10 ms·

Three years ago, I migrated from Gmail to FastMail because I was afraid of losing access to my digital life on Google's whim. Two years ago, I found out that m

Three years ago, I migrated from Gmail to FastMail because I was afraid of losing access to my digital life on Google's whim. Two years ago, I found out that my favorite Youtube creators were all on Nebula. One year ago, I switched my phone to LineageOS to get security updates a little longer. A month ago, I installed OpenStreetMaps because Google Maps got really bad at showing points-of-interest. And today, Kagi removed the only obstacle that kept me on Google Search. I'm looking forward to building my filter list. After accidentally de-googlifying myself, I might ditch Windows next. It feels really nice using products that respect me, as opposed to services that are actively hostile because of advertisers.

rjh29 3y ago
Yeah you sound like someone who should not be using Windows in any way shape or form. The telemetry and lack of control? Try Linux out.
- BoppreH 3y ago
  I'm wary of telemetry, but willing to accept it. It's the lack of respect that gets to me. "Yes/Maybe Later"? Showing me a fake Windows update screen once a month to try to get me to use an online account and switch to Edge? Starting a Bing search when the start menu doesn't recognize an application's name? Pre-installing games with advertisement and microtransactions? It's a commercial operating system, for Christ's sake, stop pushing sleazy features. They are quickly burning through all the trust acquired over decades.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    Yeah, Windows 8 was kind of ineffably bad. I know exactly effing why Windows 10 is bad; nothing ineffable about it.
    - smrq 3y ago
      The only thing I will credit Win8 for is that it felt really good on a Surface--Win10 was actually a step back on that platform. Which is natural, because 8 was clearly designed for the Surface to the exclusion of everything else, and they rightfully had to walk it back because the choices they made were ridiculous on the majority of Windows machines.
  - vanchor3 3y ago
    My favorite was when they wanted everyone to switch over from Internet Explorer to Edge (this was before support was dropped), so attempting to search "Internet Explorer" in the start menu caused it to override it with Edge instead. This of course was quite annoying because we still had many applications at the time that (unfortunately) required Internet Explorer. It was even more annoying because when attempting to get to "Internet Options" or "File Explorer", it automatically replaced those with Edge, which is not at all helpful. This effort was also completely undone by the fact that if you misspelled Internet Explorer it would still come right up as the first option. I'm still upset that they've removed most Control Panel results from the start menu search as well, because after all these years the Settings app is still incomplete.
    - judge2020 3y ago
      > My favorite was when they wanted everyone to switch over from Internet Explorer to Edge (this was before support was dropped), so attempting to search "Internet Explorer" in the start menu caused it to override it with Edge instead. Was this before or after they actually removed iexplore.exe?
      - vanchor3 3y ago
        This was at least several months before, maybe more. I'm not actually sure they even fully removed it. It seems pretty impossible to open, but as one of our users showed me if they open one of our HTA files and clicked a link in it, Internet Explorer happily opens up despite even being blocked with Group Policy.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    > Starting a Bing search when the start menu doesn't recognize an application's name Seriously though wtf is up with this? So actively hostile to user experience
  - Falkon1313 3y ago
