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Anyone else having problems when starting up the desktop app? I keep getting this javascript error message. I might as well just go back to using it in browser. Sure, I like my vencord theme.

But my browser blocks fingerprinting/canvas extraction anyway. So it's probably even safer than using it with vencord even if I'll miss my skeuocord theme. Plus, it kept showing pop-up discord messages over the revolt app window, which was annoying. I think discord confused it for some game or something.

It's obvious from my website. I'm prone to nostalgia lately. I didn't used to get aesthetic trends until that is, I stumbled upon ones re-enforced my nostalgia. Even before I liked vaporwave & synthwave a bit. I don't know if my nostalgic preferences are just me getting older or not. Granted I remember thinking aero glass was so impressive when I was a teen. Out of all the nostalgia-bait versions of windows, the one I'm least nostalgic for is XP ironically (since I get the most compliments on the Windows XP-themed pages). Whether I like how XP looks or hate it depends a lot on my mood. (It's fun but tacky.) I guess I just miss tech being exciting. Not much has changed. I'm still addicted to the internet. There was still bigotry online. Hell look at Shane Dawson's old videos, or Ryan Higa's old username. (I still like Ryan Higa, but still.) There were still creeps judging by this one color palette website I used to use. But at least I didn't have to deal corpos shoving artifical "intelligence" down my throat. I remember autoplay & jumpscares being annoying at the time (especially when multitasking). But hey, was it really as bad as being exposed to 2 strangers arguing over nonsense just because you wanted to blog about your day, or joke around?

I remember watching a video of someone talking about the movie Hackers with maia arson crimew & when the topic changed to Bluesky, they acted like Bluesky had "no drama" & that was a bad thing. AS IF people aren't arguing over whether anti-zionist lefties cost Kamala the election everyday on there. I wish the far left had that much voting power. And Bluesky users are arguing over this after a year with a HUGE amount of voter suppression.

I remember when I 1st joined tumblr in 2017? after years of only using personality forums, youtube comments, & palette websites, and god, it sucked, but communication on the internet always sucked because we live in a selfish bigotted ignorant world. And the monopolies have only gotten worse and more fucked. My point is the internet always sucked to some extent, but god, at least it was easier to see the potential for something else back then.

I'm watching Mythbusters on their live tv section & it's nostalgic and all. But why tf is there a random bar blocking the tv guide?

This is just bad UI design regardless of how you feel about minimalism. And it's not just this. It's the fact that they won't let you watch your friends' libraries in your browser, or even on the mobile app. The truth is I get much better service & design choices from video/audio players & torrent clients than any mainstream streaming service. Don't get me wrong I still think plex is the one of the better free streaming services.

You get additional content from your friend's media server & can add stuff from other streaming services to your watchlist (with a list of where you can find it). But it's these little annoyances that make me think piracy is better.

I guess that's in part because as customizable as your experience on plex is, piracy will always be more custom-tailored to your tastes. Wanna watch any series or movie for free but don't care about video quality or lag? Go to some shady "streaming" website. Care about lag but not video quality? Direct downloads.

Don't wanna choose between video quality & a lack of lagging? Torrent it. (Although occasionally it still lags if your computer is fragmented.) Want the video/audio player to look a certain way? Get a skinnable player & download some themes or simply use one that looks nice. Want to try out a video/audio player to see which one is the best? You can, free of charge. Want to watch something with dual subtitles to help with language learning? There are video players for that, like SMPlayer or that version of VLC that's still in beta testing. No extension required. Want to use an adblocker without getting that dreaded pop-up message? Most of the people pirating are using adblockers anyway. The only reason these legal streaming services can compete is that they're legal.

Edit: Apparently the gradient bar is only in librewolf for some reason. I checked it out in MS Edge & Waterfox and it was fine. Maybe it's because of a failure to fingerprint me, I don't know. But Still annoying.

I like frutiger aero (no surprise there). I do acknowledge it was at the end of the day a corporate artstyle with no deeper meaning. But boy it did sure look nice. The truth is I see the "revival" of frutiger aero & skeuomorphism more generally (and even some things relating to y2k) as a reclamation of corporate art (or "art"?). Turning it more into a bit of personal expression and removing it from its once corporate origins while still acknowledging them.

Flat design on the other hand: A lot of minimalist flat design just ends up looking boring to me & equally corporate (and if it's a corporate website that only has light mode, down right unusable).

