussion forums.
#5
Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche
Last post by Sophie Scholl - Today at 11:56:19 AMSo... he's the Benioff and Weiss (GoT show runners) of tech? 
#6
Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...
Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 11:52:37 AM
#7
Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...
Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 11:50:33 AMQuote from: viper37 on Today at 10:35:56 AMIn other news, the CAF will now require all its officers to achieve a bilingual rating of BBB.
B1 or weak B2 on the CEFR scale.
Able to get information from a text or hold a conversation in both languages.
Govt link
I thought Anglos CAF members would react badly, but they're mostly displeased by their level of training and lack of opportunity to follow the courses.
Something will have to change.
They should not. They won't get French teachers from Paris or Tours.
#8
Gaming HQ / Re: Hearts of Iron IV
Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 11:41:47 AMQuote from: The Minsky Moment on Today at 10:53:43 AMYes - there is one where America focuses on "greatness". It switches sides and joins the Nazis. You just have to wait to 2025 to trigger it though.and after 2026 it'll be the only one available for american players
#9
Gaming HQ / Re: News from the lovely world...
Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 11:04:38 AMQuote from: Valmy on February 03, 2026, 12:59:41 PMWhat is up with pedophilia? It seems most of the world's institutions are at least partially devoted to covering up and empowering pedophilia. Why? What is the goddamn appeal?
I am sure it is some kind of power move rather than anything else.
If I had to speculate, it's what you said above. It's about exercising domination and control. And thus is likely to materialize among people whose primary motivation is exercising domination and who have the means and opportunity to indulge in that. Draw the Venn diagram and you get a bunch of rich and powerful men.
#10
Gaming HQ / Re: News from the lovely world...
Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 11:01:30 AMIf sight unseen you had to guess which games industry personality was the most likely to appear in the Epstein files, wouldn't Kotick have been a top guess?