Yes, but controls on local WiFi networks does nothing if they use a SIM to bypass it. So both are needed. And then that doesn’t take into account public networks, so controls are needed there. It’s a layered approach.

There’s a lot of info in these comments and a ton of it is good.

I will say that the best advice is to boot from a USB and try out a system for a bit. You can easily swap around that way without a commitment.

I will also say that my opinion is to start with Mint. It’s similar enough to windows in layout/workflow to feel familiar and is “boring” in a stable, easy to use way.

Use it and learn Linux. I say learn, because it doesn’t matter what the OS looks like as much as how it works, and Linux (any flavor) works differently than windows. Learn those idiosyncrasies and then of you decide you want to try something else then you’re up to speed to move on and judge a different system with a baseline.

In that regard you should buy a mini PC that has 2 network ports. You get the simplest out of the box hardware, modern and power friendly, and just run the LAN to a switch.

Note: I didn’t do this. I use an old PC with a NIC added for 4 ports. Gives me everything I need (and Intel NICs are better supported than Realtek ones). The “power hungry” isn’t really an issue. It is wasteful and inneficient technically speaking, but its not large dollars annually. It would take years to add up to the cost of buying a new machine.

They are a legitimate service. Whether you should use them or not is something you need to decide for yourself.

One of the biggest things they are good for is not giving all of your information away. A lot of these privacy companies simply spam out all of your information and request for the company to delete anything that matches that.

So for instance, if you signed up to a website newsletter with your email, they have your email address. And that’s it. Then comes a “privacy” company that send them your email address, name, home address, etc and asks them if they have any of this data then they need to delete it. That’s asinine and backwards.

DeleteMe doesn’t do this. They are more specific with how they process the data removal requests.

I’m not advocating for them, I don’t use them and probably never will. I have no idea if they are a good company or decent at what they claim to do. I just know they don’t do the spam technique.

Personally, any company that is a mass sponsor of YouTube channels is something I won’t trust myself. But that’s just my weird litmus test.

I’m another vote for mint. Coming from a windows environment its very similar in feel. Get use to how Linux works then you can always change to another distro if you want.

Also FYI, many distros can be loaded from a USB stick to test out. If you like it, you install. If you don’t, you move on to another. Mint does this, so you can test it without commiting to it, and just get a feel for the UI.

Honestly, it’s about learning how Linux works. Its a different mentality than Windows (or Mac). Learn the file structure, file permissions, how things update, etc. Nothing is crazy (and it’s better in so many ways) but you don’t really learn that stuff until you start using it.

I’ll be the black sheep and say I actually quite like using windows at work. Not really enjoyment per say, but the software suites and accessibility is different in the business world, which is primarily built around Microsoft. Not that you can’t do most of it with Linux and that Linux would do some things better, but I don’t really have an issue with most of it.

Would I choose it for my home use? Definitely not. But I’d think that fitting a Linux cog in a Microsoft machine would create more negatives than positives. This is all subjective of course, and depending on you job, company, industry this could wildly not apply.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate Microsoft. But their ecosystem isn’t all bad.

I mean, technically Defender is a pretty decent antivirus. Nothing wrong with that. Hopefully they use more than antivirus to keep you safe though. I think most decent EDR/XDR support Linux.

Safemo is a wireless camera system that saves files locally to the hub, and even allows you to upgrade the drive for more storage. Cameras can be battery powered only, or use a solar panel for continual recharging or the battery. The only flaw is the flaw with any wireless camera, that there is a delay from activity recognition to the record time. So you might miss something depending on your camera positioning.

It’s my opinion that most people think of all the technology as it were 15 years ago. Apple was innovative, Google wasn’t evil, Windows worked well, and Linux was not as accessible as it is today.

I had two bouts with Linux in the distant past, and neither time did I think Linux was anything worth pursuing. Not that it was bad, I just didn’t see a benefit over the alternatives. In fact the alternatives had all the benefits in my mind.

When I switched a year ago, I was blown away how far it had come as far as being accessible. Now I can’t imagine using Windows as my primary OS ever again.

Windows troubleshooting is always SFC and DISM as the new “have you tries turning it off and on again” default first recommended step lol.

