Libb

Experience is great so far but I have send my very first help request… yesterday evening. Will see when/if I get an answer, but it’s not even about any issue just a question about some stuff I could not understand ;)

free replacement for Gmail

have you tried infomaniak? They also have a calendar and an online office suite… and their free plan is nice (paid user here) ;)

Just in case, I wrote a little more in details about my impression, what I like and don’t like, on my blog (ignore the beginning of the post if you’re only interested in Filen itself) ;)

that’s how I understand it.

Data is encrypted during transfer and also on their cloud, using a key only you have access to.

Using them. Quite decent if a little bare bone. I wish for their notes app to be leaner to use but beside that it does exactly <hat it tells. Also, I quite like that, unlike so many clouds, I don’t have to move all my files and folders to a ‘filen’ folder, it can sync as many folders as one needs, even on external drives.

If you can, wait for their Black Friday deals, prices are fine but they’re even better then. They also offer more options for lifetime plans if you’re more interested than in monthly sub.

When creating you’re account, try to get an affiliate link before creating the account, as you will get double the free storage to begin with (20, instead of 10GB) and if you later decide to sub to/purchase a plan you have to keep that extra storage as a bonus. In case you need one, here is my affiliate link so you or anyone else using it can get the extra 10GB—and, nope, I won’t get anything out of it anymore, as I already did get all I was promised (up to 3x10GB more free storage), and yep, I did keep them l when I upgraded to one of their lifetime plan ;)

I havent switched operating system yet due to fear of losing my data.

If you value any data, you should already have backups (plural), right? So, if you decide to switch OS you don’t need to worry about your data since you have backups (plural). Hint: if you don’t do backups already, start now with or without OS switch.

If i delete google play services, will my phone not work correctly?

Depends what you do with it. What OS you use. My spouse is using /e/OS and she has access to all the apps she needs, but I reckon you probably don’t use the same app as we do (we’re both 50+) ;)

I have been replacing my apps with open source apps, is that helpful?

Depends. It’s probably a good idea but if you use open source apps to access and use non-privacy respecting services, well, they won’t help much.

What vpn should i use? I have malewarebytes.

One you trust. I use Mullvad and Proton. Both are paid for.

I’d wrap it in a towel inside the box. Have you considered making a DIY Faraday cage? I’ve been thinking about it but my physics isn’t very good

I may consider doing that, thx.

Thx a lot for the explanation :)

I’ve heard the name, but don’t know what a docker is used for. Kinda like a vm? Not really a geek, I’m afraid ;)

Either someone randomly downvoted (ok, bye). Or someone thinks downvoting me is punishing me in some way for daring say something they don’t agree with (no idea how that could be punishing me, but hey). Or someone is too lazy to explain their reasoning. In any case, I don’t think it’s worth much consideration.

And, yep, as far as I’m concerned I consider this an OK approach. Not faultless, but usable ;)

Not much

• Full disk encryption on my computers.
• Password manager, for strong & unique passwords everywhere
• Linux as my OS
• Firewall.
• Backups: local (encrypted) and remote (encrypted).
• Computers are all wired to the network.
• Also, I use my phone as a… phone and for little else.
  I mean, there is a 2FA app and the few mandatory apps I must have access to (finance, and banking) and that is it. No social, no games, no nothing. Not even email is configured on that trash piece of corporate spyware. I sincerely consider it a threat to our privacy so I don’t trust it beside what I have no option to trust it with. I also suppose that this device, even though I deactivated the setting, is constantly listening to what we say nearby. So, when I don’t need it, I store it in a thick box to reduce whatever it may be recording.
• I use as little digital tools as I can. I went back to analog (ie, for my agenda and I hardly see any reason to go back to digital). I take all my notes longhand too, and it’s been more than a year I have not read an ebook as I went back to analog there too. Why? No spying, no tracking of what I read and what I write. And no sudden ‘termination’ of services or ‘removal’ of a book from my device for any reason.

I really, really don’t understand how people see LLMs as the only options for stuff like this…

We can’t tell that is what the OP thinks and I would rather not assume anything. But if that was the case, I would imagine OP is from this generation that seems to have completely lost connection with the written word. It’s a huge loss for them (and for the whole society), a dramatic one even but one can’t realize how tragic it is, and how much they are losing, if they don’t have an opportunity to experiment what it’s like to be writing (and reading).

To the OP, if you’re wondering about writing in a journal (paper or digital, it’s up to you but be assured it can be private), feel free to come say hello in the !journaling@sh.itjust.works. I’m the admin there and if there isn’t much activity going on, I’m pretty sure this kind of situations may be of interest to way more people than we imagine. At the very least, if you have questions I will do my best to answer them, hopefully others would chime in too ;)

Edit to clear: not being able to read/write long-form content anymore is a tragic loss for younger generations, and that will cost dear to most of them because the few that will have learned to master those ‘low-tech’ activities, and to focus their attention, will outperform the others and they’re the ones that will get the all the rewards we associate with ‘winning’. But if they’re the ones that will pay, for the most part they’re not at fault. It is us, the adults that were supposed to be educating them, that are responsible. We failed. Hard. Now, they will pay the price.

But lately I’ve been in a rough state mentally (I say lately but it’s always been with me) and having GPT guide me and being able to just dictate what I think helps me a lot on various levels, for various reasons.

Do you mean you use it to brain dump your thoughts and things like that?

If so, have you considered simply… writing stuff down with a pen on paper? Aka, journaling.

I’ve been doing that for, well, almost all all my live (started as little boy, I’m now well into my 50s) and it has always been tremendous help to better understand whatever is going on in my head/happening around me/with other people/the world.

Pen and paper journaling is also 100% not online, unless you want it to be. And it’s cheap, when it’s not completely free ;)