#source: ALL OF US ARE USING FIREFOX AND UBLOCK-

[infinitystation]

most annoying people on the internet right now are the people going onto the youtube adblock posts like "HAH! you idiot! you CLEARLY arent using firefox and ublock origin! i know everything you are doing based solely on this single post you made!" all said to a guy who is using ublock and firefox

[daisywords]

if youtube is going to insist on having that many ads, they should at least give me the option to do them all at once at the beginning. interspersing the ads throughout is wrong and evil. So is making them play at the end (if you do this they should be ones that don't have sound. blease.) Anyway this environment is absolutely inhospitable to someone here to listen to ambient music while working (me) or stuff specifically designed to fall asleep to. to, you know, fall asleep to (also me).

[errorid-mt7lt7k7unfr9ttfua5]

me when companies try to force you to use their proprietary software

anyway

Layperson resources:

firefox is an open source browser by Mozilla that makes privacy and software independence much easier. it is very easy to transfer all your chrome data to Firefox

ublock origin is The highest quality adblock atm. it is a free browser extension, and though last i checked it is available on Chrome google is trying very hard to crack down on its use

Thunderbird mail is an open source email client also by mozilla and shares many of the same advantages as firefox (it has some other cool features as well)

libreOffice is an open source office suite similar to microsoft office or Google Suite, simple enough

Risky:

VPNs (virtual private networks) essentially do a number of things, but most commonly they are used to prevent people from tracking your IP address. i would suggest doing more research. i use proton vpn, as it has a decent free version, and the paid version is powerful

note: some applications, websites, and other entities do not tolerate the use of VPNs. you may not be able to access certain secure sites while using a VPN, and logging into your personal account with some services while using a vpn *may* get you PERMANENTLY BLACKLISTED from the service on that account, ymmv

IF YOU HAVE A DECENT VPN, ANTIVIRUS, AND ADBLOCK, you can start learning about piracy, though i will not be providing any resources, as Loose Lips Sink Ships. if you want to be very safe, start with streaming sites and never download any files, though you Can learn how to discern between safe, unsafe, and risky content.

note: DO NOT SHARE LINKS TO OR NAMES OF PIRACY SITES IN PUBLIC PLACES, ESPECIALLY SOCAL MEDIA

the only time you should share these things are either in person or in (preferably peer-to-peer encrypted) PRIVATE messages

when pirated media becomes well-known and circulated on the wider, public internet, it gets taken down, because it is illegal to distribute pirated media and software

if you need an antivirus i like bitdefender. it has a free version, and is very good, though if youre using windows, windows defender is also very good and it comes with the OS

Advanced:

linux is great if you REALLY know what you're doing. you have to know a decent amount of computer science and be comfortable using the Terminal/Command Prompt to get/use linux. "Linux" refers to a large array of related open source Operating Systems. do research and pick one that suits your needs. im still experimenting with various dispos, but im leaning towards either Ubuntu Cinnamon or Debian.

[autolenaphilia]

Why enshittification happens and how to stop it.

The enshittification of the internet and increasingly the software we use to access it is driven by profit. It happens because corporations are machines for making profits from end users, the users and customers are only seen as sources of profits. Their interests are only considered if it can help the bottom line. It's capitalism.

For social media it's users are mainly seen by the companies that run the sites as a way for getting advertisers to pay money that can profit the shareholders. And social media is in a bit of death spiral right now, since they have seldom or never been profitable and investor money is drying up as they realize this.

So the social media companies. are getting more and more desperate for money. That's why they are getting more aggressive with getting you to watch ads or pay for the privilege of not watching ads. It won't work and tumblr and all the other sites will die eventually.

But it's not just social media companies, it's everything tech-related. It gets worse the more monopolistic a tech giant is. Google is abusing its chrome-based near monopoly over the web, nerfing adblockers, trying to drm the web, you name it. And Microsoft is famously a terrible company, spying on Windows users and selling their data. Again, there is so much money being poured into advertising, at least 493 billion globally, the tech giants want a slice of that massive pie. It's all about making profits for shareholders, people be damned.

And the only insurance against this death spiral is not being run by a corporation. If the software is being developed by a non-profit entity, and it's open source, there is no incentive for the developers to fuck over the users for the sake of profits for shareholders, because there aren't any profits, and no shareholders.

Free and Open source software is an important part of why such software development can stay non-corporate. It allows for volunteers to contribute to the code and makes it harder for users to be secretly be fucked over by hidden code.

Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are good examples of this. There is a Mozilla corporation, but it exists only for legal reasons and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla foundation. There are no shareholders. That means the Mozilla corporation is not really a corporation in the sense that Google is, and as an organization has entirely different incentives. If someone tells you that Mozilla is just another corporation, (which people have said in the notes of posts about firefox on this very site) they are spreading misinformation.

That's why Firefox has resisted the enshittification of the internet so well, it's not profit driven. And people who develop useful plugins that deshitify the web like Ublock origin and Xkit are as a rule not profit-driven corporations.

