I don't think it's browser specific or a direct targeting of Firefox; that's likely confirmation bias. I see rolling captchas and the annoying ones that have a delayed fading in and out even on Chromium forks. I think the biggest reason for seeing them is VPN usage. When I turn off my VPN, I either don't see any captchas or it just automatically shows the green check when I start them.

There's a FOSS fork of Signal which removes Google dependencies from the software.

Signal-FOSS

A fork of Signal for Android with proprietary Google binary blobs removed. Uses OpenStreetMap for maps and a websocket server connection, instead of Google Maps and Firebase Cloud Messaging.

https://github.com/tw-hx/Signal-Android

While not an "app store" per se, Obtainium is pretty useful. It lets you manually import apps that you'd like to receive updates for, and can pull from different sources. For app discovery, I use Droid-ify.

From a post on the GrapheneOS forum:

If you try to "update" it from aurora store, the update will fail because the signature does not match between the open source version you have installed as part of the system image, and the google version on store.

Its nothing to worry about, just ignore it.

Just add it to Aurora Store blacklist.

Gas stations, convenience stores, and small businesses are common targets of scams and counterfeit currency. It's important to take that into account too as it relates to possible losses. Also, the fact that we just generally have less change available in our registers compared to larger businesses. It's not that uncommon to see locations like this refuse larger bills as a result. I fully understand being annoyed at this at big box / larger chain stores and businesses, of course.

I never buy phones new anymore unless there's a huge price drop or good deal involved. I'll most likely pick up an refurbished or preowned 8 when the 9 and 9a come out, to save on costs. Assuming there's nothing horribly wrong with the hardware, that is.

Pretty much. It's truly infuriating how incapable so many people are.

I recently got myself a reusable bag for grocery shopping. I'm far too clumsy to juggle all my groceries out the store 🤣

The worst (coin-related) I had to deal with was $5.00 in all dimes. It was first thing in the morning too 😒 I sat there and counted them one-by-one while the customer protested and insisted "I just counted it this morning" as if that mattered lol

No problem :)

Sliding doors always seem to have a mind of their own. Looks like they were out for blood on that day 😂

As I have previously mentioned, I totally understand that it can be frustrating to be unable to use large bills if you have them on you. Unfortunately, the world doesn't revolve around you specifically. Smaller stores and businesses aren't always able to take on the risk of counterfeits, nor are they able to constantly make bank runs every other day to refill the tills. Are you saying, in 2023, you'd rather walk out of a store than use the plethora of other payment options at your fingertips? Contactless, smartphones, debit/credit cards, smaller bills, gift cards?

The government monitors those types of forums because of the far right extremism that tends to be espoused there, which in turn encourages and leads to instances of politically-motivated domestic terrorism in the US. Putting your incel-related issues aside, if you're going to visit and post on obscure and extremist forums, you should have had the basic common sense to protect your privacy and security before doing so.

It's your typical card reader screen, with a contactless payment option.

I'm less so saying "bags are bad" and more so saying "let's try not to use bags when it's clearly not necessary". There's no reason to take a plastic bag when you've got a 1 inch item. A lot of the things you listed can be done perfectly fine with a reusable bag or container, which are these days pretty cheap.

I totally understand the desire to not want to be tracked by digital purchases. Is there a reason you can't carry smaller bills on you for when you walk in to shop at gas stations, convenience stores, small businesses, etc? There are plenty of solutions to this dilemma. Expecting small businesses to be able to clear their registers of change for you because you can't go to an ATM or another store capable of breaking your large bills is quite entitled.

I ran a chain of stores that handled some of the largest cash transactions possible.

That's great, but not really relevant to small businesses which tend to have smaller transactions, and therefore less money in the tills for the week.

Small businesses can't really afford to do daily trips to the bank. We fill our tills once, maybe twice, a week. Plus, since we're a secondhand store, most of our cash has to go to customers selling things to us. It's just not as simple as just going to the bank each day.

Strange. I haven't encountered any major quirks with it in my use. I've had app gave me trouble but it was because I had installed a pre-release version of the app by mistake, but once I installed the correct version, it was fine.

I will say one criticism of Obtanium is that it's easy to get rate limited if you use a VPN, which is really annoying.