But seeing some of the personal websites people had made me realize how beautiful flat design (and light mode too) can be if there's actual passion behind it. I guess the reason I like skeuomorphism & older design trends is that there was more of a sense that there was effort & thought put into it. Making the youtube app icon a tv just makes sense.

The reason I don't mind the new firefox icon is it's still of, well, a firefox and makes sense namewise. I also like the brave icon for being one of the few modern browser icons that isn't swirly & has a strong outline, reflecting its name, even if I dislike them as a company/product. (They're still better than google but if you know, you know.)

I guess for the most part what I'm trying to say is that the corporate web has mostly forgotten that graphic design is an artform. But a lot of personal websites still remember. And I think we can reclaim any artstyle that originated from corporations & make it into something even more beautiful.

I decided to do my own guide, since the last one I shared on the political climate wasn't the best. It's a bit ironic since I've been stressing out over personal stuff lately but here we go.

•Limit your time on social media or reading the news. This video by youtuber Sylvanaqua Farms (that I'm having trouble finding) suggests 20 minutes on social media & 10 minutes on the news. But I'd reverse that to 10 on socials & 20 on the news because it might be hard to limit your time spent on reading news articles if you have to factcheck things. He also suggested limiting your news coverage to just reuters & associated press. However I think that what news orgs you trust enough to limit yourself to is up to you. If you need help, you can use extensions/apps like Leech NG, DetoxDroid or Cold Turkey Blocker to block certain websites & apps temporarily.

•Look for local orgs in your area. Even if you don't end up joining, knowing local mutual aid groups or unions can be useful if you need any help. You can also donate too. Plus if you do have the motivation/energy/ability to join, you can take pride in the fact at least someone is doing something. It's not like a job where if you skip a day or 2, you could be fired. I'd suggest considering how frequently you can handle going (weekly, monthly etc).

•Organize your youtube/peertube subscriptions. I've talked about how certain 3rd party apps like Freetube, Newpipe, or Tubular let you organize & filter your subscriptions before. I sometimes use Freetube & Tubular to filter out any pundits & political video essayists when it gets to be too much. But you can also use rss feed readers (especially for peertube), the extension Pocket Tube, or simply have a seperate youtube/invidious/peertube account.

•Replace your screentime with something, or at least change what you do with that screentime. Could be going to the park, a hobby (like exercising or drawing), spending time with your loved ones, reading a book, whatever. Admittedly this one is hard to do in the modern era & if you have trouble with that, you could always switch to healthier internet habits. For example, instead of using social media, you could create your own site or watch a tv show or read an article on ravens, whatever.

•Don't stress out over liking media with perfect messaging. I'm adding this because I used to be the type of guy who was overly critical of my media consumption habits even as I watched IASIP & Venture Bros. And while we should be aware of a story's problems, not every piece of media has to have messages you 100% agree with to be compelling. So don't stress out over it too much. I'm not saying you can't have limits. For example, I myself will NEVER watch one of those incest/pedo wish fulfillment romance animes, but I'm willing to excuse Tokyo Gore Police's edginess. It's all about figuring out what you'll tolerate/enjoy and what you can't stand.

•It's ok to have some media serve as a TEMPORARY distraction. I did this with Sakamoto Days when it was still airing. The revolution will not be televised and all. However the key is that it's temporary & you don't get mad when a piece of media DOES bring up an issue, basically manage your expectations.

•Don't feel pressure to know EVERY issue. This one is self explanatory. But you can't know everything. You're only human.

After someone said that themes are working on discord again, I decided to reinstall it & vencord and it worked. It took a couple of tries to get it running. But hey at least now I don't have to look at the new ui that much.

I linked an article/blog post on surviving authoritarianism a while back. After a conversation about it, my thoughts on the article have changed a bit. While I always knew it was made for a specific audience (cishet white men), I didn't call into question the helpfulness of the article for it. But for that reason, it's not helpful for the demographic who need help the most and might not even be helpful at all. So keep that in mind.

I'm gonna try to get back in the habit of reading the news. I even redownloaded palemoon to save articles/use rss feeds. For the past few months, I haven't been reading it as much because I felt lazy. Plus mainstream news outlets justifying a genocide made it harder to trust them, even if most pundits on youtube/peertube are just adding their own commentary to mainstream news articles anyway. I think the only youtubers I've seen do investigative journalism are Status Coup News & Dead Domain. Also Jawn Louis, that one time he interviewed an ex-con. Maybe Hasan too but I don't watch him.