And you can go on with other examples of non-profit software like Libreoffice and VLC media player, both of which you should use.

And you can go further, use Linux as your computer's operating system.. It's the only way to resist the enshitification that the corporate duopoly of Microsoft and Apple has brought to their operating system. The plethora of community-run non-profit Linux distributions like Debian, Mint and Arch are the way to counteract that, and they will stay resistant to the same forces (creating profit for shareholders) that drove Microsoft to create Windows 11.

Of course not all Linux distributions are non-profits. There are corporate created distros like Red Hat's various distros, Canonical's Ubuntu and Suse's Opensuse, and they prove the point I'm making. There has some degree of enshittification going on with those, red hat going closed source and Canonical with the snap store for example. Mint is by now a succesful community-driven response to deshitify Ubuntu by removing snaps for example, and even they have a back-up plan to use Debian as a base in case Canonical makes Ubuntu unuseable.

As for social media, which I started with, I'm going to stay on tumblr for now, but it will definitely die. The closest thing to a community run non-profit replacement I can see is Mastodon, which I'm on as @autolenaphilia@chaosfem.tw.

You don't have to keep using corporate software, and have it inevitably decline because the corporations that develop it cares more about its profits than you as an end user.

The process of enshittification proves that corporations being profit-driven don't mean they will create a better product, and in fact may cause them to do the opposite. And the existence of great free and open source software, created entirely without the motivation of corporate profits, proves that people don't need to profit in order to help their fellow human beings. It kinda makes you question capitalism.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/766611758459879424/youtube-just-showed-me-the-most-dumb-video-essay?source=share

Youtube fed you that swill and you actually watched it? And then you read the comments?? That's why the algorithm is like this. Feeding people hateful garbage makes them stick around.

Log out (If you very much like features that are only available logged in, just make a second google account to use for youtube and nothing else)

Download Firefox https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/windows/

Go into the privacy settings and set Enhanced Tracking Protection to "strict"

Install an adblocker, I like ublock origin https://ublockorigin.com/

Optionally, install some more anti-track addons, like Privacy Badger or Duckduckgo's privacy essentials

Install the container addon and set one up to qurantine youtube away from everything else https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

Now what you have is a box that has youtube in it and literally nothing else. No ads, no personal information, no creepy stalkerware, no ability for other websites to see in the box, or for youtube to see out of it.

And now the fun part. Use the adblocker to nuke the entire sidebar and endcard overlays. Just select these with the eyedropper from the adblock extension, preview it to make sure you're not blocking more than you mean to, and bam, it's like three clicks and and you'll never see it again, it's beautiful.

Do this and you can watch all the videos you please and will NEVER have the algorithm shove some misogynistic garbage in your face because it crunched some math and knows that users with your profile are stasticsally likely to spend time on the side when served that sort of trash.

You can also use the adblocker to get rid of the entire comments section, or to nuke any design element or feature that you find annoying or ugly. It's called an adblocker, but it blocks anything based on URLs and HTML strings. The posibilites are endless, freeing, and beautiful. I use adblockers for aesthetics and accesibility at least as much as for actual ads.

I do this with every website I use regularily, including tumblr (though only the worst few [including youtube] have dedicated quarantine containers). It's a few steps to set up, but once you have the extensions installed and know how to use them, nuking algorithmic feeds and making sure that you only see what you actually want to see takes like ten seconds.

And no, before you say you have to use the app, this does work on mobile. Download Firefox for mobile, install the adblocker, install the anti-trackers, and use youtube in the browser instead of the app because taking an extra three seconds to load and having a slightly less optimized layout is worth not being unundated with advertisements and hate.

You can also root your phone and install adblockers that work with apps, but that's a more involved process and takes more effort and knowledge than simply installing a new browser and using an eyedropper tool to select a sidebar.

--

[amalgamasreal]

On Personal InfoSec

Been awhile since I've had one of these posts but I figure with all that's going on in the world it's time to make another one of these posts and get some stuff out there for people. A lot of the information I'm going to go over you can find here:

So if you'd like to just click the link and ignore the rest of the post that's fine, I strongly recommend checking out the Privacy Guides.

Browsers:

There's a number to go with but for this post going forward I'm going to recommend Firefox. I know that the Privacy Guides lists Brave and Safari as possible options but Brave is Chrome based now and Safari has ties to Apple. Mullvad is also an option but that's for your more experienced users so I'll leave that up to them to work out.

Browser Extensions:

uBlock Origin: content blocker that blocks ads, trackers, and fingerprinting scripts. Notable for being the only ad blocker that still works on Youtube.

Privacy Badger: Content blocker that specifically blocks trackers and fingerprinting scripts. This one will catch things that uBlock doesn't catch but does not work for ads.

Facebook Container: "but I don't have facebook" you might say. Doesn't matter, Meta/Facebook still has trackers out there in EVERYTHING and this containerizes them off away from everything else.

