Decentralizacja w #Fediverse.

Zakładacie profile na nowych instancjach?
Zdziwienie, że na starych (innych) instancjach nie widzicie nowych wpisów?

Nieważne, czy to Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube czy inny serwis, warto zadbać o obserwację tych nowych profili na jak największej liczbie popularnych instancji.

Bo ActivityPub działa podobnie do e-mail. Wysyła wpisy jedynie tam, gdzie są adresy i profile, które go obserwują.
Nie ma centralnego repozytorium wszystkich wpisów jak w serwisach centralizowanych (np. Twitter/FB/YouTube).

Więc zanim zaczniecie publikować treści z nowych profili, poproście znajome osoby z różnych instancji, by wasze nowe konto zaobserwowały. A już na pewno zaobserwujcie sami siebie z własnych innych profili. Wtedy te treści mają szansę się federować na inne serwery. Inaczej pozostaną dostępne jedynie na instancji oryginalnej.

Tak to działa od samych początków #fediwersum opartego o protokół #ActivityPub 😀

#FediTipsPL #FediPomoc

Drogie, drodzy, Fedisie i osoby PolSocialove ❤️

Macie od dzisiaj możliwość przekazać 1,5% ze swoich podatków na fundację FTdL @ftdl , która prowadzi kawałek polskiego #Fediverse.

Wiem, że macie swoje ulubione organizacje, pomyślcie o Fundacji, która nie ma innego finansowania niż Wasze Wsparcie 💶

Jeśli dacie się przekonać, a IMO warto, to w PiT należy wpisać nie tylko numer KRS (Fundacji FaniMani), ale i cel szczegółowy, który oznacza wsparcie FTdL.

– KRS: 0000507234
– cel szczegółowy: 85488

Wielkie dzięki za rozważenie i wsparcie 😀

Można też podbić tego tootka 🚀

Niech Polskie Fedi się rozwija, serwerów przybywa, a ludzie walą tutaj drzwiami i oknami 😀

#WspieramPolSocial #WspieramFTdL

Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/rebuilding-foursquare-for-activitypub-using-openstreetmap/

I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spending the day at the park".

So, is there a way to recreate that early Web 2.0 experience with open data and ActivityPub? Let's find out!

This quest is divided into two parts.

1. Get nearby "Points of Interest" (POI) from OpenStreetMap.
2. Share a location on the Fediverse.

OpenStreetMap API

OpenStreetMap is the Wikipedia of maps. It is a freely available resource which anyone can edit (if they're skilled enough).

It also comes with a pretty decent API for querying things. For example, nw["amenity"]({{bbox}}); finds all "amenities" near a specific location.

As you can see, it has highlighted some useful areas - a pharmacy and a pub. But it has ignored other useful locations - the train station and the park. It has also included some things that we may not want - bike parking and a taxi rank.

What API call is needed to get useful locations of of OverPass?

It's possible to specify the type of thing to find using nw["amenity"="restaurant"]; - but adding every single type of thing would quickly end up with a very large query containing hundreds of types.

It is also possible to exclude specific types of places. This retrieves all amenities except for fast food joints:

nw["amenity"]({{bbox}});-nw["amenity"="fast_food"]({{bbox}});

Perhaps one solution is just to return everything and let the user decide if they want to check in to a telephone kiosk or a fire hydrant? That's a bit user-hostile.

Instead, this query returns everything which has a name nw["name"]({{bbox}});

That cuts out any unnamed things - like park benches and car-sharing spots. But it does add named roads and train lines.

It is possible to use filters to exclude results from OverPass. The best that I can come up with is: nw["name"][!"highway"][!"railway"][!"waterway"][!"power"]({{bbox}});

That gets everything which has a name, but isn't a highway or railway or waterway or powerline. It isn't perfect - but it will do!

This is the query which will retrieve the 25 nearest things within 100 metres of a specific latitude and longitude. It includes the name and any other tags, the location, and the OSM ID.

overpass-api.de/api/interpreter?data=[out:json];nw["name"][!"highway"][!"railway"][!"waterway"][!"power"](around:100,51.5202,-0.1040);out center qt 25;

ActivityPub

There's good news and bad news here. Firstly, ActivityStreams (which are subscribed to in ActivityPub) supports the concept of "Place" and "Location".