But I don't wanna treat political news as solely entertainment. Besides, I do know some nonmainstream outlets that put out articles instead of videos.

I found this blog post on surviving an authoritarian regime.

It takes a while to get to the advice, since a lot of it is about how how the current presidency shows signs of authoritarianism. But there's some useful advice. Some of it is hard to follow though, particularly the not judging part, which quite frankly while it is useful to show people patience, I also understand we don't necessarily need everyone to be the guy to change hearts & minds. However if you are able to, please try to do what you can.

Edit: After a conversation about it, my thoughts on the article have changed a bit. While I always knew it was made for a specific audience (cishet white men), I didn't call into question the helpfulness of the article for it. But for that reason, it's not helpful for the demographic who need help the most and might not even be helpful at all. So keep that in mind.

I don't usually get personal on this blog. But at my last job, I had a couple of accidents while drunk at an office party (NOT car accidents) and it got framed/interpretted as something much worse by somebody who already hated me. By the time I remembered what actually happened, it was too late & they had already turned a lot of the office against me. I'm not going into further detail than that.

But I've been having trouble getting over it for the past year or so. Every time I think I feel like I'm over it, I'm back to feeling almost uncontrollably upset the next day. I've been through worse, but it amplified my other traumas too due to indirect associations. It feels as if that coworker got away with treating me like garbage even before that. But before the drunken incident, I tried excusing their terrible behavior even when I saw them sexually harrass someone. It doesn't help that I ended up saying something nasty about them while drunk that got misinterpretted as me blaming them.

I switch between feeling angry, violated & blaming myself because even though I know it was just an accident, I never got to clarify anything. My only closure was quitting.

My vencord themes stopped working. But it wasn't like the other times though because ALL of them stopped working. Even the titlebar was buggy. The titlebar for one of them was even MISSING. And all for official "themes" with ugly spacing.

Now I've decided to use it in my browser only. Vencord came with useful plugins like ones that block trackers & youtube ads, but my browser can already do that. Sure, since I'm using it in browser, I can just use vencord with the extension "tampermonkey". But for some reason, the vencord script for tampermonkey isn't working either. Discord, if your plan was to stop modded discord clients, you win!! However I'm still not letting you track me or paying for Discord Nitro (blah!).

Edit: Found this userscript to adjust the width of the channel panel. It can be found here.

There's more to disabling personalized ads than just going to the app's settings. You can also delete your advertising ID. Here's an article on how to delete/disable it by the EFF.

Why is the plex app easier to navigate than the website? The website won't even show my "continue watching" or let me look at my pal's library. It only lets you search for shit and scroll through trending tv & movies, and maybe view stuff in your watchlist. Meanwhile the app gives you all that extra stuff.

Plex, you are only worth shit because of my friend's library! Just Watch, Kodi & Stemio can already do your job!

Youtube is blocking Freetube again. So I'm gonna have to wait a while to watch youtube.

Anime fans who get mad at calling them cartoons might as well be fake fans. You're disrespecting & othering anime by feeling it has to be completely separate from other animated art. There's this underlying logic that animation is still lesser art. Sure, you could argue that there are different trends in anime.

But do cartoons like Persepolis, Fantastic Planet, The Rabbi's Cat, Louise, and Time Masters make french cartoons their own separate medium? Are those weird soviet-era cartoons their own medium? Are Chinese cartoons their own medium? Is that short film Six Figures Getting Sick by David Lynch its own medium? Are adult cartoons their own medium? It's ridiculous. You're just ashamed to admit you like cartoons. Anime is still seen as "embarrassing" by people who consider them separate things, even people who like anime. You're not defending yourself by separating the two. You're just shifting the problem people have with it from one seemingly embarrassing thing to another.

Privacy Guides just came out with a video on the difference. I think they explain it better than most other creators, even if their style is a bit dry.

I use multiple browsers for different things. Hopefully I encourage some of you explore your options a bit more.

Librewolf: Currently, my main browser. I use startpage as my default search engine with searx as one for private browsing & multiple manually added search engines. I use the Mullvad DNS option for DNS over HTTP. I use the tab containers (which are enabled by default) to separate my jobhunt/work stuff from my personal stuff. Free streaming services seem to work with DRM enabled. But for some reason Netflix doesn't. I guess they only tested the free streaming websites. I have "resist fingerprinting" disabled. However I might re-enable it if I stop being lazy and actually finish making a toggle button for dark mode on my blog. Since I have most of my accounts set to dark mode anyway. Granted I use more extensions than recommended which would still make relatively easy to fingerprint.

