Signal has done a very good job of making it easy to get started with the app. The alternatives (Matrix, Simplex, Briar etc.) are all more awkward.

Zuckerberg hung out with Trump at Mar a Lago and attended the inauguration, then got rid of Facebook and Instagram’s fact checking, relaxed their rules on posting hate speech and discrimination, ended Meta’s diversity initiatives, removed bathroom facilities at meta for transgender and nonbinary employees, made speeches in defence of Trump and expressed gratitude for finally being able to have “a productive partnership with the United States government”, while removing communications channels for employees and threatening them with being fired if they talked to media about any of this. He has gone full MAGA.

This article covers some of it: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/technology/mark-zuckerberg-meta-trump.html

There are virus scanners for Android - I have Bitdefender on mine - but I don’t know how effective they are. Back in the day they were a bit of a gimmick; I don’t know whether they’re better now.

I have seen other apps from F-Droid do this. NewPipe, I think, used to prompt me for updates even though I had installed it from F-Droid. But I was always a bit unsure so I tended to just go back to F-Droid to install newer versions. Maybe it’s a thing some apps do but I don’t know why they should need to and I don’t entirely trust it.

I have the one installed from the Play Store, and it hasn’t done that. It sounds potentially suspect.

Not all of these mini PCs have a wifi card in them even if they have the antennas for it. You might start by opening it to check whether the wifi antennas are connected, or whether you need to add a WiFi card.

I think OPNsense would do what you’re looking for. I use it on a mini PC as my router, and it’s great, but I have not used it for WiFi (I run a separate access point). The limitation is WiFi hardware support. You will need to make sure your mini PC’s WiFi card has a driver in FreeBSD. Intel hardware is often a better bet than Realtek etc.

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/interface_wireless_internal.html

I don’t see this as the USA turning into China. China has many problematic aspects, and being an immigrant or an LGBTQ+ person in China is probably not fun, but China at this point is less stupid and understands competitiveness. China would not defund all its science overnight, hamstring its technology and trash its whole economy with tariffs on goods it cannot produce domestically, withdraw vaccines in the face of new epidemics, and cancel sustainable energy projects and funding while denying climate science. The new US Government is just shooting the country in the foot again and again.

Which one to trust more is at least debatable. In the end, neither can be trusted.

That user just seems to be a consistent purveyor of pro-China viewpoints. Whether in an official capacity or not, they’re very enthusiastic for everything the Chinese government does.

They do have categories, via the menu at the top:

https://openalternative.co/categories

To be fair, it’s easier to be ignorant of neo-Nazi numerology than of their use of the swastika.

I’m just aware of how these people signal to each other. I don’t know anything about the Proton CEO’s politics, but numbers like 14 and 88 in usernames are common dogwhistles.

Thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t know about that good luck meaning.

Oh OK, that makes sense. Still, an unfortunate choice of username that could add to the confusion.

Is he really using u/andy1011000? And he just started now? That’s binary for andy88, and isn’t 88 a well-known neo-Nazi dogwhistle as idiot code for “heil Hitler”?

Isn’t 88 neo-Nazi code for “heil Hitler”? And isn’t putting it in binary to disguise it evidence that he knows full well what it means?

I know you don’t want to pay for their sync service and this is the self-hosted community, but I just wanted to note that they service does work well and gives you access to note history. I decided to pay because Obsidian is excellent and I wanted to support it. I just wish it were open source.

Many of our home customers’ feedback indicated a preference for the certainty provided by an annual plan. The annual plan offers assurance that you always have access to the latest version with innovations such as improvements we’ve made in compression speeds and algorithms. It also ensures you have access to critical updates and are protected against new threats and risks.

I think they made that up. I highly doubt their customers expressed any such preference.

I did watch it in the end after your recommendation, and it was interesting. Thanks!

It’s 30 minutes. Anyone have a quick summary?

Because they have undue power over our lives.