My own list of software, Open Source Everything, has taken a few suggestions from there. It’s a good list.

Are you one of its maintainers?

What does their router do that any router with openrouter doesn’t lol

It financially supports OpenWrt, for one :)

Well, switching to GrapheneOS shows that you don’t care what those companies do, and that you’re willing to fight. It means those companies lose one more customer. The more people that use GrapheneOS, the more companies will be forced to support it.

This is very bad news, because this means any app that wants your data could do the same.

Ideally, you would have zero iOS or Android devices in your household

*besides custom Android distributions that respect privacy ;)

That’s a good idea! I’ll be sure to include that in my post, thank you!

I know Proton VPN offers NetShield to its paid users. I forgot about DNS filtering because GrapheneOS doesn’t recommend using it over a VPN and the filters can make you stand out, but that’s just me. Good gift idea!

Good one!

This is meant to help you with ideas, not a strict guideline. You’ll notice I mentioned the following for the Google Pixel phones, for example, since I knew not everyone would be happy with it:

Other phones exist for this category, but the Google Pixel is a good baseline.

These gift ideas may not be for you, but plenty of other people would be happy with them.

Quest: Kali Bandits

The Kali have been terrorizing villages across Linuxia. I beg you, young traveler, help us fight them off. I’ll reward you with riches beyond compare!

Objective: Protect the village from the Kali bandits.

Reward: +500 gold

The questmakers haven’t updated the quest descriptions in a while. I’m waiting for the next update when they port the Whonix ISO kit.

I have [Ancient] Debian Armor and a GNOME as my companion. I often equip the Tor Browser Cloak of Invisibility. If slain, I will drop a Locked KeePassXC Database Chest. After completing the mission Revive bricked Linux system, I was awarded with the [Rare] Ego Potion. When drunk, it boosts all stats temporarily during a battle.

I personally can’t stand any other options except for Cinnamon (since it got a redesign) and a few distro-specific ones. That’s just me though. Explore away!

I have a potato laptop, so GNOME is a little too heavy on it. I think KDE Plasma would be fine for a desktop, but I’m addicted to GNOME

I use both: GNOME works better for a desktop, KDE Plasma works better for a laptop.

There are more than those 2 options for a Desktop Environment, by the way ;)

I would add to the conversation with the questions;

I love fostering discussions, and I’m glad to see you do too!

Should all information be known?

Obviously nothing good can come if we all turn into the Borg. However, the question becomes more interesting when you consider different people. Should all of your information be known? No, obviously not. Should all of the CIA’s information (besides the personal information of others) be known?

Is all information equal in value?

My previous counter question assumes that no, not all information is of equal value. However, even if the value of information differs, your ability to control if that information is shared should not be diminished.

I had a boss that would remember everything you told to them, and would make incomplete assumptions about it. If you told them you liked dogs, they would assume dogs are your favorite animal. If you told them you got scratched by a cat, they would assume you absolutely hate cats. In this context, “mundane” information such as my personal preferences (favorite animal, etc.) is not something I would want to share with my boss, since nothing good comes from it. Even though the information has “less value,” the value of it was raised depending on who I told.

Your social security number is high value to say, your neighbor, but not necessarily the DMV. CIA documents may be high value against other countries, but it might be worth making it available to national citizens. So, information itself does not have a set value above any other piece of information, but it does have differing value depending on who you share it with.

The issue that arises from this approach, as I’ve found, is that people have something to hide from you, but not the government/large corporations. When they feel as if they are in a pool, they feel less important compared to being singled out by you.

You could instead do something similar: “Why does the FBI need to know what color of underwear you wear?” etc. to help them realize that surveillance goes much deeper than they realize, and not everything is relevant information.

seems to advocate for what’s conventionally called Security Through Obscurity

I was trying to avoid making it sound like iOS was more secure in that because it’s proprietary. The claim I was trying to make is that open source software isn’t necessarily more secure than proprietary software and being open source can make it easier to craft an attack compared to if it were proprietary. I also mentioned that there are, of course, more variables at play, such as sideloading.

In my eyes, security via obscurity is a deterrent, not a solution. It can help prevent attacks or make attacks harder, but it doesn’t fix the underlying issues.

Also, iOS has public kernel source code.

I actually didn’t know this! Thank you, I learned something new today :)

So… they only warn people about how insecure texting is after someone else exploits it…

rewrites never end well.

NewPipe seems to acknowledge this: “Anyone who’s been in the FOSS community for long has come across at least one or two failed rewrites or refactors, and we don’t want to repeat such tragic history.”

It’s been a year and a half since they made their post. I’m fairly certain they plan to take as long as they need in order to make sure not to repeat other’s mistakes. Plenty of rewrites do end well. Once NewPipe finishes their rewrite, I have no doubt that it will be a bit bumpy for a while. It’s a drastic change, so issues are bound to crop up. I have faith in them.