Bitwarden: Password vaulting software, don't trust the password saving features of your browsers, this has multiple layers of security to prevent your passwords from being stolen.

ClearURLs: Allows you to copy and paste URL's without any trackers attached to them.

VPN:

Note: VPN software doesn't make you anonymous, no matter what your favorite youtuber tells you, but it does make it harder for your data to be tracked and it makes it less open for whatever network you're presently connected to.

Mozilla VPN: If you get the annual subscription it's ~$60/year and it comes with an extension that you can install into Firefox.

Proton VPN: Has easily the most amount of countries serviced, can take cash payments, and does offer port forwarding.

Email Provider:

Note: By now you've probably realized that Gmail, Outlook, and basically all of the major "free" e-mail service providers are scraping your e-mail data to use for ad data. There are more secure services that can get you away from that but if you'd like the same storage levels you have on Gmail/Outlook.com you'll need to pay.

Proton Mail: Secure, end-to-end encrypted, and fairly easy to setup and use. Offers a free option up to 1gb

Tuta: Secure, end-to-end encrypted, been around a very long time, and offers a free option up to 1gb.

Email Client:

Thunderbird if you're on Windows or Linux

Apple Mail if you're on macOS

Cloud Storage:

Proton Drive: Encrypted cloud storage from the same people as Proton Mail.

Tresorit: Encrypted cloud storage owned by the national postal service of Switzerland. Received MULTIPLE awards for their security stats.

Peergos: decentralized and open-source, allows for you to set up your own cloud storage, but will require a certain level of expertise.

Microsoft Office Replacements:

LibreOffice: free and open-source, updates regularly, and has the majority of the same functions as base level Microsoft Office.

OnlyOffice: cloud-based, free, and open source.

Chat Clients:

Note: As you've heard SMS and even WhatsApp and some other popular chat clients are basically open season right now. These are a couple of options to replace those.

Signal: Provides IM and calling securely and encrypted, has multiple layers of data hardening to prevent intrusion and exfil of data.

Molly (Android OS only): Alternative client to Signal. Routes communications through the TOR Network.

Briar: Encrypted IM client that connects to other clients through the TOR Network, can also chat via wifi or bluetooth.

Now for the last bit, I know that the majority of people are on Windows or macOS, but if you can get on Linux I would strongly recommend it. pop_OS, Ubuntu, and Mint are super easy distros to use and install. They all have very easy to follow instructions on how to install them on your PC and if you'd like to just test them out all you need is a thumb drive to boot off of to run in demo mode.

If you game through Steam their Proton emulator in compatibility mode works wonders, I'm presently playing a major studio game that released in 2024 with no Linux support on it and once I got my drivers installed it's looked great. There are some learning curves to get around, but the benefit of the Linux community is that there's always people out there willing to help.

I hope some of this information helps you and look out for yourself, it's starting to look scarier than normal out there.

[imustbenuts]

so. theres bots trying to hug this hellsite's user experience to death in the trigun tag by spamming some video with autoplay audio thereby killing my ears when its overlayed by x10 on desktop. blocking too many posts actually breaks endless scrolling, and in the case of tag search here ends up functionally stranding a fandom of that tag. so i found a workaround without using tumblr's native block or filters which results in that

it only works for browser with a adblock plugin that allows for customizable filters btw. im using Firefox with uBlock Origin. (so get this if you need it)

bc the source of all these fuckass videos are from dailymotion with multiple different sublinks, the downside is that this method kills dailymotion embeded video links too. but anyway. slap this link into the filter:

https://geo.dailymotion.com/

so something like this:

hit save or apply or whatever. and now it should appear like this:

step the fuck up tumblr mods

[tequitoclown]

List of programs and stuff I use

[pt: List of programs and stuff I use ./end pt]

Disclaimer: This is in no way trying to say I have the best setup of all time or anything. The point of this post is mostly to introduce people to cool things they may not know about, or a place to point to when someone asks what I use!

(Last updated: 6/28/24)

Browser

[pt: browser ./end pt]

Firefox (Windows/Linux/MacOS/Android/IOS) - Obviously I recommend Firefox above all else, especially with chromium-based browsers moving onto manifest V3.

Bitwarden (Windows/Linux/MacOS/Android/IOS) - Good password manager! Used it for years with no complaints!

AdNauseam (Firefox/Chrome) - My adblocker. It's built upon uBlock Origin and has all the same features, but it actively clicks on the ads to waste advertiser money. If that's not up your alley, uBlock Origin is fantastic too!

Wayback Machine extension (Firefox/Chrome/Safari) - Allows you to make snapshots of pages, or view old snapshots if a page isn't loading correctly!

XKit ReWritten (Firefox/Chrome) - Pretty much a must-have for Tumblr. Has a ton of features to make navigating this site much better. Full feature list here!