Once the user has a latitude and longitude, the can share it - along with a message, photo, or anything else.

Something like:

{    "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",    "type": "Note",    "content": "Here in NYC! <a href=\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/958999496\">John Lennon&#039;s Imagine Mosaic</a>.",    "attachment": [        {            "type": "Image",            "mediaType": "image\/jpeg",            "url": "https:\/\/fastly.4sqi.net\/img\/general\/590x786\/56367_9pxuZJD7d1hgPdaMFcFq1pipvTTMynBJsYcpHH-b8mU.jpg",            "name": "A photo of a mosaic which says &#039;Imagine&#039;."        }    ],    "location": {        "name": "John Lennon&#039;s Imagine",        "type": "Place",        "longitude": 40.77563,        "latitude": -73.97474    }}

It is worth noting that Mastodon doesn't (natively) support location - if you view my repost of that PixelFed post you'll see there's no location metadata attached. That's OK! It just means that the status needs to include human-readable data.

Similarly, Mastodon doesn't support the arrive vocabulary. So this will be limited to a message with a location attached.

Other ActivityPub services do support location.

Putting it all together

Well… that's a job for next week. Probably!

• Building a web site which gets the user's location is easy.
• Getting the data from OverPass should be straightforward.
• Creating an ActivityPub server which can post geotagged notes into the Fediverse might be a little beyond my skillset! Some testing with Darius Kazemi's AP Glitch suggests this should work.

If you'd like to help, please leave a comment.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/rebuilding-foursquare-for-activitypub-using-openstreetmap/

#ActivityPub #fediverse #FOURSQUARE #geolocation #OpenStreetMap

Terence Eden’s Blog

2024-01-27 12:34:55

Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/rebuilding-foursquare-for-activitypub-using-openstreetmap/

I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spending the day at the park".

So, is there a way to recreate that early Web 2.0 experience with open data and ActivityPub? Let's find out!

This quest is divided into two parts.

1. Get nearby "Points of Interest" (POI) from OpenStreetMap.
2. Share a location on the Fediverse.

OpenStreetMap API

OpenStreetMap is the Wikipedia of maps. It is a freely available resource which anyone can edit (if they're skilled enough).

It also comes with a pretty decent API for querying things. For example, nw["amenity"]({{bbox}}); finds all "amenities" near a specific location.

As you can see, it has highlighted some useful areas - a pharmacy and a pub. But it has ignored other useful locations - the train station and the park. It has also included some things that we may not want - bike parking and a taxi rank.

What API call is needed to get useful locations of of OverPass?

It's possible to specify the type of thing to find using nw["amenity"="restaurant"]; - but adding every single type of thing would quickly end up with a very large query containing hundreds of types.

It is also possible to exclude specific types of places. This retrieves all amenities except for fast food joints:

nw["amenity"]({{bbox}});-nw["amenity"="fast_food"]({{bbox}});

Again, that would be complex.

Perhaps one solution is just to return everything and let the user decide if they want to check in to a telephone kiosk or a fire hydrant? That's a bit user-hostile.

Instead, this query returns everything which has a name nw["name"]({{bbox}});

That cuts out any unnamed things - like park benches and car-sharing spots. But it does add named roads and train lines.

It is possible to use filters to exclude results from OverPass. The best that I can come up with is: nw["name"][!"highway"][!"railway"][!"waterway"][!"power"]({{bbox}});

That gets everything which has a name, but isn't a highway or railway or waterway or powerline. It isn't perfect - but it will do!

This is the query which will retrieve the 25 nearest things within 100 metres of a specific latitude and longitude. It includes the name and any other tags, the location, and the OSM ID.

overpass-api.de/api/interpreter?data=[out:json];nw["name"][!"highway"][!"railway"][!"waterway"][!"power"](around:100,51.5202,-0.1040);out center qt 25;

ActivityPub

There's good news and bad news here. Firstly, ActivityStreams (which are subscribed to in ActivityPub) supports the concept of "Place" and "Location".

Once the user has a latitude and longitude, the can share it - along with a message, photo, or anything else.

