I am trying to re-adjust how much effort I want to put into privacy concerns. Too much stuff I’m using isn’t working properly or using a lot of my mental resources that I need elsewhere.

For (a bad) example: I recently performed a half-switch from my self-hosted Nextcloud instance to ProtonDrive, in the hope that it would spare me the stress to maintain my private Nextcloud. Unfortunately, it doesn’t, as basic functionality like cross-device-sync is not possible (there isn’t even a client app for Linux, as of yet).

This brings me to the question: have you found any services/apps/stuff that significantly eases your life while still being privacy friendly? I know, this is a broad question, but I think this is for the best as this thread then maybe even has use for other users.

  • haui
    6•6 months ago

    NC isnt perfect imo but its like having an open source car or house. Its not emergency ready like no downtime, no bugs, no issues but it will do 95% uptime if configured correctly and its is insanely versatile. I cant imagine any other app being this versatile. You can check my setup if you want.

      • haui
        2•6 months ago

        Nextcloud, yes. It is insane. Its a full cloud experience. Documents, bookmarks, pictures, whiteboards and more.

  • @Ilandar@aussie.zone
    12•6 months ago

    If I am being completely honest, there are very few. Convenience is consistently the #1 trade-off when I make privacy-based decisions about which applications and services to use.

    An exception I can think of are ad and tracker blockers like uBlock Origin, iodé, etc - I cannot imagine life without them Any time I borrow the phone or computer of someone who doesn’t have an equivalent of these installed I am just blown away by how many ads they are confronted with while performing even the simplest tasks. And not just harmless ones, but ads that directly waste their time. I genuinely don’t understand how people can live like that unless they just don’t know there is an alternative.

    I guess another one I can think of is the Aurora Store. The UI is so much cleaner than the Google Play Store’s, important settings and features aren’t hidden and it has some additional features like Exodus Report that I think are genuinely useful. It’s so superior as an application that I actually prefer using it even on devices where the Play Store is installed and working.

  • BoisZoiEnglish
    4•6 months ago

    Niether are open source, but the full versions of AdGuard for each platform, Adguard Public DNS and DuckDuckGo.

  • @LWD@lemm.ee
    10•6 months ago

    Mobile Fennec (or pick your poison for any Firefox fork) has made browsing overall much better. Between ad blocking, Enhanced Tracking Protection and a paywall-bypassing extension, browsing is overall less tedious than a comparable Chromelike.

      • @laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
        1•6 months ago

        I’ve used Firefox mobile for a while now and I’ve had zero issues. The attack surface may be “much more,” but that doesn’t mean that it’s completely open to hackers.

        Plus let’s be real: Gecko-based browsers are, what, 1% of the browser market? Guess which browser is the most targeted by malicious actors? Not the one having 1% of the market, that’s for sure.

        • @FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
          1•6 months ago

          Gecko-based browsers are, what, 1% of the browser market?

          Last I checked, Firefox was close to 3%, but you right, still not a large number.

          Guess which browser is the most targeted by malicious actors? Not the one having 1% of the market, that’s for sure.

          It doesn’t have to attract the most attackers, especially if it is notoriously weak. You shouldn’t choose software that is easier to exploit simply because it’s more obscure. Do you also choose weaker encryption algorithms because no one uses them? I sure hope not.

          And your comment would probably ring a little more true, except we just had the xz debacle, and guess how much Linux has of a market share? Probably close to Firefox’s, both in the single digits.

          • @laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
            1•6 months ago

            No, I use Firefox because it’s an excellent browser. It doesn’t fit GrapheneOS’s security requirements, but then, I’m not too concerned, because it’s quite secure regardless. Even to the point in which it’s more annoying than Chrome for certain things (like HTST.) You’re trying to paint Firefox as “easy to exploit” when that’s not true. Easier doesn’t mean easy. The Kremlin might be easier to sneak into than the Pentagon. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Hell, Tor uses it to build its Tor browser. They could very well use Chromium for that.

            guess how much Linux has of a market share?

            You’re probably referring to desktop Linux. Linux is used in billions of devices all over the world, and it reigns in the server space. So, no. Not “in the single digits” usage.

      • @LWD@lemm.ee
        5•6 months ago

        Personally, I’m okay with shouldering the security risk considering the internet-wide toxicity of Chrome and forks.