Discord

[pt: Discord ./end pt]

Vencord (Windows/Linux/MacOS) - A modified Discord client that adds support for plugins and themes. Basically allows you to install plugins from a massive list that improves Discord. (Technically against ToS. Basically, don't post that you're using it in big servers, and turn off your themes before sharing screenshots.)

Bunny (Android/IOS) - If you miss Vendetta for Discord, Bunny is an actively maintained fork of Vendetta! Basically the same as above, but for Android/IOS instead of desktop. Same warnings about ToS apply.

Aliucord (Android) - Miss the old Android app feel, and still want to have plugins/themes? Pretty cool but has a less impressive theme/plugin selection. Same warnings about ToS apply.

Bluecord (Android) - Another Discord modification without the new Discord UI!

Youtube

[pt: Youtube ./end pt]

Freetube (Windows/Linux/MacOS) - A desktop Youtube client with adblock and sponsorblock built in. Still in beta, but very good.

Sponsorblock (Firefox/Chrome) - Pretty much a must-have for watching Youtube these days. Automatically skips over sponsors, self-promos, interaction bait, outros, intros, etc. Highly configurable!

Dearrow (Firefox/Chrome) - Haven't used this very long but I love it. Gets rid of vague or clickbait titles/thumbnails and replaces it with descriptive and more accurate thumbnails. Also built into Freetube now!

Newpipe (Android) - Lightweight Youtube client. I haven't used it myself much but people swear by it!

ReVanced (Android) - Modded Youtube client with Sponsorblock, Return Youtube Dislike, and Youtube Premium features. Doesn't support Dearrow as of 6/25/24 :( (PLEASE BE CAREFUL INSTALLING THIS. If you don't know what you're doing, you can cause some damage!)

Spotify

[pt: spotify ./end pt]

Spicetify (Windows/Linux/MacOS) - Spotify modded client. Has adblock, themes, etc! Think Vencord, but for Spotify.

Misc.

[pt: Misc ./End pt]

Obsidian (Windows/Linux/MacOS/Android/IOS) - Basically a personal wiki for notetaking! A bit of a learning curve. Fanfic writers and worldbuilders... go feral.

Notepad++ (Windows) - A must-have text editor. Might be on more platforms but can't confirm?

Mullvad VPN (Windows/Android) - The only VPN I can 100% recommend. Cheap, fast, and really cares about your privacy. It's a little under $6 USD a month!

NVDA (Windows) - A free screenreader I use for reading large blocks of text. (Notice: I am not visually impaired to the point I rely on a screenreader to navigate my PC. I use it on occasion to read text to me because I have a hard time reading. If you're looking for advice on screenreaders for the visually impaired unfortunately I'm not a good source! Maybe check out the #visually impaired, #blind, or #accessibility?)

Syncthing (Windows/Linux/MacOS/Android) - Lets you sync folders across devices. It's especially good with Obsidian.

"Tequito, I didn't find what I wanted!"

[pt: "Tequito, I didn't find what I wanted!" ./end pt]

I'm sorry. :( If you're looking for a program I have personally mentioned using in the past, feel free to shoot me an ask or DM! Or hey... maybe try searching the letters "FMHY" and having a look around? *wink*

[warningsine]

All right, since I bombarded a poor mutual yesterday...

Privacy is not security and security is not privacy. These terms are not interchangeable, but they are intrinsically linked.

While we're at this, anonymity =/= security either. For example, Tor provides the former, but not necessarily the latter, hence using Https is always essential.

It is impossible to have privacy without security, but you can have security without privacy.

A case in point is administrators being able to view any data they want due to their full-access rights to a system. That being said, there are ethics and policies that usually prevent such behavior.

Some general tips:

Operating System: Switch to Linux. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are widely used for a reason. Fedora too. And don't worry! You can keep your current operating system, apps and data. If you're on a Mac computer, you can easily partition your hard drive or SSD by using Disk Utility. If you're on Windows, you can follow this guide.

You want to go a step further? Go with Whonix or Tails. They're Linux distributions as well, but they're both aiming for security, not beauty so the interface might not be ideal for everyone. Many political activists and journalists use them.

You want anonymity? Then you need to familiarize yourself with Tor. Also, Tor and HTTPS and Tor’s weaknesses. When you're using it, don't log in to sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. and make sure to stay away from Java and Javascript, because those things make you traceable.

Alternatives for dealing with censorship? i2p and Freenet.

Is ^ too much? Welp. All right. Let's see. The first step is to degoogle.

Switch to a user-friendly browser like Firefox (or better yet LibreWolf), Brave or Vivaldi. There are plenty of hardened browsers, but they can be overwhelming for a beginner.

Get an ad blocker like Ublock Origin.

Search Engine? StartPage or Duckduckgo. SearXNG too. Like I said degoogle.

Get a PGP encrypted e-mail. Check Protonmail out.

There's also Tutamail that doesn't cover PGP, but uses hybrid encryption that avoids some of the cons of PGP.

Skiff mail is also a decent option.

