Replace syncing to Google contacts and Google calendar with webDAV and calDAV to next cloud.
I run next cloud in my garage. DAVx is free from F-Droid app store. Setup is easy. And you don't need Google accounts to store contacts and calenda in your home cloud
He's not, there was accusations against him and his company from a former employee that were recently settled in court in favor of Linus, judged has having committed no wrongdoing.
I just installed it yesterday and it was super easy. So far I'm liking it, and I now have two profiles: Owner (main, no Play services) and work (has Play services for work apps). I'm still moving all my crap over, so I guess we'll see over the next few weeks if I run into issues.
Enjoy your spyware-free degoogled experience! Feel free to dm me if you have any questions. I'd say I'm quite experienced with GrapheneOS, degoogling and Android in general.
I've only had it a day, and I haven't even swapped my SIM yet (waiting for my case to be delivered), so I'll give it a couple weeks to really get a feel for things. I'm going on a road trip soon, and may be going out of the country, so if I'm going to run into issues, it's going to be soon. I'm also going to try using the eSIM to trial Google Fi (international data FTW, free for 7 days), so it should be a rather complete experience.
Since you're here, do you know if SIMs "just work" with different profiles? Can I restrict them to a specific profile? I'm guessing SIMs are a completely separate concept from profiles (which AFAIK just manages apps), but this is my first time with GrapheneOS.
As far as I can see, no. But what benefit would that really have? Network settings (including mobile networks) are global. The only thing that's profile-specific is your VPN setting. You can only disable a profile's ability to use the phone/SMS feature. Profiles generally manage apps, user data and some settings.
The benefit is that I could block apps installed to one profile from using my data (i.e. wifi only), while allow apps on the other to use it. I could install something like NetGuard, but I also use a VPN, and it's one or the other with that IIRC (at least on my old phone, I can only use one VPN at a time).
Ok that actually makes sense. I just realized that the fucking iPhone has this feature, but Android doesn't. GrapheneOS doesn't implement any custom features that aren't privacy/security related. And no, unfortunately you don't get a second VPN slot either.
Pretty hard. If you don't have prior experience with the AOSP codebase, I'd say it's impossible. But if you want to get started, this is how to build GrapheneOS from source: https://grapheneos.org/build
My threat model isn't such that I need it, it's just really annoying. GrapheneOS does allow blocking network per-app, which is a sufficient workaround. It's a bit tedious, but I can do the following:
disable network on sensitive apps
disable NetGuard and enable other VPN
finish what I was doing
undo step 2
undo step 1
I really wish there was a way to get VPNs and NetGuard playing nicely together. I want all traffic to be filtered by NetGuard, and then routed over the VPN. This is trivial on Linux, but apparently not so on Android, which is a shame.
There might be an easier way to accomplish this. The RethinkDNS app has a built-in Firewall and WireGuard VPN client. It also allows you to configure per-app Wifi and cellular data separately. The only caveat is that you would need to manually import the WireGuard profiles from your VPN provider.
Just be careful actually using that international data for too long cause I used it when I took a semester abroad and they shut off my data and account access literally on the day of my flight back home and kept billing me for months after when I didn't have access to my account to cancel billing for my (non-)service. They say the majority of your service should be spent in the US but they don't actually define anywhere what that means to them. They just tell you one day that you're shit out of luck and not eligible for service anymore (including domestically).
None of their support people were able to help by turning my service back on long enough to get back to the states or even just telling me how to get back into good standing. The only thing they were able to tell me is why it was shut off.
Anyways if you do need international data, airalo was really reasonably priced and easy to set up. Came in clutch. Fuck google up the ass for leaving me stranded like that.
I'm with Tello, which has no international calls or data, and my wife is with Mint, which has a prepaid (really expensive) option for small amounts of credit. We're planning to go to Canada for a day or two, and I was planning on (ab)using the 7-day trial.
I plan to do other international trips, and getting Fi for a month or so each time was the plan. But if they suck, maybe I'll try something else for this trip.
Airalo looks decent ($6 for 1GB in Canada is reasonable). Thanks for the tip!
I want to route the data we use during our 1-2 day trip through Google servers, yes. It'll be on a fresh number, and then cancelled promptly after our trip, and it'll be a hotspot just for the trip so my wife can communicate w/ her friends. It'll also be used for any incidental calls we may need while there. I usually don't bother and just use wifi calling as needed, but I saw the free 7-day trial and was interested.
