Quick update for anyone still reading this thread:

@[email protected] As with any other app, we flagged Fennec and Mull with KnownVuln until the app is updated. Contributors fixed the issues that delayed versions 130 and later. Stand by for the build.

https://floss.social/@fdroidorg/113384089915217604

A bit of backstory on how we got here - in June 2024 Mozilla chose to (a) integrate the source tree of Firefox Mobile into their huge monorepo (“gecko-dev”), and (b) move the source off of Github onto their own git servers (“Mozilla Central”). You can read about it in the now-archived old repo:

• https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-android
• https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-android/wiki#upcoming-migration-to-mozilla-central

This was then compounded by a core Android build kit (“NDK”) choosing to remove parts of the toolchain which is/was used to build Firefox releases (ergo, forcing another change to build process):

• https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/2010

Together these have caused a bit of a kerfuffle in getting new releases compiled and released via the official F-Droid methodology. See the other comment about the Mull version in their private repo, they’re having to use a Mozilla pre-built clang (a compiler toolchain) now to make it work for the time being.

The link(s) to add their F-Droid repo if not running DivestOS: https://divestos.org/pages/our_apps.html#repos

The other data shows that posts and comments are going up linearly (a little suspicious but OK), but I wonder how the modlog affects the data (meaning how is it captured and when). I made one comment to a honest post yesterday (hosted on a remote instance), which then the post was deleted by admins like so:

Removed Post Any app for call recording ? reason: Rule 2: Please use [email protected] for support questions.

So my comment shows in my history but cannot actually be accessed; was this comment counted? was that post counted? Was I counted as an active user yesterday if that was the only activity I did all day? Was the one person who upvoted my comment before the thread was deleted counted?

Lies, damn lies and statistics. :)

tl;dr - depends not only on the device but also carrier and region. Google specifically made changes to stop devs from doing it. Full explanation to read: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/record-calls-on-your-android-phone

I have been using Linux on laptops as main/only compute since around 1997 (started with an Inspiron 4000, PII-400 IIRC), Dell is generally extremely boring and very Linux/BSD compatible. I have been buying gently used Precision models (typically using local marketplace, Craigslist in USA) as they tend to have better build quality and non-janky custom parts (think “winmodem”). They last forever, pretty much every Linux/BSD distro works. The most important thing is to stay away from Broadcom chips and look for Intel eth/wifi. Stay away from Inspiron to avoid hardware problems, in modern times those are the bottom of the barrel janky hardware.

The Dell Latitude line used by businesses are even more boring than Precisions and really always have been - their BIOS has a somewhat unique charging profile “always plugged in” to extend battery life - I use two ancient E6330 models tuned to super low power modes as mini-servers (think anything you’d use a raspberry Pi for) that have been chugging away for probably 5+ years just running cron jobs, backups, Syncthing services and whatever I toss on them. Throw an SSD in anything and it just works - power goes out, batteries act as UPS. $100 USD each, “just work”.

Thinkpads have always been a Linux favorite, at least the old models when IBM owned the brand but not too sure about the Lenovo modern ones. Last Thinkpad I owned was a 32bit one back in like maybe 2010 and it worked just fine. They tend to be more expensive used than Dells (retain their purchase price better, like a nice used auto).

This is appears to be dark pattern marketing at play; they run a Mastodon instance which intercepts all links to the federated content and pushes you towards their for-profit site; it was actually not doing this earlier, when I visited a few links I actually got real mastodon content pages inconsistently.

Generally, if you visit anything like https://flipboard.social/@[email protected] it redirects you to to flipboard.com/@AlaskaBeacon which is entirely their for-profit presence. But then it doesn’t a few tries later after testing more - I watched within a minute the Texas BBQ one allow me to see the profile on flipboard.social, I reloaded and was suddenly redirected to their flipboard.com/TexasBBQ site.

It seems you might be able to load them into your own mastodon instance manually and it will work (I do see a profile page with legacy posts which hadn’t federated yet, so “no posts” at this early of a test). Something like https://myserver.social/@[email protected] will presumably work; I suspect though that all posts will be stubs that drive you towards flipboard.com to read the actual content, rather than a direct source (time will tell).

edit: s/is/appears to be/ to give benefit of the doubt

It is a disagreement between two entities (one large, one small) as to the use of EDNS, an extension to basic DNS, and is briefly outlined in Wikipedia. Using any other resolver, such as Quad9, instead of Cloudflare for your local DNS works as expected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDNS_Client_Subnet#Controversy_over_lack_of_support