Use an e-mail aliasing service such as SimpleLogin or AnonAddy.

Check OpenPGP out. Claws Mail is a good e-mail client for Windows and Linux, Thunderbird for Mac OS.

Gpg4win is free and easy to use for anyone that wants to encrypt/decrypt e-mails.

Instead of Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, Telegram etc. use Signal for your encrypted insant messaging, voice and video calls.

Get a metadata cleaner.

Get a firewall like Opensnitch, Portmaster or Netguard which can block Internet for trackers.

Alternatively, go with a private DNS that blocks these trackers. NextDNS is a good paid service. Rethink a good free option.

Replace as many of your applications as you can with FOSS (free and open source) ones. Alternativeto can help you.

Always have automatic updates on. They are annoying af, I know, but they are necessary.

Keep your distance from outdated software.

Always have two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled.

Do not use your administrator account for casual stuff. If you're on Linux, you probably know you can be sudo, but not root.

On Linux distributions use AppArmor, but stay away from random antivirus scanners. Other distributions default to SELinux, which is less suited to a beginner.

Never repeat your passwords. If you can't remember them all, use a password manager like KeePass.

Encrypt your drive.

Honestly, VPNs have their uses and ProtonVPN, Mullvad and Windscribe are decent, but eh. If you don't trust your ISP, why would you trust the VPN provider that claims they don't log you when you can't verify such a thing?

[thewanderingcotabus]

Everything I like seems to be going to ruin anymore

Its not even 9am and ive been gut punched by YouTube and X. YouTube has apparently put me in a test batch for SSAI and I'm completely unable to block the ads at all. I'm on Firefox with UBO up to date and tampermonkey as well. In addition X/Twitter made likes private which basically means fake/false information any given idiot likes as well as any bad actors actions are completely hidden. So now X is no longer going to be a viable source if i can find any content for this blog.

In addition besides those 2, other things have been getting worse. Minecraft has been less and less enjoyable any more outside Hypixel. The mobile game I play Hero Wars has had a bad case of greedflation and is turning the game into P2P and is also now using AI for its game assets in stead of artists. And even on this blog either directly or indirectly has been going down hill. Many of my usual sources for content i post on here have quit/deleted/deactivated. If one more issue crops up here on tumblr I'm going to consider cutting back on some internet things (this blog being one of them).

EDIT: Seems for whatever reason Ublock stopped working until I restarted my laptop and now everything working as its supposed to again.

[mountmortar]

also kind of down the same vein as this post, the idea that "what's most important in an operating system is that it works for you" can also be expanded to "what's most important in a browser is that it works for you". i say this as an enthusiast of firefox (and its forks) myself and someone who daily drives it: sometimes firefox fucking sucks (ESPECIALLY on mobile). it can be very resource-intensive and it does have a history of memory leakage among other things. despite what people online may tell you (and i have seen plenty of like. fear-mongering posts about it. for SOME reason) it is not the end of the world if you have to use a chromium-based browser because firefox keeps fucking up on you for whatever reason and nothing you do seems to fix it. yes it sucks that chromium has a monopoly on the browser market but like goddamn sometimes you do need your shit to just work. if your main concern when web browsing is privacy and you don't mind putting up with jank sometimes then yes, firefox and its forks (e.g. librewolf) will probably be a perfect fit for you. but if you're someone who just cannot fucking get it to work for you then there are a lot of other chromium-based browsers out there that aren't google chrome that you can also try to see if they work for you. and like. That's Fine. just find what works best for you and doesn't fuck up your computer.

if you'd like a couple extra options to consider, currently the two most popular chromium-based alternatives to chrome (but absolutely not the only ones!) are brave and vivaldi. i've used both extensively and can vouch for the fact that they work damn well (on both macOS and linux, at least. i can't say anything about windows because i don't have windows). in my own personal experience, brave outperformed vivaldi on macOS and vivaldi outperformed brave on linux (tried it on a few different ubuntu-based distros).

that being said, brave might be an automatic turnoff for a lot of people because it has a fuckton of cryptocurrency + AI features baked into it. you can disable all these features and wipe them from your sight, but obviously a lot of people will understandably take issue with the fact that these features are built into it in the first place. and getting out of the tech side of things for a moment just for the sake of transparency (and because i know it's important to some, though the Average User is probably not going to give a shit), the ceo of its parent company is brendan eich, who is also the creator of javascript. and he also sucks bad, to put it lightly (link to wikipedia article; he did donate to a campaign against gay marriage in 2008). but i can say that the browser, which is open-source, runs very well and it plans to hold on to support for extensions like ublock origin (which google is planning to fuck over for chromium-based browsers) for as long as possible, even when the plug for manifest v2 is pulled entirely. it has its own adblocker as well, which, while not on ublock origin's level, is pretty good. i can vouch for it on mobile (android) as well—it runs smoothly and i never had any issues with it whatsoever.

brave's privacy policy can be found here. an article getting into a controversy regarding brave's handling of user data can be found here.