That said, someone else mentioned some inexpensive alternatives ranging from $3-6 (airelo, I also found these), so I'll probably just go that route instead. Most no-contract services I've found require buying international credit, so that would be $20+ just for the trip, and that seems a bit ridiculous. I'm willing to pay about $5 for data for the trip, I'm not willing to pay $20+.
This was my main concern about switching. I have to use MFA apps for work. So, it's possible to have different profiles, and I can back up my codes and retrieve on my new profile using GrapheneOS?
That's possible on most recent-ish Android phones, at least it was on my Moto G from 2020 running Android 11. To activate, you need to go to Settings > System > Multiple Users (may need to enable developer access first, not sure).
That allows you to have multiple logins on your phone, and you can switch between them.
What GrapheneOS adds is that you can have Google Play services sandboxed (no privileged access, it works like any other app) per profile. So my main profile has no Google Play services, and my "work" profile has Google Play services with only the handful of apps I need for work (MFA, work chat, etc). When you're in one profile, you have no access to anything from the other profile, though you have access to system stuff like wifi networks and SIM cards (e.g. you can make/receive calls from all profiles).
It's that sandboxing that I am most interested in. I rarely use apps from Google Play, but I do need them occasionally, so i separate them by concern. I'm probably going to end up with a "personal" profile for all of the Google Play apps that I need periodically.
Right, but the point is that this is about de-Googling, and the video wast posted to a Google-owned site by someone who makes their livelihood from Google.
Piped and similar services are cool, it's just a weird conflict of interest.
Is it though? How likely is someone who watches that video to actually degoogle? He uses windows almost exclusively (Microsoft tracks you), shows benchmarks from games with DRM, recommends products that track you (e.g. Meta headsets), etc.
I'm not saying it's bad that he's doing it, I'm just saying it's ineffective. How many of these products does he actually use? Why should I trust his recommendations if he's not actually living a degoogled life?
I see it as lipservice for views, that's it. If he was really serious about it, I think he'd make his videos available on other services (and not just floatplane, that's a money grab).
I trust Louis Rossmann far more, because he:
uses the products he recommends
fights for real, legal change related to privacy
makes his videos available on Odyssee
That last one is a little self-serving because he's pushing his app Grayjay, but paying for the app is optional and no features are locked behind paying.
So I'm not gong ri applaud LTT for making this video. The intent is to drive clicks and ad revenue. I don't think that's bad, I just don't think it's worthy of commendation. If you want a better mainstream channel for this, check out Naomi Brockwell. She's quite pleasant to listen to and covers far more than LTT or Louis Rossmann ever would.
If all this engagement slop went out of business tomorrow, my life wouldn't change lol
This is shit ain't food or house. I decide how I pay for it and if I pay at all. There is jack shit anyone can do about that. These companies and slop generators need to learn their place in the economy haha
Not saying you shouldn't block ads, just questioning the OCs comment. If you don't pay for the service monetarily or through data then imo it's piracy.
That's the service's problem. VCRs and DVRs had ad-block ages ago, and those were commercial products sold at regular retail stores, so it's totally a non-issue.
An ad-blocker just means I'm not running optional extras. The web server says, "please display X, Y, and Z," and the ad-blocker says, "nah to Y and Z, but I'll render X." It's the same idea as safe-search filters to block websites, but it runs within "trusted" pages instead of just blocking certain domains.
It's the same with sponser blockers, but I personally don't use them and prefer to manually skip them instead unless the creator generally has good recs (e.g. I often watch them once/twice on Gamers Nexus, because they only recommend good products, but block the others).
Piracy is sharing content that you don't have the rights to share. Ad-block just blocks content you don't want to see. Those are not the same thing at all.
circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage, or otherwise interfere with the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related features or features that: (a) prevent or restrict the copying or other use of Content; or (b) limit the use of the Service or Content;
Yes, it's a violation of their TOS, but TOS is often illegal anyway.
I'm not modifying any of the content they send, I'm merely not rendering it. That's a very different thing. It's just like blocking fonts (I do that too), if I don't want an asset, I won't download it. If they want to block me because I'm blocking part of their page from loading, that's on them.
