Welcome to the Linux community. :)

You will probably never understand everything about Linux and all of its included and associated systems. That’s completely fine, no one does! That’s why we are many, and it’s what asking for advice or help is for. You can just learn whatever interests you at your own pace, and know that there will always be interesting things you haven’t seen yet.

It’s hard to overstate what a nothing-burger this article really is! Let me break it down:

• Signal got $3 million from the Open Technology Fund at some point in its development
• Some anonymous source alleges that the OTF’s ultimate goal is to promote US foreign interests
• The current chairman of the board Katherine Maher worked at the National Democratic Institute and Wikipedia before
• The same anonymous source says she was recruited because of connections to the OTF
• She has at some point voiced the opinion that a completely free internet without regulation just reproduces existing power structures, and that balancing regulation and 1st amendment rights is a tough problem
• Signal doesn’t have reproducible builds on iOS (it absolutely does on Android btw)
• Some people feel like Signal chats come up more often than they should in court cases and media reports

That’s it, that’s the whole story. That’s the reason why the Telegram guy of all people thinks you should be careful, and better use his chat service instead, and the Twitter guy agrees.

I mean, reproducible builds on iOS would be nice, but that platform has much bigger problems from a privacy/security/sovereignty/freedom standpoint anyway. And the rest is just nothing turned up to 11.

pay for it with advertising your data

FTFY.

That part is not allowed according to the GDPR afaik, the decision about your personal data cannot be artificially linked to something else. They can absolutely show ads, but without using your data.

From what I understand the GDPR says you have to give users a real choice about the usage of their data, without any unreasonable negative repercussions. Having to pay money (at least as much as they are asking for) is such an unacceptable repercussion, no matter how FB might phrase it.

They are allowed to take money or show ads for access, but they can’t couple that decision with the one about the user’s data usage.

The video is probably factually correct, but very disingenuous with its interpretations and conclusions imo.

Of course Mozilla and Firefox have their own share of problems and bad decisions, and they are pretty well known and talked about from what I’ve seen, but equating it to Google and Chrome is just pure cynicism. Mozilla having to earn money somehow (1% donations!) and Google trying to maximize profits at all costs is not the same thing, even if it might look similar sometimes.

Clickbait headline. The underlying article lists much more reasonable restrictions:

• Anonymous cash payments over €3,000 will be banned in commercial transactions
• Cash payments over €10,000 will even be completely banned in business transactions
• Anonymous payments in cryptocurrencies to wallets operated by providers will be prohibited

So non-commercial transations are fine, as are crypto transactions to non-custodial wallets.

They also released a Fossify messenger and contacts app. You might have to enable or refresh the IzzyOnDroid repo to see them now, or wait until they come to the default F-Droid repo.

I’ve been removing Google services from my life bit by bit over the past year, and I have to say it is crazy how hard it actually is! They have inserted themselves into so many digital workflows, securing monopoly positions and preventing the rise of competitors and open ecosystems. In many areas the only alternatives are other tech giants, or accepting feature downgrades and having to set things up manually.

I’m really glad that the browser is one area where the transition is actually very simple and straightforward!

That’s why it feels so cozy here.

How much are you willing to bet? I give a hint, there is an open issue from 2016 on their GitHub about supporting the manufacturer of my mouse. And that’s pretty much the point, because on Windows I just get the software with the box and that’s it. Of course it’s closed source and stuff, but it still provides a better experience than no support at all. And that’s just one example, Linux also can’t use the highest available resolution of my webcam, and the fingerprint reader on my laptop has been completely unusable on Linux from day one.

Immutable distros fix most boot issues, in the sense that you can undo a failed change, but that’s about it.

Ofc Windows has its fair share of issues, but it just doesn’t break as much in my experience. Probably because they have orders of magnitude more people working on finding and fixing consumer issues, incl. from 3rd party device and software manufacturers.

I’m sorry, but you’re lying to yourself if you think consumer support is on par with Windows. It’s getting closer and closer every year, but we are not there yet.

“The vast majority” is useless if the hardware someone has doesn’t work, and you usually don’t get official support and warranty from the manufacturer for Linux. There are also some categories like webcams, audio equipment or fingerprint readers where Linux support is still notoriously bad. And even if something mostly works, it’s fairly common for some hardware to have missing features, instabilities or minor issues on Linux. E.g. my mouse works on Linux ofc, but the software to set and edit profiles doesn’t.

Usability issues are mostly cases where you have to fall back to the terminal. An example from my experience would be that trying to upgrade the system from the app store fails half the time, so I have to use the terminal. Another would be a failed boot or graphics issues due to a broken Nvidia driver installation or messed up SELinux policies. It’s all fixable in the terminal, but good luck if you can’t use that.

I’m all for Linux and have been using it for years, but saying a 15min install is the only downside is disingenuous. For many people there are a few programs they rely on that won’t work on Linux, and hardware support and general user-friendliness are still not quite where they should be.

Twitch will probably be even harder.

Both honesty. AI can reduce accountability and increase the power small groups of people have over everyone else, but it can also go haywire.

We could at least make it a war crime.

I think capitalism can work fine if we limit the amount of stuff any one person can own. Having a few million $ seems fine to me, but everything above that leads to problems. I know this sounds like a very simple measure, but it would have huge implications.

This question is like catnip for Linux users, we just can’t help it.

Fedora.

They have solid community and financial backings, they do tremendous work pushing the Linux desktop forward, it’s close to vanilla and the sweet spot between stable and bleeding edge (aka “leading edge”) for me personally.

For King and Kernel!

If it was anything more than physical, these things wouldn’t affect consciousness so easily.

We know that it changes perception and behavior, because those are the things we can measure. We have no idea if it affects consciousness, because we don’t even know what that is.

[…] which suggests to me that consciousness must be nothing more than the effects of complex physical systems in our brains.

The problem I have with these studies is that they all test the functions of the brain and its hemispheres, and then argue what the produced consciousness(es) could look like based on some preconceived notion of what a consciousness can an cannot do. But who says that one consciousness cannot make two different choices simultaneously for example? Ofc it’s the best we have right now and imo very interesting and important work, but it’s still nothing like actually “detecting” consciousness and analyzing its properties. The sad truth is that we still have no f*cking clue.

I know that this all sounds very ominous, but that’s kind of the point. Consciousness as I’d define it is not just the mechanical function of the brain, but the experience of being “present”.