Waterfox: Like I mentioned, I mostly use this for Netflix. I have most of the default privacy settings kept the same. However I have it to set auto-delete cookies from places other than netflix. It also keeps undoing me setting the tracker blocker to strict. I use NextDNS for the dns over https. I have it set to make everything look square. I use qwant as my default search engine. I added the streaming search engine "Just Watch" to my list of search engines too. I have ublock & bitwarden installed but that's it for add-ons.

Mullvad Browser: I kept almost all the default settings the same, since the whole point is to blend in. But I have it set to "safer mode" which means javascript is partially disabled. I use it for private browsing more than the private windows of other browsers. I also have a separate browser profile for I2P. I use both browser profiles a lot for piracy. But sometimes I use it to search dumb questions & use proxies for twitter/tiktok or in the case of I2P, reading articles and blogs. My default search engine is brave.

Tor Browser: I use it to search embarrassing medical questions, dumb questions and look at news sources that either have a .onion or are a bit lefty. I figure it'll help distract from activists, whistleblowers and people under regimes using it if I use it for dumb things like searching where okra comes from. I use the safest setting which means javascript is fully disabled. I also use bridges. I used to use obfs4 bridges. But now I use the snowflake ones because they're considered less obvious but still relatively fast. I also use it over a VPN. But there are some risks with using Tor over VPN. I also regularly switch which search engine I use.

Ones I Used to Use But Now Don't:

Pale Moon: It's a fun browser in concept but kind of janky. Freezes up if you're not careful. I mostly used it for scrapbook x (an extension that lets you organize & save pages directly to your computer) & the rss feeds. I used them to research things & read the news. Basically light reading. But lately I have trouble finding the motivation to factcheck video essayists. So I uninstalled it. Plus the rss for certain news websites stopped working. I'm looking at you Reuters!! I also had an extra toolbar just for extensions, but I kept having to redo it when I changed the theme.

Firefox: Used to be my primary browser for a few years. I had it slightly hardened (tracker blocker set to strict, set to autodelete cookies except for certain websites, using Mullvad DNS, etc). Being able to add search engines is less consistent than in firefox forks.

Edit: I started using mojeek for mullvad instead of brave, since brave search requires javascript for the captcha.

I decided to use waterfox for netflix after hearing that they aren't owned by an ad company anymore. I was wary about using them because of said ad company. But since they're not owned by them anymore, I've decided I trust them more than mozilla. And it worked! No logging me out constantly like with librewolf.

I definitely recommend waterfox if you want something that's like firefox but with a better privacy policy and not as overkill as librewolf. That said, again I'll still use librewolf as my primary browser, with both mullvad browser & waterfox being secondary.

Just found out plex works in librewolf, unlike Netflix. All I needed to do was re-enable DRM which just confirms to me it's the superior streaming service. And I say that after it said I couldn't access my friend's plex library on mobile for free.

Even with that in mind, I still think it's the better service, especially since I get access to not only stuff on free streaming but my friends' libraries.

Also this when combined with the netflix trouble on librewolf makes me wonder wtf it's doing that it breaks in librewolf. Is it the no screenshots thing? Because I'm still able to take screenshots in firefox regardless. Is it just that netflix has more trackers? I don't know.

My true introduction to personal websites was probably when I was too young to remember on the family computer. However when I tried I2P for the 2nd time (I couldn't get it to torrent the 1st time), the amount of personal websites stuck with me.

There seems to be a lot of the spirit of the old web on I2P. A lot of making blogs, directories and stuff. There was even a site for pornographic ASCII art. The main directory I use notbob.i2p has a blog page where they just review random websites on the network. Some are just mirrors of news sites, or search engines. But some are personal websites or sites without a clear reason, each with their own flare.

So even before I started using neocities, I already had a taste of these sites in the modern era. It adds a sense of fun that's sincerely lacking from the modern web. I don't miss being a teen. I was scared & lonely. But I do miss when tech was exciting & fun instead of volatile but serious.

I tried using Netflix in librewolf with "digital rights media" enabled & "resist fingerprinting" already disabled and it still didn't work. It kept logging me out even though I had it set to save cookies from netflix. Plus when I tried using the netflix app, I couldn't sandbox it. I know it's not the tracker blocker being set to "strict", since it worked with strict in firefox. Unless librewolf's "strict" setting is more strict than firefox's. The adblocker also didn't break the netflix watchlist feature when I was using firefox.