    >Starting a Bing search when the start menu doesn't recognize an application's name? Pre-installing games with advertisement and microtransactions? I'm always surprised when I see things like this on HN. Also complaints about it auto-rebooting to install updates, requiring an MSN account, etc. I turn all that stuff off when I first install it, so I see none of those problems. I just kind of assume any tech-savvy person or power-user would also do so. And we might think the defaults suck. Rightfully, they would for us. But for granny or a gen-Z kid with no computer knowledge? Somebody who isn't going to know to make backups, run scheduled updates, or know the difference between local search and internet search? Those defaults probably make sense. For me, it works great because I turn that stuff off and I know how to manage a computer. For people who don't, it also probably mostly works great, because they don't have to know how to do that. Seems like there's just this one odd slice of people caught in the middle who know enough to get irritated by the defaults, but not enough to configure their system the way they want it. If you're in that group, then you're tech-savvy enough to look up how to change the settings to make it work the way you want. I encourage you to do so and make those changes to save yourself some stress and irritation.
    - ethanpil 3y ago
      what's handy guide to disable it all?
      - valvar 3y ago
        https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools
        WhrRTheBaboons 3y ago
        cheers
    - alwyn 3y ago
      Some things can only be disabled on Windows Enterprise, not on Home or even Pro. For example for some aspects you need Group Policy, which isn't available in Home. The defaults might make sense from a usability perspective, but are predatory and plainly spy on the user, with the majority of users not even aware of it.
  - mbwgh 3y ago
    This resonates with me. Whenever I use a windows machine, it really doesn't feel like I am in control and treated as a adult. Adding to the list, click-baity AI-aggregated sex&crime news delivered to you by default. It offends me. While your list of changes is impressive, I noticed it took you years. So maybe you're a little like me: I find change hard, a cognitive burden that needs a good-enough reason above a certain pain threshold. I was lucky enough to have been forced to work with Linux in Uni, and when I first set it up myself (trying out two or three distros because I actually managed to bork the first installation somehow), it was in an environment that embraced discovery and I wasn't on my own. Now at work, it's an uphill battle you don't use Windows. Confidence is a must.
  - retSava 3y ago
    I've been getting dialog boxes for default applications a lot lately. Ie, I've associated, say, .png with an image viewer (which is not MS), but lately when opening a .png I'd get the "what application do you want to open with?"-box, with a "Windows suggested"-app as the number two choice. That's disrespecting the choice I've made. Then, this goes for basically all non-MS default apps I've associated with.
  - FieryTransition 3y ago
    Best thing I did for privacy was to use things like nextdns and pihole, they block alot of the stuff with minimal effort.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Heh. Man, you are going to love Linux. Stop waiting and drop that Windows shit like a hot potato.
- VHRanger 3y ago
  The only lockin I have remaining to windows is video games really
  - underdeserver 3y ago
    Check out Proton.
    - hedora 3y ago
      Dosbox + Steam with Proton is the best PC gaming I've ever encountered. There's a tiny gap in the early windows 9x days that I've been thinking of filling by upgrading my Dosbox Win 3.11 to Win 98. Overall though, it runs a greater percentage of dos/windows games than any dos/windows machine I've ever had access to. (I'm considering moving to FreeBSD though. Dosbox runs fine, and Steam + Proton sort of works there, apparently. Checking it out in more depth soon.)
  - rjh29 3y ago
    The Steam Deck is Linux and runs a large majority of games. You can do it on your laptop with Proton. It's amazing. Even weird stuff like Mass Effect Remastered (which requires EA Play client) works on Linux now.
    - andrewstuart2 3y ago
      I've moved 95% of my gaming to Linux entirely, after the steam deck convinced me it had gotten this good, and I barely miss Windows. Occasionally I'll still boot over to Windows for something like iRacing or to just experience some of the better graphics features, but honestly I find I don't really miss them and the Linux gaming experience these days is pretty seamless, even with my wacky setup of i3 and nvidia.
    - jabroni_salad 3y ago
      Unfortunately 'the majority of games' wont include whatever fotm rando game my friends are inviting me to this time. If gaming was strictly a solo activity for me I would have gotten rid of windows a long time ago.