Yes, I'm violating their TOS, but I also never signed their TOS agreement. I don't use a YouTube account, I just access their webpage. Nothing here is illegal, I'm just not rendering content that I don't want to see. I have no legal obligation here. Google doesn't get to decide what gets run on my machine, I do. If they don't want me to view their content, they should lock it behind a paywall or something.
Right, and I'm arguing that it's not piracy. Piracy is a copyright violation, and blocking ads isn't violating copyright, it's only violating TOS. "Piracy" is the informal term for "copyright infringement," at least in my jurisdiction (US).
First the broad strokes: It's not illegal to block ads.
...
But... that doesn't mean your use of an adblocker isn't in violation of US law.
The crucial issue with legality when it comes to adblockers is less about blocking ads, and more about circumventing a websites measures to defeat adblockers.
So I might be violating the DMCA by circumventing protections on the website, depending on what exactly the ad-blocker is doing, but just blocking URLs isn't a copyright violation, it's a TOS violation, which may or may not hold up in court. Therefore, not piracy.
I think the internet is broken in this regard. Adverts and all of the tracking is horrific. Pay walling a website for $5-10 a month is not appealing for those who only want to read a couple of articles a month. But, without monetization good content from people who are good at their job will disappear.
Don't get me wrong, I'm team adblock everything but I am willing to pay if there is a new sensible solution to the problem figured out.
Or just... install an ad-blocker. With Container Tabs on Firefox, YouTube doesn't associate those links with me (at least not through my Google Account), and I don't see ads with my ad-blocker.
No need for using random websites that may just be stealing my data a different way. I'm happy to watch on YouTube, I'm just won't watch the ads or opt-in to tracking.
Freetube is not a website, but a desktop application that massively improves the usability over YouTube's UX. It doesn't serve the same purpose as an ad blocker, which also works well for its purpose.
Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification. I've never used it, just seen it mentioned here.
Regardless, I think it would be easier to use YouTube links instead of Piped links for redirecting links to it. Then again, I don't have experience with it, only with Android YouTube alternatives like NewPipe and Grayjay.
Yeah in that case I agree. Tons of people have their preferred YouTube frontend, or application, or way of using YouTube itself, and we can all get YouTube links to automatically redirect to our preferred method, but if someone links their preferred frontend directly, anyone who uses a different method all of a sudden can't use it automatically.
Idk, it's driving a ton of ad revenue (sponsored businesses and whatnot), why would they nuke it? They also get free boosting from users leaving reviews as well.
It's not as lucrative as search, but I would be very surprised if it's a loss-leader. Surely it's not costing $5+B to run...
In my personal experience it has been getting consistently worse over the last 6 or so years. It used to be nearly perfect but now it is somewhat common that the directions will be wrong or misleading
I disagree, he is just mad because he wants to keep all the ad money for himself and thinks YouTube is stealing his profit. This is the “ad blocking is piracy” guy afterall. There's not a single moral shred in that video, it's all patronizing and capitalist greed. He just wants to keep all the subscription money without having to share it with anyone.
They have already started their own platform, Floatplane. And other creators are on it as well.
Simple fact is though, YouTube is still king, and so leaving YouTube entirely isn't tenable at this point. But they are already working on alternatives.
Apparently they're going to address YouTube replacements in the second part of the series. Also I'm fairly sure they spoke about Youtube ReVanced a couple of times before.
But YouTube links auto-open, which is why I post YouTube links. I suppose I could figure out how to associate all these random sites (Piped, Freetube, probably others) with YouTube, but surely URL redirectors work better when using the original source URLs instead of a laundry list of different URLs.
On Lemmy, we have the Piped bot, so the inconvenience for those who don't have those URL redirects configured is to go to the comments and click a link.
I think it's not a good idea to leave links to Piped instead of YouTube (same for Nitter/Twitter, Libreddit/Reddit, etc.). If you want to avoid YouTube, then just install LibRedirect extension or similar. Piped links are temporary, they'll break sooner or later, making it difficult for people to get to the website.
Something that is federated like PeerTube would solve that specific issue, I believe. Many sites with their own user able to interact with each other. The biggest problem there is that there exists no good app to interact with PeerTube. You can use NewPipe or Greyjay, but you have to know the PeerTube instances first, no what's popular in the fediverse tab.