Something like:

{    "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",    "type": "Note",    "content": "Here in NYC! <a href=\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/958999496\">John Lennon&#039;s Imagine Mosaic</a>.",    "attachment": [        {            "type": "Image",            "mediaType": "image\/jpeg",            "url": "https:\/\/fastly.4sqi.net\/img\/general\/590x786\/56367_9pxuZJD7d1hgPdaMFcFq1pipvTTMynBJsYcpHH-b8mU.jpg",            "name": "A photo of a mosaic which says &#039;Imagine&#039;."        }    ],    "location": {        "name": "John Lennon&#039;s Imagine",        "type": "Place",        "longitude": 40.77563,        "latitude": -73.97474    }}

For example, here's a PixelFed post with an attached location - and this is the JSON representation. That status can be reposted into other social networks.

It is worth noting that Mastodon doesn't (natively) support location - if you view my repost of that PixelFed post you'll see there's no location metadata attached. That's OK! It just means that the status needs to include human-readable data.

Similarly, Mastodon doesn't support the arrive vocabulary. So this will be limited to a message with a location attached.

Other ActivityPub services do support location.

Putting it all together

Well… that's a job for next week. Probably!

• Building a web site which gets the user's location is easy.
• Getting the data from OverPass should be straightforward.
• Creating an ActivityPub server which can post geotagged notes into the Fediverse might be a little beyond my skillset! Some testing with Darius Kazemi's AP Glitch suggests this should work.

If you'd like to help, please leave a comment.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/rebuilding-foursquare-for-activitypub-using-openstreetmap/

#ActivityPub #fediverse #FOURSQUARE #geolocation #OpenStreetMap

05 - Find nodes by applying multiple filters

A basic tutorial covering the key features of the Overpass language

^{osm-queries.ldodds.com}

Did you know you can easily search through your own Mastodon posts?

Just include from:me in the search field.

Instead of this, you can include in:library to show posts you have interacted with or written yourself.

If you want to search through posts of a specific user, include from:username (the full username, including the instance)

If it doesn't work, have a look at this:
https://graphics.social/@metin/111821440228692015

#mastodon #MastoTips #FediTips #tip #tips #information #knowledge #fediverse

Metin Seven 🎨

2024-01-26 09:02:49

A follow-up post regarding the Mastodon search tips:

If the search options don't work, the reason might be that your Mastodon instance maintainer hasn't implemented Elasticsearch.

Also important: do not use capitals anywhere in the search conditions. E.g.: "From:me" doesn't work.

Further reading:

https://mstdn.social/@DeltaWye/111280982761530295

and

https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-search-for-stuff-on-mastodon/

#mastodon #MastoTips #FediTips #tip #tips #information #knowledge #fediverse

How do I search for stuff on Mastodon? How do I use hashtags? | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

^fedi.tips

#Facebook inherently isn’t bad

yes it is.

#hashtags

Hashtags are supposed to be from all the contacts that has a server in the #fediVerse, if the posts were published publicly. Their for mastodon.social with it's overwhelming user base should be connected to a very large percentage of the fediverse accounts (that's an interesting percentage investigation to do). It even has introduced full text search and I guess it's using it so that's another tool in one place to get a lot of the total info out there.

#friendica has relays, I never checked that option out but if you dig into it you'll find some answers. In the latest release it added "channels" to create streams of selected gathered information, another thing I haven't digged into yet. Actualy friendica and #hubzilla might be the ones that can tap into most info on the fediverse. Those communities, both inicialized by Mike, have kinda basic goal to create workarounds in the fediVerse to connect to everyone and everything. Thinking about it, friendica might be the oldest thriving #activityPub speaking platform out there.

My recommendation to check out friendica in your case would be squeet.me as it is run by one of the german main devolpers of that platform so it's always on the latest dev branch.

following activitypub, which is an unsorted mess of information overflow

That's an impression I get first of all in the #mastodon stream as every answer pops up like a single unrelated contextles bubble in once universe that most likely might create some declaration of war in some other distant universe that ultimately might just lead to a dog swolling some toy ball.

many () problems can be traced back to Homo Sapiens Sapiens

all of 'em, that's why spanisch is the choosen language in this case as it spells mono sapiens -> #VIATA
At the same time, blaming the user while the boss considers them "dumb fucks" and gives out the instruction "be fast and break things" sounds like kinda victim blaming.