doublerabbit 3y ago
> I might ditch Windows next. Tryout FreeBSD. Works fantastically for daily driver / desktop.
Melatonic 3y ago
You might really like Windows 10 LTSC 2021 - it has all the crap stripped out and retains all core functionality
AussieWog93 3y ago
>It feels really nice using products that respect me, as opposed to services that are actively hostile because of advertisers. Hot take, but IMO Windows has far more respect for the user than Linux does. Everything is far more QA'd (and designed to be QA-able) and at least tries to minimise user frustration. There are exceptions to this, like "suggestions" in the Start menu, but outside of this it's designed in a user-first way. (Desktop) Linux, on the other hand, seems to be more of an intellectual experiment designed to please the people who are writing it rather than a consumer-focused product. Performing basic tasks are unnecessarily complex, entire design paradigms are thrown out on a whim and compatibility issues continually arise because there's no single dominant standard.
- kyruzic 3y ago
  None of what you said is true. Use gnome and a popular distribution. Everything will just work out of the box.
  - hresvelgr 3y ago
    Eh, honestly with GNOME ymmv. Many API breakages, most recently with extensions in version 45. It's also not very light. GNOME's UX is also quite opinionated but some people like that.
    - kyruzic 3y ago
      I just use gnome, I am sure other desktop environments suit others better. But I know gnome just works. Windows and MacOS have the same issues you pointed out with gnome though.
  - behnamoh 3y ago
    > Use gnome ... Yeah no. You often need to install extensions to get icons on the desktop etc., which break when you upgrade Gnome. Talk about user-hostile design.
  - hobofan 3y ago
    With popOS maybe, but I would never hand Ubuntu Desktop to a non-dev. I can't remember the last time where it properly installed (including getting NVIDIA drivers working) without using the terminal.
pentae 3y ago
I would love to use Nebula but it seems to lean quite politically in one direction (as I suspect from a Canadian platform) which seems like something I don't want to support with my dollars. At least on YouTube I can find a diverse range of opinions
- tekknik 3y ago
  Thanks, they’ve likely got another customer now. Freedom of speech is worth protecting.
- flexagoon 3y ago
  I don't have a Nebula account, but I checked their feed a while ago and they seem to have a variety of opinions, at least for videos about politics/economics. I found both socialist channels (eg. "Second Thought") and liberal/pro-market channels (eg. "PolyMatter"). I'm not sure if they have any right-wing/republican channels though, so if that's what you want, perhaps it is not for you
- VerminOctopus1 3y ago
  There’s a lean towards thoughtful, educational content on Nebula
- hnben 3y ago
  > At least on YouTube I can find a diverse range of opinions what?
muppetman 3y ago
You know you're only getting half the security updates though, yea? The Android ones you're getting, but anything in the baseband/modem/low-level hardware you're not. Don't get me wrong, I think Lineage is great and I use it too, but I think too many people are fooling themselves on how much extra security they're getting using it. LineageOS will be using the exact same baseband that came with Android 9 on hardware they're deploying Android 12 to, if the phone's actual support stopped at 9. Yes with the new "Play System Updates" there's better security coverage, but it's still a gap compared to supported hardware.
- Cyphase 3y ago
  I had to read your comment extra carefully to realize that you weren't saying LineageOS is _behind_ on updates for the baseband/etc., but rather that it only extends availability of Android updates, not baseband updates, due to the baseband being proprietary and updates no longer being released by the OEM. In other words, LineageOS provides the latest Android and baseband updates available; it's just that for the baseband, "latest" can be a lot older than for Android, if your phone hardware is no longer supported by the OEM.
  - muppetman 3y ago
    Yea, that's what I was trying to say. Sorry I didn't explain it very well :)
- dbrgn 3y ago
