I’ve been a long term freetube user, but lately I’m finding pipeline built locally through AUR, formerly known as feetuber, a much better experience at least for me. I’ve set it up to use ytdlp and mpv all the time, so I don’t care about Piped sites. It supports Peertube already, and it’s way light, at least with mpv playing it is

There are a bunch of non bloated alternatives with whether wayland compositors and also X11 window managers, and there’s also kde/plasma, xfce and mate if still wanting full DE, plus a hybrid lxde-gtk3/lxqt (lxqt supports both X11 and wayland I believe).

If going the non bloated ways, distributions can offer some modifications on the system configurations files, so that users can start with working software out of the box, and can even offer installation meta packages for a complete set of i3/sway packages to have an equivalent DE experience. What would be left to users is custom settings to get more appealing aesthetics depending on the user, if not i3/sway, then openbox/labwc, and so on. For a DE experience including into the meta package a toolbar like yambar (works on X11 and wayland), dunst/mako, udiskie, redshift/wlsunset and so on. The missing part on non bloated alternatives is easy of configuring through buttons and widgets, and even so lxqt made an easy of configure software component for openbox, and there might be something similar for labwc.

So non systemd distributions are far from dying because of gnome’s hostility.

And if I recall correctly, several gnome users (not its huge base of course) are moving away from gnome any ways unhappy with its plugin support, given gnome is known to leave plugins unsupported on its releases and not caring about them.

Of course using another distro you want to emulate is much better.

But as it’s debian based, I’m wondering if a better approach would be to use repos from another close enough distro, like derivative distros which decide to build the stuff for the distro as much as possible (that maybe won’t prevent the need of flatpak and the like).

Another approach would be using a package manager that can work on top of any distro, like Guix, at least for FLOSS software.

I use artix, so if something is not in the official artix repos pacman also look on arch repos, then it looks my personal repos (I build some personal packages, but I also use aurutils, so there are packages on one of my personal repos that are really aur packages not mine). As I prefer to package the stuff I can’t find anywhere I haven’t found the need for something like Guix, but it might come handful if in order to include some software which depends on software way old for artix or something similar to that. Just a reminder that Guix and the like will work fine as package mechanism on top of any distro given their approach to keep the software out of the common unix path hierarchy.

Both Tubular and Libretube support SponsorBlock, in that regard both are cool. I would use Libretube first, and if no piped site works then use Tubular, but Libretube itself allow for using local connection or it could be set to only work that way as NewPipe/Tubular do, so perhaps there wouldn’t be a need for two apps.

The advantage to start with Libretube is a bit extra privacy by using a 3rd party piped site, so what youtube sees are requests from that site. But piped sites are more identifiable and therefore vulnerable to be rate limited or totally blocked. Though lately youtube has managed to block everything pretty close in time, Freetube, Pipeline, HarmonyMusic (a bit more resilient but also gets blocked), NewTube, Tubular, LibreTube, whatever.

Google is shortening the periods on which any of these frontends can be used to access youtube. Sadly, as Google offers some profit depending on the visits (more adds) then people seems not to be interested on leaving youtube, :(

uSo it doesn’t seem to be a frontend which is less prompt to functionality disruptions. Some times it takes less time and some times it takes long, but usually most if not all frontends get affected. In that regard I don’t see much difference, so that’s why I recommended Libretube first and then Tubular as an alternative. Given there’s not frontend supported by Google, in the end it’s almost a matter of taste, with any Piped solution offering a bit extra privacy if used with 3rd party piped sites, and if that site is blocked or rate limited, another one can be chosen, or even it can try on the run to connect locally, or you can actually stop using a 3rd party site at all and only connect locally. BTW, freetube can be set to use an invidio site as well, but there are way less invidio sites up and running that there are piped sites. One can self host, but then the requests to youtube will be yours any ways, though you get local subscription and nice stuff on all frontends.

I like to have an alternative though in case at least for a little while one mechanism works but the other doesn’t.

BTW, if interested on music, HarmonyMusic is a bit different frontend that can run on several platforms, gnu+linux, android and so on, and sometimes it keeps working while the other frontends don’t.

The battle is still there, and the GrapheneOS guy always bark at microG, like he really hates the whole concept of microG. What I have gotten from the discussion is that GrapheneOS is more secure, but although it sandboxes GPS denying some permissions, and some of those might be needed to be given away for some services any ways, it doesn’t try to fake anything, which microG does. In that sense my preference has been microG, and I don’t regret it.

That said, what you mentioned is true, both still access google app store, and still have to give some minimal information to google.

There’s a 3rd option the OP didn’t mentioned. If they are mainly interested in app store, and not the google services in general, there are a couple of somehow recognized 3rd party app store mirrors, which keep the same original signatures of the packages hosted by google app store, and they offer packages from other sources not provided by the google app store, in case interested on those packages: apkmirror and apkpure. From the two apkpure still allows to install and upgrade packages through FLOSS 3rd party apps like apkupdater, so that might be an option. For some months apkpure packages weren’t able to be installed through apkupdater, but it seems that got corrected already.

But in general, the OP would benefit from always looking for FLOSS packages on the F-Droid repo, then other non official F-Droid repos which can be used through the F-Droid app, then see if they can be installed from their web site and updated without intevention of any installer, and then if there’s no option but using proprietary software maybe looking for them on the apkpure/apkmirror sites or on apkpure through apkupdater or similar, and then aurora store, or if using grapheneOS finally google play if anything else fails, :)

I do understand the need for proprietary software, like bank OTP apps. It’s sad banks, governments, medical services and so on never look for FLOSS software, they always require users to get proprietary software. I don’t live in the EU, but I hope current hate/banning tendency ends up doing user a favor by starting to require banks, and the like to start using FLOSS apks, though doesn’t really helps me, I hope in the end it helps people in the EU.

