Unfortunately, I say yes. And hear me out first please.

The Fediverse in my eyes should be free. Free to have instances for everyone, including those we disagree with. Because in my opinion, the right to say and think what we want is very important (absolute free speech). And unfortunately, i think that means everyone should be allowed to say what they want. HOWEVER, free speech does not mean free of consequences. The option of federating with those groups or not is up to each community and fortunately I think many would not be okay with including them.

I’m always open to hearing input as these are personal thoughts so by all means add to or let me know the errors in my thinking. Thanks!

Thanks for adding! Could you clarify a bit on the points so I can better understand where I was wrong at?

Yeah maybe Tor Browser was the better example. Just trying to get the point out lol.

I personally have never used them. I use Proton myself (despite some news) and haven’t had any issues. I’ve heard Tuta is also great but I think one of the cons of privacy mail is that they’re not going to be nearly as polished as the big players like Gmail or outlook.

Great read from Tuta on thia topic. It’s been an issue for a while but Google going full force publicly on it causes this issue to grow greater.

I left a comment replying to someone further down about how this can be at least a little combatted and how it is with browsers. (At least to my minimal knowledge of it)

So from what I understand, theres 2 common ways that browsers combat this. Someone add to or correct me if I’m wrong.

1. Browsers such as Mull combat this by looking the same as every other browser. If you all look the same, it’s hard to tell you apart. I believe this is why people recommend using default window size when using Tor.

Ex: Everyone wearing black pants and hoodies with the facemasks. Extremely hard to tell who is who.

2. Browsers such as Brave randomize metadata that fingerprinting collects so that it’s more difficult to piece it all together and build a trend/profile on someone.

Ex: look like a dog in one place, a cat in another place. They get data for a dog but that doesn’t help build anything if the rest of the data is a cat, hamster, whatever. No way to piece it together to be useful.

In both my examples, there are caveats. Just because everyone dressed the same doesn’t mean someone isn’t taller or shorter, or skinnier or fatter. There can still be tells to help narrow down. Or a cat that barks like a dog suddenly is more linkable to a dog if that makes sense lol.

In other words it still depends user behavior that can contribute to the effectiveness of these tools.

EDIT: got distracted. To answer your question I don’t think so. I think it’s more about user behavior blending in or being randomized. I think the only thing an extension would be able to do is possibly randomize the data but I’m unsure of such an extension yet. These aren’t the only options, these are just ones I’ve read about recently. Online behavior, browswr window size, and I’m sure so much more also goes into it. But every little bit helps and is better than nothing.

EDIT2: Added examples for each for clarity.

That’s exactly how I do it too. Life is expensive so it’s hard to give to FOSS. But if the software you use is worth skipping a coffee run, or whatever it is just to give 1 or 2 bucks (yes I know coffee isn’t that cheap lol) then that’s just as good as giving more. Every little bit helps.

Well spoken. Free is more of a freedom to read, write, and use. Not free of cost. It’s amazing that a lot is free of cost but I highly recommend donating to those services you use regularly. Only if you can of course. I know money is tight for many people including myself.

I whole heartily agree to a good ole “fuck you”; But I also think that money shouldn’t be a requirement but highly encouraged. I’m a hypocrite for this because I don’t monetarily support every open source I use. However, for the critical open source I use like 3rd party Android OS, clients for apps like Lemmy, etc. I’m more than happy to donate what I can. Hell, I’d donate to all if I had to resources to. I don’t have a good solution but I do think donating (when it can be afforded) should be highly encouraged and something not a lot of people think about/know about/or consider since they may be using it because it’s free to begin with.

I disagree. I hate the decisions they make and personally, along with you, I think it’s idiotic.

But while I hate on them, they will get away with it. Theyre not stupid. The decisions don’t align with its users but it will still work.

Look at netflix raising prices for arguably worse content. Working for them.

Reddit; Charging for the API essentially killing almost all 3rd party apps. Not sure the effect but reddit doesn’t seem to really be hurting. Users want to move but reddit is just too good. I even still use it because the user content on there is amazing. I try to ask all my questions/have discussions on lemmy, but I’m one person. Reddit has infinity more always contributing. I think the management sucks, but the platform just isn’t fully rivaled yet so they can keep milking their audience.

Oh for sure. Fuck these big companies. Unfortunately some offer services that just can’t be beat yet by open source/privacy companies.

Been there lol. I think it’s a common thing for privacy newcomers. Not focusing on threat level and instead trying to optimize every bit. It got me too.

A better way to word this is “Next will be your privacy journey which will send you down an inifinte rabbit hole that you consumes you”.

Lol no but seriously, it’s a fun rabbit hole, but can get out of control if you’re not careful.

Good catch thanks. I stopped at the commercial since it was the firat immediate tell of source available I saw. Maybe I put this post in the wrong community then.

Ah noted. Thanks for clarifying that. I found the source: Futo Keyboard and read the license. Sure enough it is open but restricted by commercial use. As long as it’s not for commercial use, there is no restrictions on using the source.

I’ve tried that as well. I’ve pretty much gone through all open source recommendations and was suprised to just now hear about this one. Any issues you’ve ran into?

I’m gonna side step this conversation to point out nice name lolol

Thanks for the input. I sometimes use another language but it’s rare so I haven’t been able to try to on here. However I agree. While not perfect, the autocorrect and text prediction for English is quite good! Ive been always going back to gboard but hoping this one is good enough to stay on. Ill update this post as I use it longer.

Thanks for you detailed and cited response. Very clear!

I would argue all streaming services have gone to shit. I’m not saying I encourage anyone to pirate that doesn’t want to. But I am saying i don’t blame a single soul that does.

As far as I’m concerned all those companies can go fuck themselves. They know that the less technical people will willingly keep paying so the ones they lose won’t matter.