That is a good point, I appreciate the response. I wonder if there is a way to attract advertisers responsibly, or if advertising is really the best way to monetize content. I'm not in that world so I don't know the best solution in that regard, but a monolithic entity certainly isn't.
Grayjay is great IMO. It combines video from a variety of sources, such as YouTube, Odyssee, Rumble, PeerTube, Twitch, etc. I disable most of those, but I do have some channels on multiple platforms. Also, there's a feature to recognize the same content across services for the same creator, so users can choose the service they want the content from.
It's Android only, so hopefully they add more platforms eventually. One annoying thing is that it's not really open source, it's just "source available," but that's way better than the propriety platforms they're providing an alternative to. That said, there are a few things I don't like about it:
rotate doesn't work reliably for me - I just got a new phone, so I'll see if it's still an issue
seems like it uses way more resources than necessary (i.e. compared to NewPipe)
kinda buggy sometimes - it is getting regular updates, so I think it's just growing pains
And some things I love about it:
available outside of the Play Store - I get updates within the app, just like on a desktop app, or I can install through F-Droid (they have their own repo)
PiP - I like having it open while wasting time on Lemmy
no ads or other nonsense - you can buy a license, but features aren't gated behind paying (I'm planning to pay once rotate is fixed)
I mainly use Grayjay, and I did pay because I believe that if I use a product and you ask for payment, I will pay. The only thing that I have found lacking is the lack of a good autoplay feature. I don't use autoplay most of the time, but it makes driving easier, as well as finding new content/creators. Rotate is weird, I have a few bugs there as well.
However, I still think the point stands that it is difficult to find content creators because there are a thousand instances and no real way to parse the creators in a reasonable way, in order to find new content. You can find instances, but that is the long way. There needs to be a way to parse what is on the peertube part of the fediverse easily before it is going to be remotely appealing/usable to anyone outside our very niche, very nerdy circle.
On mastodon, for example, I can search for a hashtag and it will search the entirety of those servers federated with my home server for that hashtag. Do that with peertube, and its the best option for users, IMHO. Monetization will have to get worked out to attract creators.
Grayjay, though, great app with some room to improve. Already better than NewPipe in some ways.
My new phone doesn't seem to have the rotate issue, so the biggest annoyance for me now is the lack of channel playlists (i.e. go to a YouTube channel and see their curated playlists). I don't need that to pay though, so I'll probably go pay soon.
And yeah, it's a great app. I still need NewPipe though.
Seems like he is doing pretty well. Paying 1200£/month and not noticing is very privileged. But yeah, I also only pay like 1€/month for my mail account and nothing else.
I was thinking the exact same thing actually because us normal people start getting a bit antsy when things hit a hundred dollars a month, not twelve hundred.
Wanna know how to not be beholden to all these fees? Put in the effort to divorce yourself from these companies. You're paying for convenience. Go pick up your food yourself. Take the time to research products from different companies, and acknowledge and be patient that they won't be there immediately. Cultivate your own media library. Find replacement software if at all possible. All of these things take much more effort, but you'll save yourself the money and you'll stop supporting these damn companies that are raiding your bank accounts. Obviously some subscriptions are impossible to avoid, like a cell phone plan, home internet, work-related things, etc. But how anyone pays triple for a meal is just baffling. And some people do it every. Single. Day.
I haven't been to a theater in more than a decade, I almost never eat at places that traditionally request tips (cause I don't agree with it), and I have literally never once ever used a service like Uber or DoorDash.
Helps avoid adding new costs to my lifestyle by simply trying not to care about these things. I don't trust people, and I don't mind driving, so I would never use on eof those services, amd I feel like my couch and TV at home look and sound better than a theater, amd I'm more comfortable.
Another tip, if you ever get the itch for a new car, instead go pay for a car detail cleaning. It'll make you feel good for a while and is far cheaper.
Yeah that's mental. I pay roughly $200/no in subscriptions, but that also includes my business subs for accounting, invoicing, and time tracking. Though this has also inspired me to start looking for alternatives.
I guess including gym fees, I am about that much. But they all get used. If the guy in the video was utilizing $1500/mo in subs and they made his life better, then go for it.
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