Why are brave, lineage os and youtube revanced there, but not aurora store

Fun that Element is on the list, while there is a 3rd bill attempt in a year to forbid or bypass encryption in instant messaging. Europe maybe not as fascist as US or Russia, it’s still is a shitty capitalist and imperialist place.

Lineage OS doesn’t support Bootloader Re-locking (well tbf that’s a manufacturer issue) and Verified Boot, so its a huge security issue. Like, if you want to avoid google and have security, Graphene OS is the only real option for a phone, which ironically, is only available on a Google Phone 🙃

Netflix… —> thepiratebay[DOT]org (replace [DOT] with a dot) 🏴‍☠️😉 (might need a VPN since some countries block it, and you wouldn’t want to torrent without a VPN anyways)

And Briar for messaging (Android Only). It’s all Peer-to-Peer, and doesn’t go through ANY central servers, maximum independence. And censorship resistant because of default Tor usage, and also local Bluetooth synching for like mass protests, in case your government also gets a bit… fascist… and shut down the internet.

I feel like there would be value in having a “self hosted” column or tag. Like I think jellyfin should be on this list but if I went to switch from a streaming service to a self hosted jellyfin I’d be immediately upset that this list isn’t offering alternatives that are “ready to play” so to speak.

Just a friction point deterrence.

Also add Fairphone (Netherlands) and Nothing (UK) as alternatives to iPhone and other Androids.

Linux Mint is the simplest Linux distro if you come from Windows, unless there are others that recommendation is pretty much accurate.

Anyone else who uses other distros on a daily basis will simply skip that recommendation.

I recently found edupad.ch for collaborative writing.

It’s very simple, and - most important of all - doesn’t require an account.

I’m using it for the first time, so I don’t have much of a review, but the first impression is very good for my use case.

Suggesting linux mint specifically is good. Linux is overwhelming to new users, don’t give them choice paralysis too.

So as someone who recently went from MacOS to Linux (at least partially) Mint is terrible for macOS users. It is like going back to windows. I get it is the easiest for Windows users but maybe add a row for Macos to Fedora or something (but maybe it is too complicated, I just know most mac users would scoff at Mint’s interface).

I get the desire to post “simple” answers like this. And while some of the recommends do make sense… I believe the lists should be better researched. A few other comments also pointed out some of the issues already.

I’ve noticed with a lot of these lists that worse/unreasonable/less private/less secure/not even European or FOSS are being recommended as alternatives and I think they do more harm than good for people that might need genuine help making this process more simple. They also tend to miss a lot of excellent alternatives.

For what it’s worth, these lists oversimplify and can’t take into account individual needs, so own research is always necessary IMO.

For me, it’s paramount that the software we use is secure and privacy respecting / transparent. A great resource for good recommendations is: privacyguides.org .

This is the pic that made me join

I see that this is focused on foss alternatives streaming wide I would suggest mubi and your local library which often include streaming services. At least here in Germany.

signal is a good option for messaging. it is technically american, but i feel like FOSS projects should generally get a pass.

also, as an american who is very not okay with what our (russia’s) government (puppet) is doing, wouldn’t supporting non-american businesses mean paying the tariffs and supporting the oligarchs? i’m not really sure what us yanks can do besides just trying not to spend ANY money.

Bluesky absolutely belongs in the left column.

It’s not Transparent, Decentralized or Open Source.

It is a centralized social media network exactly like Twitter. The only ‘open’ part is a protocol that lets you interact with their, private, service.

The fact that it is ‘open source’ is largely a red herring, if Bluesky decides to no longer support their protocol then it is worthless. It cannot simply be forked and remain useful.

Bluesky is simply engaging in a PR campaign to steal customers from Twitter. It is exactly the same as Twitter in all of the ways that matter. It can be purchased by Musk or manipulated by the existing owner in the same way as Twitter.

Making a Bluesky account is simply trusting a new corporation to not act like a corporation in the future… which is a pretty naive position.

Ecosia is not open source, or decentralized. It is a private search engine based in Germany that provides search results from the major search engines and sells advertisements via Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. These ad networks are part of Surveillance Capitalism and earn their money primarily by spying on you, collating your data and selling it/using it to place ads.

Stremio is largely a piece of software used to funnel people into paying for monthly for pirate streaming services. It’s not getting rid of Netflix or Disney+, it’s giving you the option of paying Russian or North Korean supported cybergangs instead of Netflix for access to streaming content.

The real open source alternative is Jellyfin. Then using qBittorrent along with Sonarr and Radarr to self-host your own media server.

The other suggestions are mostly okay with minor gripes.

• They could add GrapheneOS as an Android alternative.
• Linux Mint is not a bad option but ‘What Linux Distro should we recommend to new people’ is a contentious topic in the community, Mint is fine but there are other options (EndeavourOS is Arch Linux installed with the Calamares graphical installer and some sane options for a desktop PC, btw)
• While Signal isn’t ‘open source’. It is, for the moment, a secure option that doesn’t require a lot of user knowledge to setup. It is a vastly superior choice than using social media for messaging without requiring a lot of technical knowledge on the user’s part.