        Lynx would be more secure than either.

  • @LemmyHead@lemmy.ml
    28•6 months ago

    Ntfy - no more google reading notifications
    Jellyfin - media served without questionable Plex account
    Arch - on so many levels allows me a private computing experience
    Posteo - simple but efficient email service
    Resilio sync - cloudless syncing

    • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      12•6 months ago

      NTFY looks intriguing.

      If I’m reading the description properly, it uses an HTTP server as the middleman for the notifications?

      Pretty neat nifty idea. (Yea, had to come back and edit because I missed a great opportunity).

      • @LemmyHead@lemmy.ml
        7•6 months ago

        It’s based on unifiedpush standard https://unifiedpush.org/. So a central notification middleman like google firebase for all your apps (that support it). There’s messengers like mercurygram, fluffychat, Molly that support it and you can also send notifications yourself via a simple curl command.

        • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
          4•6 months ago

          Wow, I really appreciate how they use animations to show how it works (and I generally despise any animation on a home page).

          That’s how it should be done.

          Also, what they’ve done is impressive. Smart. I had no idea this existed, though I’ve seen another open solution to Unified Messaging (just can’t recall what). This is really promising.

    • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      7•6 months ago

      I look forward to SimpleX development - it’s already come a long way.

      It’s unfortunately heavy on ram for me.

  • @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
    3•6 months ago

    NewPipe makes life very easy.

    OSMAnd+ does not lead me to deadends and weird places, and saves the day when others using Google Maps fails.

    • @ErwinLottemann@feddit.de
      5•6 months ago

      i wonder why this happens. are you from somewhere where this is common or were your transactions shady? i only got my bank block one transaction for me and that was because i didn’t know i had to ‘activate’ the ability to send money to accounts in the eu

      • @delirious_owl@discuss.online
        3•6 months ago

        Likely its because of all the other privacy tools that I use. Banks don’t like it when they can’t track you. Every time they think I have a new device. They interpret “oh shit we can’t track this person between sessions” as “its suspicious! Lock the account!” …even though I use the correct username & password on the very first try. Smh

        Ultimately this is the result of Machine Leaning algorithms, but terrible ones because they never learn that they false positive 100% of the time on my account.

        Anyway, this is never an issue with monero. The transactions can’t be blocked. It literally works every time. And I hold the keys, so I don’t have to worry about loosing my money because my bank gets hacked (or someone calls them with the knowledge of my mother’s maiden name and the last 4 street addresses I had, and uses this public information to reset my password and steal my money)

  • @Dupree878@lemmy.world
    -1•6 months ago

    Apple

    It seems to get derided a lot here, but none of your data is harvested and tied to you or sold. It’s aggregated and anonymised if it’s sent off device, and I stopped using Proton drive when you could finally encrypt iCloud storage. I even use their email as default now since it’s not reading my messages and selling my info like outlook started doing.

    • @lens17@feddit.deOP
      1•5 months ago

      I was considering to switch to apple for this reason, but I’ve read that in terms of privacy, there’s no significant difference between a Pixel Android with Stock OS and an iPhone. This made me hesitant. I really just want things to go smooth and hasslefree without being spied on and coerced… Do you, by chance, have any reading material on the privacy of apple services I could read up on?

  • @abbenm@lemmy.ml
    36•6 months ago

    NewPipe is a killer app I would say, with nearly Youtube Red level functionality in something that’s free and OSS. A bit afield from privacy, but you do get to access youtube stuff without logging in.

    • themadcodger
      12•6 months ago

      From what I understand, NewPipe has been abandoned and someone else forked it to Tubular which includes SponsorBlock.

      • Ulair
        2•6 months ago

        Newpipe is definitely not abandoned. :) But always nice to learn of an alternative

      • @FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
        29•6 months ago

        From what I understand, NewPipe has been abandoned…

        That’s completely incorrect. From NewPipe’s Github:

        We are planning to rewrite large chunks of the codebase, to bring about a new, modern and stable NewPipe. Please do not open pull requests for new features now, only bugfix PRs will be accepted.

        …and someone else forked it to Tubular which includes SponsorBlock.

        polymorphicshade “stopped” development on their fork of NewPipe, which included SponsorBlock (because NewPipe did not want to include it) and started working on their rewrite of their own fork and/or NewPipe, which is now Tubular.