@bbbhltz@beehaw.org
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

bbbhltz

@bbbhltz@beehaw.org

Music lover and English teacher with an interest in slightly geeky things

mastodon / blog / listenbrainz

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Help me choose my mobile browser

As per title, Help me choose a browser for android I have non rooted device. After all the researches I found best for me would be 1: Mull but with Some way for knowing which site have saved any data on my device (Maybe by extension or some defined page like about:config type) But as per my research I do not found any such...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Not a complete answer, but I stand behind Privacy Browser. The dev has a great blog explaining how the browser works:

www.stoutner.com/webview/

www.stoutner.com/…/core-privacy-principles/

www.stoutner.com/…/permissions/

I appreciate the transparency of the Dev and I am looking forward to the long-teased 4.x series that will ship with its own webview.

If you decide not to use it, keep it on your watchlist.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

wholesome, awesome, fun

How safe are grammar editing tools?

Without naming names, there’s a well advertised grammar editing tool that’s available either as an app download or browser extension. This is something I’d value for a number of reasons (good grammar is important!) but I’m super cautious about anything I’m giving permission to watch what I’m typing....

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

You can run LanguageTool locally. While it isn’t as great as the paid version, I use this to check nearly everything I write for work in my native language, and in the other languages I speak

caderek.github.io/gramma/ is a cli spellchecker that has the option of installing a LT server locally. Not ideal if you are writing things with Pages/Word/etc., but a possible backup.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

As far as I recall, it never was relevant. It was generally viewed as a rant written by a non-professionnel. Perhaps I am wrong? Sorry if I am wrong?? Don’t start reporting me, please.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

A regular user like myself finds it easier to answer this question with 3 options:

  1. Centralized
  2. Decentralised
  3. P2P

Signal and Threema are centralized options. With Signal planning on rolling out usernames it will be an excellent choice, hopefully.

Matrix, XMPP, Session, DeltaChat and others are decentralized, and some allow for self-hosting.

Briar is P2P.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Not sure if you can relock the bootloader

Their site doesn’t include that info

doc.e.foundation/devices/panther

/e/ is a “degoogled” experience, but as noted on their site and by others here:

Google Services are replaced by microG and alternative services (see below for more details)

For a regular uninformed user like myself (I just use the stock ROM on my phone because I am stuck with it) I read that as:

We made this experience as frictionless as possible at at a cost.

The friction here would be banking and/or tap-to-pay apps that I think cause some issues for some people (please correct me if I am wrong).

So, you would lose something that is offered by GrapheneOS and gain a different interface and access to apps that have a hard requirement for GSF.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I guess you could give a few a try.

I use Xed and Geany and they seem to work as expected.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I’m a Boimler though

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Logically, there is but one choice

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/61e24a36-015a-4248-868c-a09fa2323a44.webp

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

As mentioned, this is a Qualcomm thing. Not exactly spyware, but probably not necessary either.

www.qualcomm.com/site/privacy/services

Qualcomm Location Service (formerly “IZat Location Services” or “IZat”) is technology offered by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. in the U.S., QT Technologies Ireland Limited in countries within the European Economic Area, and Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (Korea) YH in the Republic of Korea (a.k.a. South Korea). Qualcomm Location Service may enable your device to determine its location more quickly and accurately – even when your device is unable to get a strong GPS signal.

Something like the UAD could disable it, or you could use Tracker Control to block it, or straight up use adb to disable it… But, it will run even if disabled.

The package is com.qualcomm.location so,

adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.qualcomm.location

will disable it, but it will always come back…

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I guess it depends on what comes with the distro. If you start off with a basic Linux install and add a DE that is low on system resources, like LXQt, you can breathe life into a machine.

Bodhi, antiX and Linux Lite come to mind.

You can also start with a minimal base, Arch, Debian, Alpine, anything, and then add packages.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I use Tasks.org on Android which does sync with DavX⁵.

There is no “countdown” but it shows due dates in he widget and has notifications.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

If you go with Alpine, the general setup instructions should be OK and similar to other distros.

Get the image on a USB, boot from USB, run setup-alpine and choose system-disk mode. Possibly encrypted if you think you need that.

After install you’ll be dropped to the terminal again.

There are some post install notes here wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation#Post-Insta… but you can run setup-desktop and get it to install a usable Xfce desktop, for example.

The LXQt DE is a good choice for older devices. The wiki has a guide for it but needs a slight update. It should still work but may require switching to edge.

Puppy Linux is a fine choice too if your computer is a little on the old side. Lite, Peppermint, Trisquel, antiX, and a slew of others are worth looking at.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

No. The projects are not related.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

repology.org/repositories/statistics says that Alpine Edge has a higher percentage of up-to-date packages.

I do agree that a new user should use something like Fedora first. But OP wants Alpine.

The US supports Israel because of 'Jewish wealth', claims BBC presenter (www.msn.com)

It’s very difficult to characterize this as an isolated incident of anti-semitism by the BBC considering it’s far from their first incident, and considering further that the BBC has spend 20 years and well over £300,000 keeping the 20,000 word Balen Report into their perceived anti-Israel bias buried....

bbbhltz, (edited )
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Just for clarification, in case anyone is in the same situation as me…

Clicking on that link just takes me to the MSN front-page for some reason… The French version, because I live in France. This article is from The Jerusalem Post and the lead is:

The BBC’s Spanish-language service released a program claiming that “Jewish wealth and influence” in the United States is the reason behind the United States’ ongoing support for Israel, according to a translation produced by Jewish News on October 20.

