Use the user profiles feature of grapheneos to make a “social” profile and only use that to access Instagram / facebook.

Meta sells your convo data on WhatsApp for ads, if you use it you will get targeted ads regardless.

Other options are signal (Molly on fdroid), simplex, etc.

And if you need port forwarding use airvpn. Proton seems more and more sketch every day

Okay you asked the question, got the answer, and are clearly not listening to what people are saying and still trying to get people to agree this one is just as good…

Scrap this shitty freemium copycat add on and just use ublock origin.

It seriously is not that complicated.

There’s also eSpeak but I haven’t tried it personally

Google updated something that broke most third party clients this past week… newpipe had the fix within an evening and the rest followed shortly after.

I had multiple updates over a few days on smarttube beta so the devs must have been working overtime to get it fixed and its working great again now.

Reminder to consider donating to the project if you get use out of it.

Airvpn is what I landed on for port forwarding

Ya there’s no such thing as “being forced to use it”. What are they going to do, lock you in your room with no food if you refuse? Just stand up for yourself and say you are not comfortable having it in your room and don’t compromise on it.

The TSA’s goal is to roll out the tech in all of the more than 430 airports that it covers, arguing that this kind of automation would reduce “friction” at airports — meaning, presumably, how long it takes passengers to move through security.

If you’re unhappy about the use of the tech, you can consider generating more friction next time you fly.

Good closing line

There’s nothing stopping creators from doing sponsored videos and/or sharing their liberapay/opencollective/patreon on peertube, they even provide a dedicated place for it.

Most of the youtubers I follow claim YouTube’s direct compensation makes up very little of their overall income, especially since YouTube keeps lowering the compensation/demonetizing everything. Most of their income comes from sponsored videos, patreons, and merch sales. Maybe it depends on the youtuber but it seems consistent with those I follow.

Doesn’t need to happen often, its a possibility for x number of people passing thru the borders any given day. They have the legal right to force your biometrics to unlock your device. Removing it ahead of time is prudent.

If you breeze thru no problems; no harm no foul, just add your thumb again.

I feel like the pixel 8 is in a good sweet spot right now for remaining update support, price, features, etc.

I’m sure it varies by country but I got two upgrades from my carrier during blackfriday deals and my total monetary commitment per 256GB pixel 8 works out to $240 CAD over 2 years while lowering my monthly plan fee and increasing my data cap compared to before on my BYOD plan.

Extremely cheap for what I would argue is an ideally sized (maybe a bit big) flagship phone.

1000% worth it to get grapheneos. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, its LIBERATING to feel in control of your own device again.

Edit: regarding your AA disconnects, my s10 on Samsung’s stock android had disconnects too over the course of several years and many updates;, AA just kinda sucks tbh.

Ya don’t go. /s

But for real, so many better places to visit in the world.

But definitely remove biometrics at minimum.

If your OS allows you could setup a dummy user profile and have your phone on that at the border?

if you have grapheneos they just recently added the ability to set a “security pin” that starts an uninterruptable wipe with no restart needed. Just make sure its not something you can pocket fumble accidentally.

Hmmm nope I just updated some apps yesterday. I had to uninstall and reinstall Aurora store cause it wasnt showing the anonymous option anymore, but after that it popped up and worked like normal, no sign in.

Look into the user profiles feature to further isolate any play store apps you still use. I have one profile called gshit and thats the only one I install anything non-opensource on from the Aurora store.

This prevents any playstore apps from accessing say photos, contacts, messages, etc on your main profile.

PS. If you don’t like the stock launcher either you should check out KISS launcher (minimal mode)

Hmm ya that is a little lower limit than I expected on premium. Could hit that with normal throwaway acc use.

Would be nice if they allowed like 10 IMO but I guess they have to set the limit somewhere to stop spammers using the service.

Guess you could delete the older aliases as you stop using those throwaways and recycle the slot? Not a perfect solution, but 4 throwaways and 1 main at any given time isnt too shabby.

Paint me like one of your French girls, Jack

How many is “multiple times” may be useful information. Ball park numbers atleast?

I have a gulikit king kong pro 2 (I think I got the name right). Been using it about a year now, works good on linux (Nobara). Has various modes for different consoles and phones and hall effect sensor sticks (which wont have stick drift) which was the motivation for trying it, along with the lower price compared to the official Xbox controller. Came with a nice hard case and rechargeable lithium too.

Been pleasantly surprised so far.

I used to really like it back in the Nokia 820 days when Nokia still owned it. Had really advanced features like AR POI’s and stuff way ahead of its time. I just assumed they are collecting and selling ALL your data now that car companies own it since thats what all car companies do using the infotainment, why wouldnt they in their own navigation software too?

Edit: forgot to mention what I use now, combo of OSMand~, organic maps, and when I cant find an address or POI on either of those, Apple maps through duckduckgo’s maps portal, and try to add it to OSM

No need to DIY, Anki has tons of flash cards packs to download for free for any language.

Anki + downloading ready made vocab packs is a nice tool in the toolbox. Wont teach you a language on its own but good for increasing your vocab.