Spyke

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privacy

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What should I change?

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Mailbox offers a secure version for your email that's automatically encrypted, but also supports PGP for your reg email too (what I do). Proton is only encrupted when mailing other Proton users anyway, right? I say this as a former Proton Mail user.

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[META] Are paid for, closed source projects, being advertised on this community, appropriate?

I think people should have to lurk and contribute a little before just advertising.

I don't think we should promote closed-source apps on here at all, at least not in it's own post. For exampke, many people here talk about Symfonium when mentioning their music client that they use to listen to their selfhosted music, and that app is not FOSS at all.

If an app is mostly open with some proprietary bits, then we can discuss. I'm perfectly fine with fully OSS apps that aren't free, as the devs do deserve to be paid. As gnu.org states, Free means "Freedom" not "Free beer." While I typically only use "free beer" type FOSS apps, I do occasionally donate to ones I love/use often, but we know that devs struggle to keep their projects afloat.

news

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The US government just banned consumer routers made outside the US

So... can I still flash custom firmware like OPNsense and Openwrt on them? Cause I literally just posted about hardware decision a few days ago 😭

Edit: It seems the article and actual FCC document will leave previous router models alone, but anything newer is cooked... Even the US brands like Cisco aren't actually manufactured here because we fucking outsource evrything. I hate this government.

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Why Are Cars Getting Rid Of Android Auto?

Every day I get more thankful for my hand-me-down car. It has no heated seats or anything fancy, but that also means no subscriptions, no wifi tracking/stalking, no digital touch screen over physical buttons, etc. All I've ever done is use a clip holder on my AC vent for my phone, so I'm used to it. It's given me time to see how others feel about Android Auto and features in newer cars, and I can make an informed decision whenever my baby decides to kick the bucket. Hopefully I can get something not too stalkerish nor with subscriptions.

privacy

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GrapheneOS can help you retake your privacy, right now. - Veronica Explains

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I keep bitching about my Galaxy Tab A9+ and I will till the day I die. I fucking hate that thing for not having any Custom ROMs, and I despise the fact that it doesn't allow OEM unlocking (afaik). I mean, it was a gift, so I still appreciate it, but MAN will I never buy Samsung with my own money ever.

Anyway I wish people would stop crying for Samsung Graphene while knowing full well that Samsung is essentially the Apple of the Android world; Locked down to all hell.

It'd be nice to not have to buy Google anything, but I want security, to be able to use most of my apps, and I don't wanna buy a Chinese phone, so here we are.

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YouTube disabled SRV3 subtitle uploads and started deleting them on existing videos

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In the past my mom pirated anime while still paying for Funimation, because they had a quality service that got simuldubs and had a lot of content. Then CR bought them oit and now were stuck with this "pay for the highest tier to get all the content and no ads" and "oh it's only on our platform until March!" and "Oops we didn't even port over all the shows on Funimation, sorry lol!" and "Oh, like the AI generated subtitles?"

We will not be giving CR a single fucking penny. I'm close to finishing my home/media server and we'll just watch that way or with Kodi.

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Artists dump X as launch of new AI image editing feature sparks outrage - Cryptopolitan

Ugh, I'm so tired of this. I never had twitter in the first place, but I did used to have Instagram and I loved it for all the artists I'd follow on there. But I dropped that a year or two ago (officially deleted my accounts 😤) and just stuck with Tumblr ever since. But so many of my favorite former fanartists just REFUSE to let either service go, despite them very openly stating their new AI policies or worsening ToS policies.

I know Bluesky will turn out the same way as the others, but I've been trying to encourage artists to move to BS and use bridgy fed so I can still see them on Mastodon. Like you'd literally get the visibility of TWO platforms by using bridgy fed rather than sticking with just Insta or just Twitter. And yes, Instagram and Twitter have bigger numbers than BS or the Fediverse, but one day the AI issues will grow too big and you'll lose those numbers anyway when you leave the platform. Plus how many of those numbers are bots anyway?

But it just sucks man. I only have Tumblr and the occasional visit to Pixiv as my source of fanart. Mastodon and Pixelfed are just lacking, or make it very hard to find the artists I'm looking for (and I literally joined Pixelfed.art!). I've tried following hashtags but it's a little dry...

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'Incredible' milestone reached as Sweden becomes a smoke-free country

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I'm pretty sure i got the whole article:

Sweden has reached its target of fewer than five percent of the population smoking regularly – and is consequently considered "smoke-free".

"It is an incredible development that a harmful behaviour can be reduced to this extent," Mats Ramstedt, head of research at the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), told the TT news agency.

For the first time in CAN's surveys, fewer than five percent smoke regularly in Sweden, according to the 2025 annual report on smoking and snus habits, which means that the political goal for Sweden to be smoke-free by 2025 has been achieved.

The proportion of daily smokers dropped from 16 to 4.8 percent between 2003 and 2025, according to the new report.

"It is not just the proportion of smokers that has decreased; we also see that people are smoking fewer cigarettes. Given the health risks associated with cigarette smoking, this is obviously very positive," said Ramstedt.

Smoking has been declining in Sweden since the late 1970s (for comparison: in the early 1980s, over 30 percent of Swedes smoked daily), thanks to broad preventative work, according to Ramstedt.

"The first and perhaps most vital point is that accessibility has been drastically reduced. It is both harder and more expensive to smoke today," said Ramstedt, citing taxes and real-term prices rising by 45 percent since 2003.

FROM THE LOCAL'S ARCHIVE: How Sweden is close to stubbing out smoking for good

He also credited efforts made to deter people from starting to smoke in the first place, such as advertising bans, and to make it easier for people to quit.

Meanwhile, Sweden has seen a sharp increase in the use of snus in recent years – the small nicotine pouches popular in Sweden – a factor that the tobacco industry often highlights as a major reason for Sweden's low proportion of smokers.

"One must keep in mind that smoking had already decreased sharply before we saw this rise in snus. In a way, that argues against it being a decisive factor in reducing smoking," said Ramstedt, but conceded that more research into its role could provide useful insights. "My assessment is that there is a lack of studies proving this, and I would maintain that it is primarily down to preventative measures."

videos

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Delete Your Discord Account

Would've been a perfect video without the bashing on women for using the Tea app, and "shitty taste in men" in general, but okay. Just straight up ew; gonna ruin the rest of my night thinking about that.

(A little after 8:25 for anyone who's curious)

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Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

I've been using YT music anyway, but I recently started using my Navidrome server by just yt-dlp'ing albums + tag with MusicBrainz picard and boom. A bunch of songs I can own until my server burns down.

I feel a little bad about pirating, but I'm a college student who hasn't even gotten a job yet... But I will be buying merch or music off bandcamp in the future when I know I have the budget for it!

privacy

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Whats a privacy friendly way of learning a new language?

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Anki + Yomitan is the goat. Download some dictionaries of your target language, load them into Yomitan, and now you can search words on any website with selectable text and instantly make a flashcard out of the word. Watching a video in browser? Use asbplayer to load subtitles onto the video/movie and select the text from that too. Wanna watch not in browser? Use mpvacious with mpv.

Find yourself a card format you like and some cute addons (I use Ankimon [Pokemon]) for Anki so you don't fall into that "it looks so dull!" trap because the SRS system it uses is no joke. I have years old vocab on there that I still remember, and medical students aren't joking when they say it saved them.

I just love this app so much.