vivaldi catches a bit of flak for being proprietary freeware instead of totally open-source, but it has no crypto/AI features and is probably one of the most customizable browsers out there (note: more customization means the likelihood that something breaks on you is increased, but that holds true for literally anything you do. think macOS vs. windows for example). for the sake of equal comparison and transparency, i'll also mention the ceo of its parent company, jon stephenson von tetzchner, who co-founded the opera browser (originally released in 1995, still used today) before he eventually left and started vivaldi in 2015. he doesn't seem to suck bad on the like brendan eich does at the time of writing this (no donations to oppress gay people, lmao). getting back into tech things, i will say that while vivaldi has its own adblocker like brave, it is not nearly as good. also, they are not currently planning to try and hold on to support for extensions affected by the manifest v3 change like ublock origin at the time of writing this, and instead are going to continually upgrade their own adblocker to be better than it currently is. ultimately, vivaldi can be a bit more resource-heavy than brave because of all the customization options, but i didn't find it to be too over-the-top and the browser itself worked just fine with no breakage. vivaldi is actually my main mobile browser!

vivaldi's privacy policy can be found here. as of the time of writing this post, there have been no privacy controversies associated with it.

[despite-everything]

I wrote out this list of instructions/recommendations for making Firefox your default browser, and setting up some extensions I recommend. This is all my personal preference - I’m no expert, but I made these instructions for some friends and family, so I figured I’d share here, too! All the extensions are linked for convenience.

1. Download Firefox, pin to dock of computer, set as default browser 

Why Firefox? Mozilla is a non-profit organization, so unlike Google, they aren’t looking to continually turn a profit, and is an open-source project, meaning you can check the code at any time. Firefox and Safari are independent browsers, but others like Chrome, Brave, and Microsoft Edge all run on Chromium - meaning they’re essentially all Google. The downside to using them is that if your entire internet access is connected to Google, then Google is going to collect data on everything (and then turn around and sell it all over the place).

2. Add DuckDuckGo, set as default search engine for Firefox

Why DuckDuckGo? Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo doesn't collect data from users, and allows IP addresses to remain hidden/protected. Doesn’t use cookies to track activity. Doesn’t share IP address, search terms, etc. with sites you visit (Google, Yahoo, and Bing all share this data). I find that the search results are more “clean” and I usually find what I’m looking for faster, and with fewer “listicles”/bullshit SEO-filled nonsense.

Downsides: Some complex searches may not work (niche content can be missed, but pretty much everything else is good) - so if searching for academic sources, I recommend using Google Scholar instead. Also uses Apple Maps instead of Google, which I don’t like as much, but isn’t a huge problem on the desktop. I have some privacy-centric extensions listed below, which help protect me when I do need to turn to Google.

3. Import browser data from old browser.

4. Set homepage/new tab defaults → Settings.

5. Download Firefox on phone, follow instructions to sync to computer desktop.

6. Install extensions! Improve internet browsing experience! Check out my list of recommendations below.

7. When installing extensions, take a look at the “themes” and customize the look of your browser.

Ad Blockers

Adblocker Ultimate (blocks ads)

uBlock Origin (also blocks ads)

AdGuard Adblocker (guess what this is.)

AdBlock for Firefox (I just really hate ads and want to cover my bases)

Privacy extensions

Privacy Possum (interferes with data collection by sites, helps prevent tracking)

Don’t track me Google (speeds up search results, removes Google tracking feature)

I still don’t care about cookies (allows cookies for sites/prevents pop ups - use with cookie auto delete for privacy)

Cookie autodelete (automatically deletes cookie info from sites, pairs well with above)

Youtube extensions

Return Youtube Dislike (shows the number of dislikes on Youtube - Youtube removed this feature in 2021 for no good reason)

DeRound Youtube (personal preference - makes Youtube thumbnails “sharp”. I think it looks nicer like this.)

Youtube NonStop (prevents “are you still watching” prompts)

SponsorBlock (removes embedded sponsor promotions within Youtube videos)

Other helpful stuff

Unpaywall (checks database of 16 million legal, open-access articles when you view a paywalled scholarly article to see if there’s an open version available)

Don’t Accept image/webp (lets Firefox tell sites webp formats don’t work - enables easier access to downloadable jpeg/png formats on search results)

Absolute Enable Right Click and Copy (some sites block the right click copy/paste option, this extension restores that ability - this seemed to interfere with my use of Google Docs so I disabled it for the site, but it may be coincidental. Need to investigate - this extension is newer to me.)

