As someone who currently has a large portion of the Internet blocked - NO. You do NOT want that. This has awful implications and is very much a slippery slope. A lot of necessary info and contacts are on Google - is this bad? Yeah, absolutely, but right now losing access to Google would mean losing access to this information. While blocking the addresses of such a big company, you’d inevitably break unexpected parts of the Internet as collateral. If the people want to use the service - a lot out of habit, a lot because there aren’t alternatives suitable for them - they would use proxies or VPNs (and in my experience - often opening themselves to risk in the process, because they’d go with a random free VPN from Play Store). It is very possible they’d go after the censorship evasion protocols next.

If you really want bans - maybe banning the companies from buying ads, or using Google’s tools for business would be fine. But NOT fragmenting the Web further and strengthening the censorship infrastructure.

Even if you’re not blocking all the external trackers, not giving the engagement and data on Facebook’s sites themselves still matters.

Personally I think he is imaginary. But he is real for Calvin, so this question doesn’t even matter.

Yeah, I get it (barring the fact that literal Facebook is not even accessible from my IP lol). But whether this is useful, depends on who the attacker is. If we’re talking about, say, a data broker - yeah. But would Jake from accounting have such “IP-account” logs?

Good luck, my IP consistently points to an entirely another city.

It recently was in the news for refusing to work on degoogled mobile OSes, and the website is not fully-functional compared to the app.

451: Unavailable due to legal reasons We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time.

amazing

I am using Android until I can find an alternative

You mean you’re considering something like PostmarketOS? Just wonder where people are looking for alternatives.

I don’t think they would at least because the share of people who can use it is not that large. Where I am, only one carrier out of the big four has it, and only Samsung phones support it (Google as well, but they’re not officially sold so not quite as popular).

A blurred house in a row of unblurred ones would attract more attention.

I assumed that when it comes to SMS 2FA, simswapping is a threat much bigger than interception of the contents…

XMPP is very much a valid option nowadays too! Much easier and lighter to host than Matrix, too. I use it with my mom - Conversations is just as easy to use as Whatsapp, and maybe more pleasant.

It seems like where I live, RCS is not supported on all carriers (not on mine) - but most importantly, not on all phones. The one carrier that has it says it only works on certain Samsungs (I guess also Google Pixel, but they are not officially sold, even if not unpopular). So even though they’re not paid separately like SMS, I don’t think anyone would be switching to it from Whatsapp or Telegram.

I had some! It’s the rescue services warning you that the ice is starting to break and you shouldn’t walk on it.

I wonder: would the 1GB Raspberry Pi 3 be okay for this? The more powerful ones are very expensive, $60 is already kind of a lot, so would hope maybe it could work for 1080p video (or 720p m3u streams)?

Yeah, true - I have this installed but inactive for emergencies. It cannot, however, deliver messages when the recipient is offline, and I don’t know how much it drains the battery if left on. So not sure I’d use it as a daily messenger.

I would also prefer a server in a jurisdiction that I choose as suitable for my needs. Or, better, a mini-computer on my balcony.

Not to mention the SMS bills

Yeah, I am very much aware of this. However, I prefer not to trust the encryption that happens on their servers instead of my client, so I’d consider the non-e2e mail as fully open. As for bridge - indeed it solves the problem, but it’s exclusive to paid plans, which is not what I had experience with.

I mean depends on your location. Chances are it is fine for you.