No it never does, it makes your world view distorted

That's what I mean by: their own disconnected reality.
What wasn't to clear in my answer is that apparently they gathered into bubbles on places like fb and went of from there to GAB or apparently now a days #telegram groups.
btw
Every world view is distorted, by default, there is no way around that fact.

It is necessary sometimes to touch foreign subjects, meet new people, read unusual threads, outside your comfort zone. At least that’s my experience.

More than agreed:
#TEDtalk:

That was another bubble.

Or they managed to organize.

Bubbles are fine, not only for marginalized groups and can be helpful and uplifting.
Point is when they lead to radicalization, "Tunnelblick", "Scheuklappen" (blinders).
Actually they create an own norm, an own culture, an own tribe. That can lead to diversification that can be good and useful, why not. Kinda like always it's the concentration that makes it medicine or abused drug, that's why I wrote semipermeable as an important part of the setup.

#GAFAM created a asocial environment, some reasons you mentioned, the first reason because they could and it was good buisenes (for them). So "we" decided to go for the free network (redes libres/freie Neztzwerke) to disentangle and start all over again. My peers are my algorithm that create my feed of input. And as my vibes and emotional situation changes, I'll have to adapt my feed constantly if I want to stay in charge. If I refer that task to my smart watch I'm doomed to become aligned to a (main)stream others decide over. AI is going to make that most likely worse because it's becoming more and more complex and we rely on some coders that say "bad dog! baaad dog!" to the AI. Meanwhile in Myanmar some genocide is fostered, fb traces the data for their AI and the billionairs say:
"Well, some workers died when the golden gate bridge was build, bad luck, that's colateral damage worth it."

how to friendica install for ubuntu VPS
(lot's of spoilers!)

For your acronym dictionary:
#slatfatf
https://pod.geraspora.de/tags/slatfatf

https://pod.geraspora.de/tags/acronymlist

.. and yes, I have long blond hair too ..

Si quieres leerlo en húngaro, pulsa aquí.

@utopiArte

I created a new #Instagram account just to access #Threads and for testing later. But guess what?

The first thing I saw after joining Instagram's Threads using a new account were:
* big boobs
* big butts
* women making their big butts dance
* girls (hopefully they are not underage) showcasing their boobs
* and on and on and on

Seriously? Where's the #CONTENT? Did I join a #Dating app or something?

Why is the majority of the content I'm seeing are women? I only saw 2 nature posts, 1 cooking post, 4 funny posts (not even a meme).

To be clear: This is a reaction to the type of content, a new account I created, Threads threw at me. This is NOT about women.

I don't know if they're using an algorithm. If they are, since it is a new account, there is no data for their algorithm to use, so it more likely chose the “most popular” and/or “most active” posts.

That's fine.

However, for people not searching for someone to date, they will immediately delete Threads if this is what you show to new accounts.

=== BGN: aside ===
* I had to create a new account because Instagram banned my official account for no particular reason.
* I even confirmed my identity 3 times (they forced me).
* They won't talk to me at all.
* Absolutely no violations, I rarely upload and leave comments.
* If I will take my best guess, they banned my official account because I'm #ActuallyAutistic. While my personal account, where I did not reveal I'm #Autistic, is still fine to this day.
* I have Two-Factor Authentication on, I have a verified phone number and email.
=== END: aside ===

I think #Meta / #Facebook doesn't have to worry about #Fediverse content violating their “community guidelines”. Based from this shocking experience, it is the fediverse that should be worried of the content Threads will be bringing over.

P.S. I am 100% for #BringingDownTheWalls. This is NOT an anti-Meta post; even though they unfairly and unjustly banned my official, and old, account last year.

In my quest to get rid of GAFAM and decrease as much the tracking I’m subject to, I’m only at the start.