Facebook Container (prevents Facebook/Meta from tracking all your web activity)

LeechBlock NG (can be enabled to prevent you from using certain sites in a certain timeframe - good for productivity)

Recommended extensions for Tumblr users

Shinigami Eyes (works on other sites too, but highlights trans-friendly people/orgs/etcs green, highlights anti-trans in red. Very useful for Tumblr - makes identifying and blocking hateful users easier)

XKit Rewritten (Tumblr XKit! OG XKit doesn’t work anymore, but I’ve had success with this one. Helps customize the site, sometimes can be used to get rid of/override stupid UI updates)

My personal XKit recommendations:

Toggle on: 

Anti-Capitalism (hides ads)

Mutual Checker (notes who your mutuals are, useful if you follow a lot of people/have a lot of followers and want to know who your “friends” are - especially helpful if you have friends who often change icons/urls)

No Recommended (gets rid of recommended stuff - I clicked “hide” for all the options - I only want to see things posted/reblogged by the people I follow, or things I search for specifically. Clears up the homepage, too.)

Quick Reblog (I personally love this feature - I have it set up “above the reblog button” and checked “yes” for showing the blog selector (useful if you have multiple blogs on the same account), and the “show tags” field. With Quick Reblog, when you hover over the “reblog” button, it pops up a little box that lets me quickly select what blog (defaults to main), add tags, then reblog, queue, or save the post as a draft. I don’t usually add a comment, and never using Quick Reblog, so I didn’t enable that field. You can add more settings, but this is how I like to use it!)

Tweaks (I clicked “Restore links to individual posts in the post header”, “Remove the coloured shadow from focused posts”, “Hide the ‘blaze’ and ‘tip’ button labels”, “Hide my follower count where possible”, “Hide the ‘’Now, where were we?’ button”, and “Hide the Tumblr Live carousel” (I also “snooze” Tumblr Live weekly, but still). Again, these are all personal preferences! This is just how I like the site set up).

[majakovskiy]

BROWSERS, ADBLOCKERS AND OTHER ADDONS

tl;dr: Use LibreWolf and install CleanURLs, or if not, use uBlock Origin and CleanURLs on whatever browser you use.Librewolf : https://librewolf.net/uBlock Origin : https://ublockorigin.com/CleanURLs : https://github.com/ClearURLs/Addon

BROWSERS:

I will not start an argument about the necessity of privacy respecting browsers, I assume if you're reading this rambling of mine about the subject you're at least partially interested in not leaking all your data to the internet. Most browsers you'll encounter are leaky, and they will give your data to 3rd parties, either by poor design or implementation or knowingly and happily for money, but some browsers are just more leaky than others, so your choice of browser matters. 

Apart from the ethical issues that uncontrollable data selling raises, online ads, tracking cookies and these tracking methods lead to a slower internet, higher processor and memory requirements, a messy design of webpages, and a plethora of other security issues and opportunities for bad actors ("hackers"). The sheer number of so-called attack vectors that web browsing presents is astounding. 

Just to give a brief image of it, visit the site https://privacytests.org/, it will show you a comparison of web browsers on their performance of not leaking stuff to other people. The different tests are performed daily, and the website is rather informative about these tracking methods, attack vectors. Some part may be less important to you (Tor capabilities for example), so not all privacy respecting features are created equal, but this is the closest you'll ever get to an open and easily digestable learning material on browser privacy.

At the time of writing the best option for daily use is LibreWolf, basically a fine-tuned Firefox. It also has a lot of features for advanced users, but is generally easy to use, with built in uBlock Origin, and javascript disabled (which you may want to enable for certain web pages).You may want to know that certain browsers are tracking your movement and build a profile on you without ever visiting any webpage, and this category includes Firefox, and Chromium as well.

ADBLOCKERS:

Most adblockers have long sold their souls to the devil, and they are the ones collecting data on you, and some of them are purposefully not blocking certain ads, go figure. A lot of them are not open source, or not even open on their business pactices. You wouldn't hire a security company to protect your business who has a sketchy and non-transparent working, and who you cannot verify that they are not accepting money from the Chinese Communist Party, would you? The easy answer is to use uBlock Origin, an open source, transparent, free as in freedom software, with a completely transparent working, and verifiable everything. Please note that uBlock and uBlock Origin are not the same adblocker, and the regular uBlock has been bought by - guess what - an advertising company. 

CleanURLs: Sometimes when you receive a youtube link, and you click on in, instead of youtube.com/watch?=xxxxxxx you'll get a ten times longer link with fbclid and really long alphanumerical stuff, isn't it weird? Does this link need to be this long to function? Well, the answer is no. It's just one of the tricks how websites track you with even more unnecessary cookies, that try to follow you from site A to site B (for example to figure out which youtube account belongs to which facebook user to make even more targeted ads). You can manually delete all those cross-site tracking stuff from every link you use but it's a tedious, but easily automated task. That's where CleanURLs come in, to do this instead of you. You'll be surprised how many tracking attempts are blocked in a day by this stuff.May these tools bring you a faster and cleaner internet experience.