So I had to reinstall firefox just for legal streaming. I'm still gonna use Librewolf as my primary browser.

But I wish they had full drm support. I remember someone saying that "librewolf is easier to de-paranoidify than firefox is to harden (make more private)" and that may be true for most settings. But with DRM, it's actually the opposite.

I looked up some rants about squarespace because of confirmation bias and for fun. It was interesting seeing the problems people have with mainstream web building services. I'll link the articles/posts/videos. Some were obvious like greed, but others were problems I never even thought of before.

Why Squarespace Sucks by The Creature Designer

Your website builder sucks. ALL of them. by Scattering Clouds

Dear Squarespace... by Camera Conspiracies

Squarespace Sucks by elmikewalsh

After doing some thinking, if they're gonna sell/collect data from my firefox sync account, I'd rather not have it.

So I switched to Librewolf again. And I even swapped out the "tested on firefox" button on my about page for a librewolf one. Fortunately, it saved my settings/logins from last time I had it installed. But I used to have my add-ons synced on firefox, so I'm gonna list my extensions here just in case I ever need to reinstall them for whatever reason.

Bitwarden

Decentraleyes

Leech NG

Midnight Lizard

Privacy Badger

Redirect Tube

Search by Image

Stylus

UBlock Origin

I got this email from the tuta staff that they updated to quantum-safe encryption to protect against quantum attacks. I assume that's why they used to make you set a password for outgoing emails to other providers because they got rid of that feature.

Which means I can now send emails to people on neocities. Here's the email if you're curious:

Why modded Discord? Maybe you want extra features, maybe you want themes that aren't available in nitro. The official Discord themes are all flat design anyway.

However you should be careful, since it's against the TOS. You could also use a userscript or userstyle manager & just open it in browser if you're worried about getting your account banned.

I personally use Vencord for Desktop & Bunny for mobile. (I'd use vencord on mobile too, but they made their mobile icon some random anime girl for some reason.)

Some good places to find themes & plugins are Better Discord and Github. I won't recommend the better discord client tho, since it is heavy on resources.

I switched to a new app launcher, Square Home. At 1st, I wasn't sure I was gonna like it. Since its main feature is its tiles & I remembered disliking Windows 8.

However I quickly came to love it!! It's a modern app launcher that doesn't make skeuomorphism look weird. You can even change the tiles, like having it refract the wallpaper, or blur the wallpaper, or even use a custom image.

The only problem is that it sometimes undoes certain app icons when I start up. But it's still preferable to the problem I had with TSF Shell where it'd completely undo my folders, icon packs, and wallpaper.

I had a good time. It was a fun movie. Very predictable tho, but eh sometimes you need some not so heavy on the plot.

Apparently they gave this update, clarifying that they're not selling your data. However they are introducing ads, probably because Google isn't allowed to fund them anymore.

I fixed some links in online activism resources list.

My friend gave me access to his plex library, which means I don't have to pirate it anymore. :D I'll still be a day behind when catching up. But that's ok.

Instant Messaging/Video Call Apps:

Briar: Password Lock, Built-in Tor, Group Chats, Forums, Blog Posts

Delta Chat: Peer to peer

Jitsi Meet: Open source Alternative to Zoom, Slack Extension

Matrix: Decentralized

Pidgin: IRC

Retroshare: Decentralized, IRC, I2P/Tor Option

Session: PIN Lock, Incognito Keyboard

Signal: (Molly) Delete Messages, Password/Passphrase/PIN

SimpleX: No Phone Number Required, Change SimpleX Address

Email Providers:

I2P Mail/Susimail

Onion Mail: Meant for Use Over Tor

Rise Up: Invite Only

If you use Protonmail for activism, be sure to use it over Tor & use guerilla mail (or some other disaposable email) for your recovery address.

Maps:

Magic Earth: Real Time Traffic

Map Roulette

Open Street Maps

Organic Maps

OsmAnd

Alternate Networks:

I2P: (I2P+, I2Pd) P2P, Good For Torrenting

IPFS: Good for File sharing

Tor: Good For Accessing the Regular Web/Clearnet Privately

Related to Alt Networks:

Invizible Pro: Route Apps Through I2Pd/Tor/DNSCrypt

OnionShare: Share Files Over Tor

Orbot: Route Apps Through Tor

I was watching this video by Elliot Sang. It got me thinking they want us to think that society is done with, so that we don't do anything about it.