Social Media Alternatives

By the end of 2021, fed up with infinite news feeds, I’ve removed my Facebook, Twitter and SensCritique accounts with almost no alternatives. I needed to declutter and focus on my family, so I also reduced the influx of information by stopping RSS feeds, Newsletter subscriptions, by pausing notifications of most apps like WhatsApp, and of course I’ve stopped watching TV Shows & Movies, news… Those initiatives were also motivated by family augmentation as I became father in 2021 🙂

Anyway I had to pursue efforts !

Recently I’ve also removed Pinterest and I’ve set up Pixelfed (self hosted) to replace IG (Instagram). I’ve also joined a Mastodon instance as a replacement for Twitter. The good thing with Mastodon and federated networks is you can be on any instance and follow users from other instances. From my Pixelfed (IG-like) I’m subscribed to my Mastodon page (Twitter Like) and I’m also followed by my WordPress page thanks to the ActivityPub plugin I’ve setup on this blog. I’ve migrated my secrets from Bitwarden to Vaultwarden (self-hosted), my code from Github to Gitea (self-hosted), my WordPress and Shaarli from OVH to Cloudron running on Contabo VPS. I’ve also started using Nextcloud and Collabora as replacements for my “Office” suite (Google Docs, Google Sheets, …) but I’m not yet sold to the UI.

Self-Hosting Tools

The goal is to try to use as much self-hosted tools as I can. It’s not easy to find good alternatives especially if you care about usability, data portability, privacy, and connect with other users …

I’m struggling to get rid of YT (Youtube) and YT Kids. There are plenty of alternatives to YT, but not so much with both a kid-friendly UX and possibilities to filter content.

Challenges in Replacing YouTube

The problem is not to find a privacy respecting alternative tool to YT : It’s easy to find and host content on Peertube but not so much to find a good instance with interesting content.

The problem is most of the popular and interesting content is on YT. There are alternatives frontends like Invidious, SkyTube (Android), Clipious (an Android client for Invidious instances). But Invidious does not yet support filtering of videos, which make it an unsafe place for kids. At least SkyTube allows for filtering channels and that’s what I’m gonna try with my kid, but the UX is lacking behind YT and that makes it quite difficult for my little one to navigate alone in the app and pick a video.

Future Goals and Challenges

Important next steps for me are to get rid fully of any Google software, that includes Gmail (this will be a though one), Youtube, Contacts, Calendar, Google Drive, Google Keep, Google Maps, etc. and to stop using software that depends on tech giants or trackers. Not easy. Just try surfing the web using Big Tech Detective extension. Even search engines or browsers that claim to respect your privacy are tracking you or rely on GAFAM infrastructure or trackers.

For instance, when trying to use DuckDuck Go search engine with the Big Tech Detective extension on :

Exodus on Android shows that most of the “privacy” friendly browsers on Android are full of trackers : DuckDuck Go, Ghostery, Firefox, Opera, Tor Browser… Only Brave on mobile didn’t contain tracker, according to Exodus. The spyware watchdog catalog will provide additional data about some of the mentioned browsers while also claiming Brave is to be considered as spyware.

Fortunately there exist search engines alternatives, such as Mojeek (which uses its own index) and SearX.

While looking at my expenses and optimizing my budget, I’ve removed my Medium subscription, Pluralsight, and OpenAI subscription, and started to cancel hosting plans as I’ll host most of what I need on my VPS. Next challenges would be to get rid of Netflix, Meta/WhatsApp, Amazon (Prime, Kindle…), Apple, Spotify, Dropbox (to Nextcloud?), ChatGPT (I’ve yet to find a comparable alternative)by looking for alternatives or privacy friendly frontends for what cannot be easily replaced. But they do not make it easy. By trying to get rid of Netflix, I’ve noticed that as the “main” profile of our family shared account, it’s impossible to delete my data. I can only create a new Netflix account and transfer the family profiles to that one. At the end, I’d like also to replace my OnePlus One with a dumb phone or a fair phone. I had a look at privacy friendly OSes we can setup on Android but the compatibility with OnePlus 10 Pro is still work in progress. Anyway if you are interested, take some inspiration here. I also want to fix this blog by taking inspiration from Small Web and Slow Web philosophies. , works for future browsers or at least relies on libre JavaScript (see also LibreJS) or no JavaScript at all.