[prettyfuckinhot]

Step-by-Step guide to adding Xkit rewritten to mobile android

Small intro: if you're like me and really hate features in the tumblr app like tumblr live, tracking URLs, and ads, this may interest you. If there are things in xkit you desperately want on your phone, that you can't achieve with ublock, this is DEFINITELY for you. This guide also works for any extension you want on mobile. If you're a normal user and don't mind those things, the functionality and streamlining you lose by using the mobile website is probably not worth it, just stick to the app from google play. Alternatively, if you only want to get rid of ads and Tumblr live, look into the Firefox Tumblr web app. You can easily add ublock to base Firefox and have Tumblr with no ads and no live (use the element picker liberally). This guide is for people who aren't terribly tech-savvy, and should be approachable to anyone with basic computer knowledge, even if the steps are convoluted.

You need to have an updated version of android and you need to make a Firefox account before you can start this guide. A desktop computer with firefox may not be required, but is highly recommended.

Install f-droid here. This is an app that allows you to install free and open source apps. Your phone will probably try really hard not to let you do this, be patient, don't click away, and approve whatever needs to be approved. You shouldn't just trust a Tumblr post about installing unapproved app, so do your research, but f-droid is very reputable.

After that, on f-droid search and install Mull web browser (same safety caveat as before; do research). It should be a green and magenta fox. This is essentially a version of Firefox that will let us install unapproved extensions.

On Mull, log into your firefox account by clicking the three dots in the bottom left corner (this account should have been set up previously; see step 1). After this, in the settings screen, scroll down to the "about mull" section. Click on this, then tap on the big Mull logo until a message pops up that says you have activated developer or debug mode.

If this has worked, under the Add-ons setting, there should be a new setting for "Custom Add-on collection". At this point, I would recommend switching to a desktop computer for convenience. It might be doable on a phone, and if you have no desktop, try to accomplish this by switching all mobile webpages to desktop mode until this guide is complete.

Navigate to the webpage for xkit rewritten here. Scroll down untill you see "add to collection". Add xkit to a new collection with a name you choose. You will have to type this in later, so make it something easy like "phone".

Now, in the top right corner, hover over your user and select "view my collections". Click on the one you just made. You will see the name you just wrote and a number between "firefox user" and "Creator" on the left hand side. Save this number.

Back on the mull app, select custom add-on collection where we found it earlier. Put the firefox user number first, and the name of the collection second. You have now synced all the add-ons in the collection with your phone. Note: you can add whatever extensions you want to this collection and they will sync to your phone! Yay! But be aware none of the extensions you add this way were optimized for mobile and it can get really janky.

Now select add-ons and you should see xkit there. Click on it and turn on the features you want as usual. I would also recommend navigating to tumblr, selecting the three dots, and then selecting "add to homescreen" so you can use it more like an app.

You should mess with the mull settings to your liking and add whatever extensions you trust, ESPECIALLY UBLOCK! Check out the default add-ons. I keep the regular app installed, because this web version is not perfect for a lot of things. This is for patient people who hate corporate control more than they love convenience. If you experience any issues or have any questions please reach out, I'd love to talk more about this and how much this has improved my tumblr experience. Major shout out to @april, the author of xkit rewritten.

[autolenaphilia]

The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

[b33viemm]

More and more states are passing a large number of anti-trans laws, and hostility is going up very fast. Trans people's safety is limited and what we have is being cracked.

State governments are trying to find us. In general, it's good to be careful about what you share on the internet, all that online safety stuff, but if you are a trans person living in a hostile state you need to be incredibly careful about what you share about yourself, especially with the amount of surveillance we live with nowadays. Missouri and Texas have already tried to gain access to people's medical records and history by buying clinics, and while they failed it's a reminder that they are trying to track us down. Missouri also tried to release a survey with questions about your gender experience in the state, essentially making a list of trans people. This directly parallels what Hitler did to find Jewish people, which was adding questions about one's ethnicity to the 1938 German census that were not there before. This is not a coincidence. We have seen this before and it cannot ever happen again.

Using a VPN, UBlock Origin, and/or switching to Firefox (which has built-in privacy features) can help somewhat protect you, but it is the minimum. Don't share photos of yourself on large public platforms without a verification process, and if you post on any trans-related forums do not share identifying info past what your state is. Do not share personal information about your family, such as ages, locations, or names as those can be used to track you down if they know where you are. Be careful if you attend any protests and make sure to cover any identifiable features you have, like piercings or tattoos. Leave your phone at home. It is as powerful as it is dangerous to you.

Anti-trans government officials are pushing more and more severe bills that will put us (and ARE putting us) in danger. A bill in Florida allowing the kidnapping of trans teens might actually get passed. The feds will sit by and watch genocide happen. We cannot. Please, if you live in a dangerous state get out. If that's not an option, do all that you can to stay safe. I'm not saying sit and repress yourself, or stay in the closet forever, but please please please be very careful what you do. This is real and happening around us and we can't deny it, no matter what the anti-trans propaganda articles say about the trans-genocide not being an actual threat.

It's not a nightmare. It's reality, and we are not waking up.

Map is outdated, check reblogs for up to date version [image source]