  If you get a Pixel phone and put GrapheneOS on it, you're actually ahead on OS updates compared to vanilla AOSP. For example, the webp vulnerability was backported 4 days ago, while regular Android users will have to wait until October to get a fix for this vulnerability. (Of course, the thing about the baseband still remains, but Google now offers 5 years of security updates, which are immediately ported by GrapheneOS.)
DavideNL 3y ago
You should check out Pop!_OS I went from Windows to Pop!_OS, and was surprised how it just worked flawlessly on all my hardware right after installing, the UI is nice too.
- veidr 3y ago
  Agree, it's a pretty good OS. But you should just call it "Pop OS". Just like if Microsoft renamed Windows 11 "Win!! Win(ners ONLY) OS whooOOO!!" you would still just call it "Windows".
wowgoldfarmer 3y ago
I tried kagi a little bit and the search results is very good compared to other engines
nikodunk 3y ago
What an inspiring post. I'm like on the Nebula step already - will follow your path though :D
dzogchen 3y ago
You 'installed' OpenStreetMaps?!
- BoppreH 3y ago
  Ah, sorry, I meant an app that uses OSM as data source (OrganicMaps in my case). For some reason I thought I had an "official" app the OSM project, otherwise I wouldn't be so casual with the name. And a shout-out to StreetComplete, that gamifies contributing to OSM.
  - uneekname 3y ago
    Organic Maps is really great, at least for my use-case. Minimal, performant, offline
commandersaki 3y ago
I would like to de-google but rely on Google Voice which is tied to all my US financial accounts. Very concerned one day they're going to kill the service, and it is somewhat neutered as financial institutions are refusing to communicate with Google Voice numbers (had to cancel my Ally account since it wouldn't do two step to a Google Voice number).
wakeupcall 3y ago
What's amazing here is how google did this essentially to themselves by degrading their own products to the point that existing users started to look at alternatives.
hnben 3y ago
> One year ago, I switched my phone to LineageOS to get security updates a little longer. is it usable again? I remember using LineageOS for a couple of years, but ditching it about 3 years ago. The for me dealbreaking was when banking apps stopped working
2-718-281-828 3y ago
i didn't even consider you are actually still using windows up until the last line.
cyrialize 3y ago
I'm such a huge fan of Nebula. All my favorite creators are on there. You do have less content to watch, but I find most of it to be at a pretty good quality. The creator that convinced me to come over was Jacob Geller. His video essays were amazing, and I wanted to find a way to support him.
illiac786 3y ago
The one thing I can’t quit is Google Photos. I might give apple photos another go, but it really was subpar a year ago. Anyone else struggled to leave google photos?
- iamjkt 3y ago
  I switched to https://ente.io/ https://ente.io/ a couple of months ago. I used Google Takeout to grab my bits and imported it into ente. Some massaging was needed of the takeout data to remove some dupes but uploading was smooth and the UI is pretty good.
  - illiac786 3y ago
    with E2EE, I guess there is no search? I find this to be the single biggest limitation of proton mail for example. I find the ability to search for faces and objects a key element. Otherwise my photos just collect dust (figuratively).
    - iamjkt 3y ago
      Search is fine for my uses. It doesn't have the facial recognition to quickly search for all photos of a person but it looks to be tagging things in an accepta le manner and I've found the things I've been looking for. I used their free trial - 1Gb of storage available for a year iirc - to try out a few things but then ran in parallel for a while and now have stopped syncing my new photos to Google. Good luck with whatever you decide!
      - iamjkt 3y ago
        Ente have 'ML Search (beta)' option, I have just spotted on their desktop app: 'This will enable on-device machine learning and face search which will start analyzing your uploaded photos locally. For the first run after login or enabling this feature, it will download all images on local device to analyze them. So please only enable this if you are ok with bandwidth and local processing of all images in your photo library. If this is the first time you're enabling this, we'll also ask your permission to process face data.'