This is a security feature. Other communication mechanisms having the keys somewhere else not owned by you is rather something I wouldn’t stand. And to me it’s unsafe that messages would be kept way long on the servers.

On xmpp the sync happens from server to all syncing clients, and the proper XEPs need to supported in both the client and the server.

Jami on desktop, not on phones yet:

https://jami.net/eleutheria

Available only for desktop users for now, the new Push-to-talk feature offers a new effortless way to communicate: simply press a button for hands-free, instant, and convenient audio messaging. It’s like in the olden days of gaming when gamers would key bind the Push to talk feature to be able to talk when necessary.

So jami all the way, 🙂

You can simply decline by stating to an agent that you do not want your photo taken and want to opt out of a face scan. From there, a TSA agent should follow standard procedure of looking at your ID and your face to verify your identity.

Monero?

I’ve only used searx[ng] for several years. searx.space is pretty recommended to look for searxng working instances, as well as the ones that you might prefer depending of the country of the instance and so for. Public searx but no searxng working instances are really uncommon now a days.

Every now and then your preferred instance becomes useless (whether google finds its way to block it, or to apply an aggressive rate limiter, or the instance gets unmaintained), so one needs to look for another one.

DDG doesn’t give bad results, but when I realized the majority of its results come from bing, meaning it’s mostly a metasearch as well with a few entries of its own (that might have varied from that time), I then started to only use searx, and then when searx working instances were really hard to find I moved to searxng, and I’m happy with those instances. Again, at times I need to move to a different instance, though I’ve been using the last one I chose for more than a year now…

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Well, I wouldn’t like AI in any communication client of mine. Perhaps if it’s local to my box I would like that, but this solution really seems cloud based, meaning one could have an AI crawling over one’s data, to do whatever it wants with it. And local solutions usually are not as “good” as the cloud ones for whatever reason (hardware availability, data, and so on):

for users on less powerful hardware, the development team has integrated NVIDIA’s confidential computing to keep any remote processing secure. Rest assured, those who prefer to skip AI services can continue using Thunderbird without these extras.

There’s still tuta, or even /e/ (now a days murena), which still seem safer privacy wise than this new thunderbird option.

I’m really hoping for a “librewolf” kind of fork oriented to privacy, and betterbird doesn’t offer anything like that. The phoenix project has a safer user config for both firefox and thunderbird, but that doesn’t get rid of components (well perhaps it could possibly turn them off, though to make sure they better get ripped at build time).

Does any one know if this new TB service would offer caldav and carddav services as well? I didn’t see anything on stalwart advertisement.

Is there any overlap between already FLOSS applications, whether for mobile (F-Droid for example) or desktop/laptop (GNU+linux for example) and this catalog? Known to date FLOSS applications coming from everywhere, Jami sources for example comes from France and the application is peer-to-peer, XMMP standard protocol specification is governed by the IETF XMPP working group having members from different countries and servers/clients open sources from different people and servers actually all over the world or self hosted… In other words, I don’t know if having an European catalog is what really matters.

In my mind, no matter where you live, if you want your freedom[s] respected, you should prefer free/libre software, or at least open source, though in the later case it can be tweaked in ways ignored by you which might be dangerous or might not. If wanting privacy related applications, then the prior is a must but on top of that e2ee encryption is required, as minimal as possible personal information leakage, and hopefully using distributed applications mainly peer-to-peer though at least decentralized ones (hopefully self-hosting), and also security wise being externally audited if possible. I understand the EU requires the data to be stored and kept only within the EU, but that doesn’t guarantees privacy any ways, and we should learn that the best is not to trust our information to anyone, and better use peer-to-peer whenever possible or zero trust mechanisms with everything encrypted (protecting the user, not the spying mechanisms so called zero-trust, like falcon-sensor).

So I’m a bit confused by people trusting a state or supra-state backed catalogs, when FLOSS should be what conscious users should be looking for. Interoperability is what really resonates to me, but open standards (open document standard comes to mind for example) if used or for example a simple particular version of markdown (the pandoc one for example) and so on, should guarantee that…

Actually, FLOSS is more precise, given the “L” coming from “libre” in castilian (spanish now a days) referring explicitly to freedom. But it so happen open source != free/libre software, therefore open source usually disregard the philosophic aspect of freedom, which might turn against the users interest, which is what GNU guys were trying to prevent all along, because focusing in the practical aspects, without any concern on the principals behind, actually do have implications on the software itself and its usage.

Yeah, Librewolf by default doesn’t use DoT neither DoH, and so your IP is still exposed, but Librewolf had made it fairly easy to change through preferences or the librewolf overrides, whatever more convenient, as stated on its DoH enabling documentation.

I would jami except you want it web based. And next comes jitsi meet, but I then would suggest self-hosting to avoid people to be subscribed to a sever somewhere, though I don’t know if that limits the easy part of it. Jami is easy on PCs, and everyone needs to have it installed, and all be included into a single swarm group, and I believe that’s as easy as with google meet. The mobile solution is something I don’t recommend at this point, neither syncing devices, but PCs wise, absolutely

Don’t forget about verso which builds on top of servo, neither of which are ready yet.

Have you heard of verso, it’s web browser being built on top of servo, which also aims to help servo to be more “embedable”.

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Thanks !