And also to convince my loved one to try free and open source software on her devices (Apple 🙂 ). Lot of friends and family are using Whatsapp while I’m sold to Signal or alternatives. This one will be difficult to bypass. I aim at least to automatically backup all WhatsApp files to my Nextcloud.

Every small improvement towards more privacy, data portability, open-source, data ownership, freedom, will be worth it and I’ll share my findings with you 🙂

Web (browser) extensions I recommend

• LibRedirect a web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and other websites to their alternative privacy friendly frontends. You can find my settings here.
• Privacy Redirect a simple web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Instagram & Google Maps requests to privacy friendly alternatives.
• DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials includes tracker blocking, cookie protection, DuckDuckGo private search, email protection, HTTPS upgrading, and much more. I use it to generate temporary email addresses when my email is requested.
• Ultrablock blocks ads, trackers and third party cookies.
• Privacy Badger blocks invisible trackers.

Web (browser) extensions I’m Trying

• JShelter An anti-malware Web browser extension to mitigate potential threats from JavaScript, including fingerprinting, tracking, and data collection! But it causes some crappy websites to malfunction 😉
• Big Tech Detective helps you track tech giants. If fully activated, you won’t be able to browse certain websites and even some supposed privacy friendly tools, such as Duck Duck Go Search engine which behind the scene rely on Microsoft infrastructure and hard partnerships with Microsoft.

Android apps I recommend

• Exodus an app that audits Android apps for trackers.
• F-Droid a installable catalog of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform.
• Aegis Authenticator : a free, secure and open source app to manage your 2-step verification tokens for your online services.

WordPress plugins I recommend

• ActivityPub With this installed your WordPress blog itself functions as a federated profile, allowing to reach a wider audience.

Tools I recommend

• Kill the Newsletter Convert email newsletters to RSS feeds.
• Bitwarden which is a password manager. I’m hosting Vaultwarden which implements the same API. Bitwarden client is available on any popular platform.
• Invidious to be used as frontend alternative to YouTube. Same content as YouTube. No ads, no trackers.

Some reading I recommend

• https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/ watchdog of popular apps with trackers.

Self hosting providers

• I recommend Contabo (no sponsor here), that I’ve hand picked among many alternatives, while choosing a good VPS offering at good prices. Only downside is their administration panel UX, but other than that, it was cheap. And they buy green energy to run their servers. The alternatives I had compared Contabo with were OVH (way too expensive) and Hetzner (cheap but unfortunately their VPS hardware lacks AVX support thus is not compatible with Cloudron requirements). Contabo in the end beats VPS offerings of Hetzner and OVH at that price, with more storage and CPU for me !

Self hosted apps

• If you own a dedicated server / VPS, try Cloudron, it’s such an easy way to self host your apps and take control of your data ! I’m currently using it with Nextcloud, WordPress, and all apps mentioned below below :
• Wallabag as read-it later app.
• Miniflux minimalist and opinionated feed reader.
• Vaultwarden unofficial Bitwarden compatible server.
• Changedetection.io free open source website change detection, website watcher.
• PrivateBin minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data.
• Invoice Ninja Invoices, Expenses and Tasks built with Laravel, Flutter and React
• Gitea a self-hosted Git hosting service that offers code hosting, code review, team collaboration, package management and CI/CD features. It is compatible with GitHub Actions, Docker, various databases and tools, and supports multiple languages and architectures.
• Pixelfed a replacement for Instagram as it used to be (without all the ads, and crap).
• Shaarli personal, minimalist, super-fast, database free, bookmarking service. Useful for sharing links or keep them safe and private.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope these insights and recommendations help you in your journey towards a more private and self-reliant digital life. As always, I’m eager to hear your experiences and suggestions. Let’s make our digital space a bit more ours!

https://morgan.zoemp.be/charting-my-journey-away-from-big-tech-embracing-privacy-and-self-hosting-solutions/

#alternatives #android #cloudron #decentralization #degooglify #fediverse #libre #openSource #privacy #security #selfHosting

Morgan

2023-12-26 11:39:24

In my quest to get rid of GAFAM and decrease as much the tracking I’m subject to, I’m only at the start.