I believe self hosting should be made easier. Definitely easier to understand.

If its not going to be that, then the opinion that people should self host is flawed. Not everybody can self host. They don’t have the knowledge or time to commit to it. So either it’s wrong to not have a better entry to them or it’s wrong to say they should self host.

I don’t self host much. What I do I keep with local access only. Why? Because while I’m no dummy, I also am very out of touch with modern tech and don’t have the time or energy to learn what I need to for it to be done right.

Its pretty straightforward. You just need to have secureboot disabled in bios so a third party driver can load.

Graphene is more than easy. It’s a browser based install with a USB cable. It’ll take some time to read through and execute the steps, but at the core its like 15 minutes of real work.

Both options are good. I think for the most part it boils down to wanting a single product or suite of products.

While you certainly can get just one proton service, the idea of having an easy entry point into multiple privacy focused solutions is what they are going for.

The pro argument for that is cheaper overall, simpler to get into and mange, etc. The con argument is an eggs in one basket philosophy isn’t ideal because you can have a single point of failure. This is all subjective to your personal threat model.

Probably not time yet. The interim is an alternate OS such as lineage or graphene. Don’t use google play and you’re fine.

Basically that’s a short term solution to wait out this stupid policy to get fixed, or if they double down it gives Linux phones a bit more time to come to market (I have not used one, but its essentially unanimous they are not ready to be a replacement today).

Opnsense with unbound DNS here. Running on an old PC that got converted to dedicated firewall (with added NIC card for ports). Nothing crazy, just enough to control what communicates out of my network.

I think one of the biggest challenges is alternate choices for creators. If everybody posted their content to YT plus another platform, things would naturally start shifting.

If a channel I follow posts to Odysee then I watch it there. I follow multiple channels that also post to Nebula, so I try to watch it there.

But there’s no clear standard for what platforms are good for what. There’s also a paywall issue with some (like aforementioned Nebula) that not everybody will be able to pay. I’ve also tried Curiosity Stream, and never watched it because there was no content I found worth it.

Then there’s the technical issues. I can’t believe that I am paying for Nubula when their app sucks so badly. (I will probably cancel but haven’t yet). Odysee is so much better than when it launched but it’s still a pile of dung. PeerTube I never felt worked well at all, so much so that maybe I’m missing something. But while I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed if I can’t figure it out then its a bad platform.

So in all reality, there isn’t a replacement for YT. I wish there was, but there isn’t. There should be, but there isn’t. Yes, we should try to post alternate links and such, but that’s not going to make much of a difference in the end.

And sorry, this all came out significantly negative sounding. I don’t mean to be crapping on the post or the idea. I just mean to point out that the issue is much deeper than user interactions. There’s an infrastructure problem first (we need a viable working alternative), then a content problem second (we need to convince creators to move there), and only last is there a user interaction issue (which this post is discussing).

Yes, this is how interest works and how lenders make money. It’s a lot.

The lessons are:

Pay a little bit more every month (applied to principal) to the effect of 1 additional monthly payment a year or more. It will dramatically reduce your overall interest and length of loan.

You’re talking about a long loan, during that time rates will rise and fall. When they fall, you refinance at a lower rate. Don’t extend your loan longer (don’t take another 30 year loan after you’ve lived there 5 years, take a 25 year loan). That will give you the best market results for something you can’t control.

SMS

Nobody wants to use a messaging app at all. At this point I’d rather be stuck on WhatsApp. But its all family. Big family and try to get them to agree on anything is like pulling teeth.

I even sent everybody a “contact card” I made with my links to signal, simplex, and even whatsapp (figuring that’s the path of least resistance) saying I’d prefer to communicate on any of those apps. ZERO people changed nor did they even ask about it, options, or my reasoning.

Good for you. I switched about a year ago and its been smooth sailing. I guarantee you’re going to like it.

Look at the update settings, you can set auto updates, purging old kernels no longer used, etc. (My partition kept filling up because old kernels were not being deleted)

Also should mention, set up Timeshift which backs up your system settings. That was you can roll back if anything ever goes wrong. (I’ve only needed this when I was experimenting and flew too close to the sun)