rjh29 3y ago

Yeah you sound like someone who should not be using Windows in any way shape or form. The telemetry and lack of control? Try Linux out.

BoppreH 3y ago
I'm wary of telemetry, but willing to accept it. It's the lack of respect that gets to me. "Yes/Maybe Later"? Showing me a fake Windows update screen once a month to try to get me to use an online account and switch to Edge? Starting a Bing search when the start menu doesn't recognize an application's name? Pre-installing games with advertisement and microtransactions? It's a commercial operating system, for Christ's sake, stop pushing sleazy features. They are quickly burning through all the trust acquired over decades.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Yeah, Windows 8 was kind of ineffably bad. I know exactly effing why Windows 10 is bad; nothing ineffable about it.
  - smrq 3y ago
    The only thing I will credit Win8 for is that it felt really good on a Surface--Win10 was actually a step back on that platform. Which is natural, because 8 was clearly designed for the Surface to the exclusion of everything else, and they rightfully had to walk it back because the choices they made were ridiculous on the majority of Windows machines.
- vanchor3 3y ago
  My favorite was when they wanted everyone to switch over from Internet Explorer to Edge (this was before support was dropped), so attempting to search "Internet Explorer" in the start menu caused it to override it with Edge instead. This of course was quite annoying because we still had many applications at the time that (unfortunately) required Internet Explorer. It was even more annoying because when attempting to get to "Internet Options" or "File Explorer", it automatically replaced those with Edge, which is not at all helpful. This effort was also completely undone by the fact that if you misspelled Internet Explorer it would still come right up as the first option. I'm still upset that they've removed most Control Panel results from the start menu search as well, because after all these years the Settings app is still incomplete.
  - judge2020 3y ago
    > My favorite was when they wanted everyone to switch over from Internet Explorer to Edge (this was before support was dropped), so attempting to search "Internet Explorer" in the start menu caused it to override it with Edge instead. Was this before or after they actually removed iexplore.exe?
    - vanchor3 3y ago
      This was at least several months before, maybe more. I'm not actually sure they even fully removed it. It seems pretty impossible to open, but as one of our users showed me if they open one of our HTA files and clicked a link in it, Internet Explorer happily opens up despite even being blocked with Group Policy.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  > Starting a Bing search when the start menu doesn't recognize an application's name Seriously though wtf is up with this? So actively hostile to user experience
- Falkon1313 3y ago
  >Starting a Bing search when the start menu doesn't recognize an application's name? Pre-installing games with advertisement and microtransactions? I'm always surprised when I see things like this on HN. Also complaints about it auto-rebooting to install updates, requiring an MSN account, etc. I turn all that stuff off when I first install it, so I see none of those problems. I just kind of assume any tech-savvy person or power-user would also do so. And we might think the defaults suck. Rightfully, they would for us. But for granny or a gen-Z kid with no computer knowledge? Somebody who isn't going to know to make backups, run scheduled updates, or know the difference between local search and internet search? Those defaults probably make sense. For me, it works great because I turn that stuff off and I know how to manage a computer. For people who don't, it also probably mostly works great, because they don't have to know how to do that. Seems like there's just this one odd slice of people caught in the middle who know enough to get irritated by the defaults, but not enough to configure their system the way they want it. If you're in that group, then you're tech-savvy enough to look up how to change the settings to make it work the way you want. I encourage you to do so and make those changes to save yourself some stress and irritation.
  - ethanpil 3y ago
    what's handy guide to disable it all?
    - valvar 3y ago
      https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools
      - WhrRTheBaboons 3y ago
        cheers
  - alwyn 3y ago
    Some things can only be disabled on Windows Enterprise, not on Home or even Pro. For example for some aspects you need Group Policy, which isn't available in Home. The defaults might make sense from a usability perspective, but are predatory and plainly spy on the user, with the majority of users not even aware of it.
- mbwgh 3y ago
  This resonates with me. Whenever I use a windows machine, it really doesn't feel like I am in control and treated as a adult. Adding to the list, click-baity AI-aggregated sex&crime news delivered to you by default. It offends me. While your list of changes is impressive, I noticed it took you years. So maybe you're a little like me: I find change hard, a cognitive burden that needs a good-enough reason above a certain pain threshold. I was lucky enough to have been forced to work with Linux in Uni, and when I first set it up myself (trying out two or three distros because I actually managed to bork the first installation somehow), it was in an environment that embraced discovery and I wasn't on my own. Now at work, it's an uphill battle you don't use Windows. Confidence is a must.
- retSava 3y ago
  I've been getting dialog boxes for default applications a lot lately. Ie, I've associated, say, .png with an image viewer (which is not MS), but lately when opening a .png I'd get the "what application do you want to open with?"-box, with a "Windows suggested"-app as the number two choice. That's disrespecting the choice I've made. Then, this goes for basically all non-MS default apps I've associated with.
- FieryTransition 3y ago
  Best thing I did for privacy was to use things like nextdns and pihole, they block alot of the stuff with minimal effort.
- coldpie 3y ago
  Heh. Man, you are going to love Linux. Stop waiting and drop that Windows shit like a hot potato.
VHRanger 3y ago
The only lockin I have remaining to windows is video games really
- underdeserver 3y ago
  Check out Proton.
  - hedora 3y ago
    Dosbox + Steam with Proton is the best PC gaming I've ever encountered. There's a tiny gap in the early windows 9x days that I've been thinking of filling by upgrading my Dosbox Win 3.11 to Win 98. Overall though, it runs a greater percentage of dos/windows games than any dos/windows machine I've ever had access to. (I'm considering moving to FreeBSD though. Dosbox runs fine, and Steam + Proton sort of works there, apparently. Checking it out in more depth soon.)
- rjh29 3y ago
  The Steam Deck is Linux and runs a large majority of games. You can do it on your laptop with Proton. It's amazing. Even weird stuff like Mass Effect Remastered (which requires EA Play client) works on Linux now.
  - andrewstuart2 3y ago
    I've moved 95% of my gaming to Linux entirely, after the steam deck convinced me it had gotten this good, and I barely miss Windows. Occasionally I'll still boot over to Windows for something like iRacing or to just experience some of the better graphics features, but honestly I find I don't really miss them and the Linux gaming experience these days is pretty seamless, even with my wacky setup of i3 and nvidia.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    Unfortunately 'the majority of games' wont include whatever fotm rando game my friends are inviting me to this time. If gaming was strictly a solo activity for me I would have gotten rid of windows a long time ago.