Social Media Alternatives

By the end of 2021, fed up with infinite news feeds, I’ve removed my Facebook, Twitter and SensCritique accounts with almost no alternatives. I needed to declutter and focus on my family, so I also reduced the influx of information by stopping RSS feeds, Newsletter subscriptions, by pausing notifications of most apps like WhatsApp, and of course I’ve stopped watching TV Shows & Movies, news… Those initiatives were also motivated by family augmentation as I became father in 2021 🙂

Anyway I had to pursue efforts !

Recently I’ve also removed Pinterest and I’ve set up Pixelfed (self hosted) to replace IG (Instagram). I’ve also joined a Mastodon instance as a replacement for Twitter. The good thing with Mastodon and federated networks is you can be on any instance and follow users from other instances. From my Pixelfed (IG-like) I’m subscribed to my Mastodon page (Twitter Like) and I’m also followed by my WordPress page thanks to the ActivityPub plugin I’ve setup on this blog. I’ve migrated my secrets from Bitwarden to Vaultwarden (self-hosted), my code from Github to Gitea (self-hosted), my WordPress and Shaarli from OVH to Cloudron running on Contabo VPS. I’ve also started using Nextcloud and Collabora as replacements for my “Office” suite (Google Docs, Google Sheets, …) but I’m not yet sold to the UI.

Self-Hosting Tools

The goal is to try to use as much self-hosted tools as I can. It’s not easy to find good alternatives especially if you care about usability, data portability, privacy, and connect with other users …

I’m struggling to get rid of YT (Youtube) and YT Kids. There are plenty of alternatives to YT, but not so much with both a kid-friendly UX and possibilities to filter content.

Challenges in Replacing YouTube

The problem is not to find a privacy respecting alternative tool to YT : It’s easy to find and host content on Peertube but not so much to find a good instance with interesting content.

The problem is most of the popular and interesting content is on YT. There are alternatives frontends like Invidious, SkyTube (Android), Clipious (an Android client for Invidious instances). But Invidious does not yet support filtering of videos, which make it an unsafe place for kids. At least SkyTube allows for filtering channels and that’s what I’m gonna try with my kid, but the UX is lacking behind YT and that makes it quite difficult for my little one to navigate alone in the app and pick a video.

Future Goals and Challenges

Important next steps for me are to get rid fully of any Google software, that includes Gmail (this will be a though one), Youtube, Contacts, Calendar, Google Drive, Google Keep, Google Maps, etc. and to stop using software that depends on tech giants or trackers. Not easy. Just try surfing the web using Big Tech Detective extension. Even search engines or browsers that claim to respect your privacy are tracking you or rely on GAFAM infrastructure or trackers.

For instance, when trying to use DuckDuck Go search engine with the Big Tech Detective extension on :

Exodus on Android shows that most of the “privacy” friendly browsers on Android are full of trackers : DuckDuck Go, Ghostery, Firefox, Opera, Tor Browser… Only Brave on mobile didn’t contain tracker, according to Exodus. The spyware watchdog catalog will provide additional data about some of the mentioned browsers while also claiming Brave is to be considered as spyware.

Fortunately there exist search engines alternatives, such as Mojeek (which uses its own index) and SearX.

While looking at my expenses and optimizing my budget, I’ve removed my Medium subscription, Pluralsight, and OpenAI subscription, and started to cancel hosting plans as I’ll host most of what I need on my VPS. Next challenges would be to get rid of Netflix, Meta/WhatsApp, Amazon (Prime, Kindle…), Apple, Spotify, Dropbox (to Nextcloud?), ChatGPT (I’ve yet to find a comparable alternative)by looking for alternatives or privacy friendly frontends for what cannot be easily replaced. But they do not make it easy. By trying to get rid of Netflix, I’ve noticed that as the “main” profile of our family shared account, it’s impossible to delete my data. I can only create a new Netflix account and transfer the family profiles to that one. At the end, I’d like also to replace my OnePlus One with a dumb phone or a fair phone. I had a look at privacy friendly OSes we can setup on Android but the compatibility with OnePlus 10 Pro is still work in progress. Anyway if you are interested, take some inspiration here. I also want to fix this blog by taking inspiration from Small Web and Slow Web philosophies. , works for future browsers or at least relies on libre JavaScript (see also LibreJS) or no JavaScript at all.