If you speak Spanish you can see the program in question here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16Mnq93qL0

Article: www.jpost.com/diaspora/…/article-769435

Conclusion is that of OP: BBC are in hot water.

As a Canadian, as much as I like it when news providers stick to their guns, I think the CBC will also probably need to make some updates to the way they use the “T” words in the future.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Of all the privacy-related changes I’ve made, Signal is the only thing I’ve managed to get anyone else to use.

It was a matter of saying “I don’t use WhatsApp anymore” and that was that. Some friends didn’t make the switch, but they know where to find me.

Quitting Facebook lead people to believe that I was in need of help, though. They thought I was crazy. Still, today, people ask me why they can’t tag me on FB or why I unfriended them. When I tell them I stopped using FB they’re shocked and say things like, “but you’re such a techy computer nerd guy.”

Quitting Google was confusing for others too.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

if only they knew how not-so-techy I really am…

What do you think about this? (www.youtube.com)

Since i see so much linux talk on lemmy i got curious and watched a video about the common distros. How true is the information in this video? The person hardly describes why debian and arch are just better than every other distro. At least i’m definitely now curious about Mint or something for gaming.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

How much had the amount of options for packages an effect on you, or anyone, while choosing your distro?

The number of packages was not something I looked at. I checked the availability of the packages I wanted, and whether or not they we’re up to date.

When I switched to the current distribution I’m using, I did not plan on using it for more than a few days. I just wanted a quick and easy way to try out an up-to-date version of a DE on a low-powered device and have the newest version of the browser I use. It worked so I put it on my main laptop and it still works

If I were going for numbers, Nix has the most I think. The AUR is up there as well. Debian is in 3rd place. But, like I said, I didn’t really think about that.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/d5b2e59d-8e47-45be-b2c7-8d633f5ca6c2.webp

Don’t like that he called some distros pointless. I would have found a better word. Lots on there that I have never used, obviously, because I am not a sadist. I couldn’t tell you what would be good for gaming or not, but flatpaks have made some things easier (or so I’ve heard, don’t quote me on that). And Fedora is a “Devil?”

Anyway. While I don’t watch this channel ever, I am aware of it as a reputable channel for things like this, so it might be trustworthy.

Why are Debian and Arch at the top? Debian is one of the grandaddies. Many distros are built on Debian—MX, Mint, Ubunu, Pop, Zorin, Neon, etc.—and there are many packages in the repos, which are divided into stable, and testing, and unstable sections. So, a Debian base can be stable or extremely up to date. The Debian community and maintainers are another reason the distro is so well-liked. Arch also has a large selection of packages, an excellent wiki, and the AUR to have access to anything missing from regular repos. Manjaro and dozens of others are based on Arch as well, meaning the community is rather large.

No need to follow rules and conventions though. There are many people, myself included, that use Alpine for their desktop because the packages are very up to date.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I think the best you can have is the hover/click effect

docs.xfce.org/panel-plugins/…/start

https://docs.xfce.org/_media/panel-plugins/xfce4-docklike-plugin/xfce4-docklike-plugin-previews.png

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I have done this before. And, yes, you can just delete apps from your smartphone and carry on…

But, the fact is that McLuhan was right, the medium is the message. So, the having the smartphone will change your behaviour.

A smartphone in your pocket is just a communication device, but it can be used to access content. As such, it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a smartphone enables people to create spaces that would otherwise be moments of calm, socialising, rest, work, or boredom. A smartphone creates an environment by its mere presence.

This person used a TCL Classic, which is a low-powered Android device. You can even sideload apps with adb.

It likely also includes Google components/packages. So, if someone wants to use this to escape big-tech, data is still being collected. The keyboard app on these types of phones is usually Kika. According to exodus, there are 14 or so trackers built-in (see reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/…/latest/).

Like I said, I tried this different times: I had a Nokia 800T, and 2 versions of the Punkt. phone. It is a fun experiment. I did spend less time on social media. I was more present. But, at some point, you do need a full smartphone for banking, work, and so on.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Other foruma offer anonymization of the post. Discourse can do this and so does hacker news. You can choose to make a post, comment, or an entire account anonymized and continue posting away…

Israel-Palestine megathread for the remainder of the weekend

the front page is now like half articles on this currently, so it’s probably time for a megathread because none of us want to keep track of 12 threads on this subject and all the resulting comments. only major subsequent developments (for example, boots on the ground; pronunciations by governments; that sort of stuff) will get...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Maps and Misinformation

Sorry, not news or updates, but also not worth creating a thread.

I’ve been seeing lots of maps on Lemmy (mostly in French-speaking communities communities). A number of them look like this:

standard conflict mapshttps://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/df26b2c6-bf6c-4ce1-8216-75e6092a1f8f.webp

And then I’ve seen others that look like this (usually labelled as “fact” or “reality”):

alternative versionshttps://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/089e4f5d-5664-443d-be90-743ff3fa454f.webp

With the exception of an amazing 3-day event that took place in my school (we had some history professors/researchers come in over 3 days and present us arguments from both sides, then moderate a debate…) I received no education about this, and even if I had it would have been about 20 years ago or more.

I suspect we have all seen a version of this map before. I can read the Wikipedia, and watch the documentaries, but where should I look to be able to come to a decision on my own regarding these maps? Meaning, is one of them more factual than the other?

bbbhltz,
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Here is the list with my opinions:

  1. ONLYOFFICE (I might need to give it a try again some day)
  2. OpenOffice (should probably stop including it in repos)
  3. CryptPad (more of a Google Docs alternative)
  4. SoftMaker FreeOffice (never heard of it)
  5. WPS Office (nah, thanks)
  6. Calligra (looks good on KDE)
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