doublerabbit 3y ago

> I might ditch Windows next. Tryout FreeBSD. Works fantastically for daily driver / desktop.

Melatonic 3y ago

You might really like Windows 10 LTSC 2021 - it has all the crap stripped out and retains all core functionality

AussieWog93 3y ago

>It feels really nice using products that respect me, as opposed to services that are actively hostile because of advertisers. Hot take, but IMO Windows has far more respect for the user than Linux does. Everything is far more QA'd (and designed to be QA-able) and at least tries to minimise user frustration. There are exceptions to this, like "suggestions" in the Start menu, but outside of this it's designed in a user-first way. (Desktop) Linux, on the other hand, seems to be more of an intellectual experiment designed to please the people who are writing it rather than a consumer-focused product. Performing basic tasks are unnecessarily complex, entire design paradigms are thrown out on a whim and compatibility issues continually arise because there's no single dominant standard.

kyruzic 3y ago
None of what you said is true. Use gnome and a popular distribution. Everything will just work out of the box.
- hresvelgr 3y ago
  Eh, honestly with GNOME ymmv. Many API breakages, most recently with extensions in version 45. It's also not very light. GNOME's UX is also quite opinionated but some people like that.
  - kyruzic 3y ago
    I just use gnome, I am sure other desktop environments suit others better. But I know gnome just works. Windows and MacOS have the same issues you pointed out with gnome though.
- behnamoh 3y ago
  > Use gnome ... Yeah no. You often need to install extensions to get icons on the desktop etc., which break when you upgrade Gnome. Talk about user-hostile design.
- hobofan 3y ago
  With popOS maybe, but I would never hand Ubuntu Desktop to a non-dev. I can't remember the last time where it properly installed (including getting NVIDIA drivers working) without using the terminal.

pentae 3y ago

I would love to use Nebula but it seems to lean quite politically in one direction (as I suspect from a Canadian platform) which seems like something I don't want to support with my dollars. At least on YouTube I can find a diverse range of opinions

tekknik 3y ago
Thanks, they’ve likely got another customer now. Freedom of speech is worth protecting.
flexagoon 3y ago
I don't have a Nebula account, but I checked their feed a while ago and they seem to have a variety of opinions, at least for videos about politics/economics. I found both socialist channels (eg. "Second Thought") and liberal/pro-market channels (eg. "PolyMatter"). I'm not sure if they have any right-wing/republican channels though, so if that's what you want, perhaps it is not for you
VerminOctopus1 3y ago
There’s a lean towards thoughtful, educational content on Nebula
hnben 3y ago
> At least on YouTube I can find a diverse range of opinions what?

muppetman 3y ago

You know you're only getting half the security updates though, yea? The Android ones you're getting, but anything in the baseband/modem/low-level hardware you're not. Don't get me wrong, I think Lineage is great and I use it too, but I think too many people are fooling themselves on how much extra security they're getting using it. LineageOS will be using the exact same baseband that came with Android 9 on hardware they're deploying Android 12 to, if the phone's actual support stopped at 9. Yes with the new "Play System Updates" there's better security coverage, but it's still a gap compared to supported hardware.