And also to convince my loved one to try free and open source software on her devices (Apple 🙂 ). Lot of friends and family are using Whatsapp while I’m sold to Signal or alternatives. This one will be difficult to bypass. I aim at least to automatically backup all WhatsApp files to my Nextcloud.

Every small improvement towards more privacy, data portability, open-source, data ownership, freedom, will be worth it and I’ll share my findings with you 🙂

Web (browser) extensions I recommend

• LibRedirect a web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and other websites to their alternative privacy friendly frontends. You can find my settings here.
• Privacy Redirect a simple web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Instagram & Google Maps requests to privacy friendly alternatives.
• DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials includes tracker blocking, cookie protection, DuckDuckGo private search, email protection, HTTPS upgrading, and much more. I use it to generate temporary email addresses when my email is requested.
• Ultrablock blocks ads, trackers and third party cookies.
• Privacy Badger blocks invisible trackers.

Web (browser) extensions I’m Trying

• JShelter An anti-malware Web browser extension to mitigate potential threats from JavaScript, including fingerprinting, tracking, and data collection! But it causes some crappy websites to malfunction 😉
• Big Tech Detective helps you track tech giants. If fully activated, you won’t be able to browse certain websites and even some supposed privacy friendly tools, such as Duck Duck Go Search engine which behind the scene rely on Microsoft infrastructure and hard partnerships with Microsoft.

Android apps I recommend

• Exodus an app that audits Android apps for trackers.
• F-Droid a installable catalog of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform.
• Aegis Authenticator : a free, secure and open source app to manage your 2-step verification tokens for your online services.

WordPress plugins I recommend

• ActivityPub With this installed your WordPress blog itself functions as a federated profile, allowing to reach a wider audience.

Tools I recommend

• Kill the Newsletter Convert email newsletters to RSS feeds.
• Bitwarden which is a password manager. I’m hosting Vaultwarden which implements the same API. Bitwarden client is available on any popular platform.
• Invidious to be used as frontend alternative to YouTube. Same content as YouTube. No ads, no trackers.

Some reading I recommend

• https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/ watchdog of popular apps with trackers.

Self hosting providers

• I recommend Contabo (no sponsor here), that I’ve hand picked among many alternatives, while choosing a good VPS offering at good prices. Only downside is their administration panel UX, but other than that, it was cheap. And they buy green energy to run their servers. The alternatives I had compared Contabo with were OVH (way too expensive) and Hetzner (cheap but unfortunately their VPS hardware lacks AVX support thus is not compatible with Cloudron requirements). Contabo in the end beats VPS offerings of Hetzner and OVH at that price, with more storage and CPU for me !

Self hosted apps

• If you own a dedicated server / VPS, try Cloudron, it’s such an easy way to self host your apps and take control of your data ! I’m currently using it with Nextcloud, WordPress, and all apps mentioned below below :
• Wallabag as read-it later app.
• Miniflux minimalist and opinionated feed reader.
• Vaultwarden unofficial Bitwarden compatible server.
• Changedetection.io free open source website change detection, website watcher.
• PrivateBin minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data.
• Invoice Ninja Invoices, Expenses and Tasks built with Laravel, Flutter and React
• Gitea a self-hosted Git hosting service that offers code hosting, code review, team collaboration, package management and CI/CD features. It is compatible with GitHub Actions, Docker, various databases and tools, and supports multiple languages and architectures.
• Pixelfed a replacement for Instagram as it used to be (without all the ads, and crap).
• Shaarli personal, minimalist, super-fast, database free, bookmarking service. Useful for sharing links or keep them safe and private.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope these insights and recommendations help you in your journey towards a more private and self-reliant digital life. As always, I’m eager to hear your experiences and suggestions. Let’s make our digital space a bit more ours!

https://morgan.zoemp.be/charting-my-journey-away-from-big-tech-embracing-privacy-and-self-hosting-solutions/

#alternatives #android #cloudron #decentralization #degooglify #fediverse #libre #openSource #privacy #security #selfHosting

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