If you are in the US, take a look at Fidelity or Vanguard. They haven’t required the use of a smartphone app.

Using a phone with Android 8 isn’t best practice for security by any means, but unless you are being targeted or going around downloading shady apps, it’s more likely it will run into app incompatibility issues in the coming years than anything else.

For sites where I’m making a low-value, one-off purchase and never coming back, I’ll use a pseudonym alongside a prepaid gift card, or failing that, a privacy.com virtual card. Not quite a sustainable strategy with eBay or Amazon, especially if the package needs a signature, so I’ll just use a privacy.com virtual card and supply a P.O. Box address

Mostly accepted that it is the way it is for these things. If the privacy-friendly option is giving up a few conveniences, I’ll take it. But if it’s keeping me from reaching certain goals, I’ll tolerate a compromise. I don’t think I’m being targeted either, so it’s all tolerable in my personal threat model.

I did once while abroad. None of the shoe stores had the style I wanted in wide, so I went on Amazon and found a pair which reviewers tended to say fit well. Particularly that the listed size matched their expectations when they tried the actual shoe on. Ordered the size I thought would fit me and it did in fact fit me perfectly. It lasted about a year until it started leaking at the glued seam, which to be fair, wasn’t too disappointing for a 48-Euro no-name pair.

Granted, that was for men’s hiking shoes, can’t really speak for finding good high heels online. Other than for that one-off occasion, I’ve only shopped for shoes and clothes in-person.

One less possible data point for tracking

Also not invested enough in my profile to bother

Reinstalling GRUB in chroot so it ‘registers’ with the BIOS when cloning an install of Linux

The average social media profile has just headlines and lead pictures, while a good blog also has articles

We should have stuck with network file shares and FTP instead of outsourcing everything to Google. ‘Unlimited storage’ for select organizations was really good bait, but it was never sustainable.

I have heard those terms in the past, albeit not too often

Another common mozilla L

Mixed bag. I’m lucky enough that most of my work can be done on a Linux machine. Workplace does require us to bring our own devices, but the policy is extremely lax, no need to install any monitoring software or the like. Which lets me have a Linux desktop chilling on my desk.

But I do have to keep a laptop with Windows around. We sometimes have to work with overcomplicated Office documents that break on alternatives like LibreOffice or the occasional piece of proprietary software that needs direct USB access, which Wine cannot yet provide.

New local. I’m only subscribed to a handful of communities.

For sure. Mine did fill higher when it was new, but the low water level issue developed a few years in.

A luxury car complete with touchscreens, back when a touchscreen was magical and revolutionary. Car maintenance and privacy concerns have taught me to love the very opposite, a 90s Chevy.

New appliances. A matter of time until the fridge chokes itself since the coils are covered in dust and impossible to reach without tipping the whole fridge over. Also sorely regret replacing the old electromechanical washer instead of repairing it. New one fills with too little water at random and apparently it’s a controller board issue with no easy fix in sight.

Also Apple mobile devices, I understand they can’t keep supporting them forever, but the bootloader’s locked so I can’t even put something less demanding on it.

Kemove K87 with Red switches and o-rings at work. Keeps noise down and the tenkeyless layout is a nice compromise between desk space and functionality. Might switch it out for an ikbc tenkeyless with Cherry MX Silent Red switches that I got for cheap once. That I purchased to see if something without o-rings would feel better, but I’ll have to fix a couple broken switches first.

At home, a no-name tenkeyless with blue switches because that was what was on discount and I didn’t mind the clicking. Before that, I used a Monoprice full-size with brown switches and o-rings to keep the loud pinging down. Miss the feel of the brown switches, but not how much space it took on my desk.

I originally worried that my typing accuracy would suffer on the reds due to the lack of tactile bump, but I’m growing to prefer it since I don’t find myself making more typos, while the low actuation force makes long typing sessions more comfortable. Haven’t looked at more niche low-profile, etc. options though, can’t quite convince myself to drop more than $50 on a keyboard.

Check out zint

• Bulk unarchiver or a frontend for ffmpeg (using existing tools, both get very messy when special characters or multiple directories are involved)
  • Existing ffmpeg GUIs have had fixed lists of formats and options, making new or obscure ones inaccessible. There also needs to be an option to export the command based on GUI selections so the user can learn if they choose, or fix the command if something isn’t right.
• Adding the little details of Windows File Manager (i.e. Format dialog, search by attribute like MP3 bitrate) to some existing Linux file manager
• Mounting of network drives in Linux graphical file managers: many of them handle it through gvfs, which for some reason insists on mountpoints with long directory paths and special characters, breaking compatibility with various utilities
• Extending Linux Mint’s libadapta to further restore theming in libadwaita apps. This I am personally looking forward to contribute to as more programs move to libadwaita and disrupt the look I’ve painstakingly set up for my desktop.

Have been guilty of this when placing an online order, one time I simply forgot, the other time an obligation presented itself and I didn’t have time to go out of my way and pick it up. As for ordering at the counter and abandoning, IDK. Could be having to run for some urgent matter, but I’d agree it happens way too often to be just that.

If I had to go WiFi-only, there would probably be hours-long gaps when I am unreachable. So my compromise is to use a non-KYC data-only SIM. Even if VPN is left off, it routes traffic first to a datacenter far from my actual location, and there is no longer a route for unencrypted calls and SMS and the associated spam. I don’t have a habit of streaming media on the go, so the data lasts quite a while and there isn’t much of an urge to use public WiFi.

Doesn’t fully eliminate the problem as IMEI is still sent and the cellular modem is still a rogue black box, but a step in the right direction. Knowing that the cellular modem can run whatever code with deep privileges as it wishes, I try to keep as little of my business on my phone as I can, with the bulk of my workflow centered around my laptop. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this automatically makes me immune, but I do think it’s a neat little exercise. Perhaps one could abstract the problem of the modem by getting a separate wireless hotspot.

My friends and family have accepted that they either need to get Signal, XMPP, or Matrix or I will be largely unreachable. The only remaining need for SMS and GSM voice calls stems from work, which is all handled by my work phone that is powered down, or at least disconnected, once I leave for the day. It sucks that this is not the norm, but it looks like I am quite fortunate that my friends, family, and employer all tolerate this workflow.

Take a look at “IoT” SIM cards, they’re a bit expensive and data-only, but might not be subject to the same KYC regulations.

Wow! That’s much more that I would have thought. Can’t wait to liberate my dad’s phone over the holidays, he’s on board with me getting GrapheneOS on it. Will have to see what I can do to their home network as well though since mom’s stuck on a carrier-locked phone.

Wouldn’t be too bummed out about being single forever, but I’d also like to know what it’s like to settle down with a partner. I think I’d prefer the married life, can’t point out the exact reason why though.