Cyphase 3y ago
I had to read your comment extra carefully to realize that you weren't saying LineageOS is _behind_ on updates for the baseband/etc., but rather that it only extends availability of Android updates, not baseband updates, due to the baseband being proprietary and updates no longer being released by the OEM. In other words, LineageOS provides the latest Android and baseband updates available; it's just that for the baseband, "latest" can be a lot older than for Android, if your phone hardware is no longer supported by the OEM.
- muppetman 3y ago
  Yea, that's what I was trying to say. Sorry I didn't explain it very well :)
dbrgn 3y ago
If you get a Pixel phone and put GrapheneOS on it, you're actually ahead on OS updates compared to vanilla AOSP. For example, the webp vulnerability was backported 4 days ago, while regular Android users will have to wait until October to get a fix for this vulnerability. (Of course, the thing about the baseband still remains, but Google now offers 5 years of security updates, which are immediately ported by GrapheneOS.)

DavideNL 3y ago

You should check out Pop!_OS I went from Windows to Pop!_OS, and was surprised how it just worked flawlessly on all my hardware right after installing, the UI is nice too.

veidr 3y ago
Agree, it's a pretty good OS. But you should just call it "Pop OS". Just like if Microsoft renamed Windows 11 "Win!! Win(ners ONLY) OS whooOOO!!" you would still just call it "Windows".

wowgoldfarmer 3y ago

I tried kagi a little bit and the search results is very good compared to other engines

nikodunk 3y ago

What an inspiring post. I'm like on the Nebula step already - will follow your path though :D

dzogchen 3y ago

You 'installed' OpenStreetMaps?!

BoppreH 3y ago
Ah, sorry, I meant an app that uses OSM as data source (OrganicMaps in my case). For some reason I thought I had an "official" app the OSM project, otherwise I wouldn't be so casual with the name. And a shout-out to StreetComplete, that gamifies contributing to OSM.
- uneekname 3y ago
  Organic Maps is really great, at least for my use-case. Minimal, performant, offline

commandersaki 3y ago

I would like to de-google but rely on Google Voice which is tied to all my US financial accounts. Very concerned one day they're going to kill the service, and it is somewhat neutered as financial institutions are refusing to communicate with Google Voice numbers (had to cancel my Ally account since it wouldn't do two step to a Google Voice number).

wakeupcall 3y ago

What's amazing here is how google did this essentially to themselves by degrading their own products to the point that existing users started to look at alternatives.

hnben 3y ago

> One year ago, I switched my phone to LineageOS to get security updates a little longer. is it usable again? I remember using LineageOS for a couple of years, but ditching it about 3 years ago. The for me dealbreaking was when banking apps stopped working

2-718-281-828 3y ago

i didn't even consider you are actually still using windows up until the last line.

cyrialize 3y ago

I'm such a huge fan of Nebula. All my favorite creators are on there. You do have less content to watch, but I find most of it to be at a pretty good quality. The creator that convinced me to come over was Jacob Geller. His video essays were amazing, and I wanted to find a way to support him.

illiac786 3y ago

The one thing I can’t quit is Google Photos. I might give apple photos another go, but it really was subpar a year ago. Anyone else struggled to leave google photos?

iamjkt 3y ago
I switched to https://ente.io/ https://ente.io/ a couple of months ago. I used Google Takeout to grab my bits and imported it into ente. Some massaging was needed of the takeout data to remove some dupes but uploading was smooth and the UI is pretty good.
- illiac786 3y ago
  with E2EE, I guess there is no search? I find this to be the single biggest limitation of proton mail for example. I find the ability to search for faces and objects a key element. Otherwise my photos just collect dust (figuratively).
  - iamjkt 3y ago
    Search is fine for my uses. It doesn't have the facial recognition to quickly search for all photos of a person but it looks to be tagging things in an accepta le manner and I've found the things I've been looking for. I used their free trial - 1Gb of storage available for a year iirc - to try out a few things but then ran in parallel for a while and now have stopped syncing my new photos to Google. Good luck with whatever you decide!
    - iamjkt 3y ago
      Ente have 'ML Search (beta)' option, I have just spotted on their desktop app: 'This will enable on-device machine learning and face search which will start analyzing your uploaded photos locally. For the first run after login or enabling this feature, it will download all images on local device to analyze them. So please only enable this if you are ok with bandwidth and local processing of all images in your photo library. If this is the first time you're enabling this, we'll also ask your permission to process face data.'