But this feeling is also addictive because it makes us feel "smart" like we're the Cassandras of the world. But this society ending doesn't mean we can't make sure a better one takes its place. But to do that, we have to make it in the here & now. We have to make sure we build these structures of mutual aid on a small scale, think prefiguration. Think how before capitalism, they had merchants' guilds.

Another video on the subject I'd recommend is Rejecting Doomerism with Revolutionary Optimism by Lucretia MacEvil. Anark & Andrewism also have some good videos on the subject.

Apparently, what I needed to do was redownload the site & move folders. I have a feeling it was because I tried syncing my site folder with nextcloud.

I switched back in an attempt to fix my problems with visual studio code. However it's still not working. I don't know what's going on. AAAAH!!!

I'm switching back to Firefox because ironically, visual studio code's neocities extension isn't working with Librewolf.

I found these edits of the old firefox icon but with a black/white fox & various differently colored globes. If you're looking for a version of the old firefox icon but in librewolf colors, I recommend downloading the pack.

I might switch to Librewolf as my primary browser after the firefox terms of service was announced. While some of terms seem reasonable, like not using Firefox for abusive/bigotted behavior, I'm worried about how they can apparently now terminate your ability to use the browser.

Edit: Apparently they just miscommunicated their terms of service & now have deleted the page.

Updated the degoogling resources list, or list of google alternatives to have more office programs.

I finally updated my subscription categories in Tubular (a fork of newpipe) after redownloading it. At least I managed to put all the youtubers who don't do political commentary under "No Pundits Allowed" for when I get tired of all the bullshit that's been going on. Or just don't wanna talk about politics in public.

Hopefully I'll be able to do the rest soon.

I'm a bit surprised I don't hear more people recommend looking into i2p's email service, susimail, for activists & whistleblowers. Don't get me wrong. I understand the set up for Java I2P isn't as simple as Signal or Tor, which are often recommended.

But many people have complained about not finding an email private enough for activists. Even stuff like protonmail & tuta have reported on activists. Meanwhile I2P (short for the Invisible Internet Project) is about as private/anonymous as Tor. Besides, since it's not as popular as Tor, there are less of the alphabet mafia running nodes. And since everyone on the network is running a node, it's harder to tell what traffic is coming from where.

I'd recommend using a username that isn't tied to your identity & an offline password manager like KeePassXC.

To make a susimail account, go to your I2P router at 127.0.0.1:7667/home or you can click the router console icon. Then you press I2Pmail, press "create account", and set your username & password. You can also decide if your email address will be publically available or private.

It will delete your account after 10 days of inactivity. So make sure to log in once in a while, so it doesn't get deleted.

This is my 1st post edited with Visual Studio Code. Woohoo!! I see why people like it so much. The live previews save time and adding descriptions to the ending tags is helpful.

I just found out the links for the music webring stopped working. I don't know if the original site shut down or what.

Some places to look at, if you want news & guides related to online privacy:

Access Now Threat Model: State Surveillance

CyberInsider Threat Model: Surveillance Capitalism

EFF.og (EEP site (i2p), .Onion (Tor)) Threat Model: Focuses on Both Surveillence Captialism & State Surveillance

Krebs on Security (EEPsite) Threat Model: Cryptography

Libre News: Surveillance Capitalism

Privacy Guides (.Onion) Threat Model: Focuses on Every Threat Model

Schneiner On Security (EEPsite) Threat Model: Cryptography

Torrent Freak (EEP site): News related to piracy, VPNs, file sharing, and copyright Threat Model: Surveillance Capitalism

I'm glad because I really didn't wanna support Google. (Or certain creators, if you watch tech youtube or military/guntube, you know what I'm talking about.)

I rewatched the original Mad Max with some family last night. It was fun. Definitely a good movie if you're in the mood for an "post-apocolyptic but somehow there are still police & mechanics" type movie. Everyone in that movie is insane. It's amazing. My dad also told us that the movie was made without a lincese so they kept running into trouble with the cops which is kind of funny.

I was watching this techlore video on how apple got rid of end to end encryption for their icloud service in the UK after the govt asked them to add a backdoor. When combined with the fact that twitter is blocking links to Signal, I kind of worry about the future of privacy online.

I'm going through a hard time emotionally. I don't want to overshare it with a bunch of random strangers. But I keep relating this more recent trauma with older past traumas & it's taking me over a year to get over it. I'm getting there, but I don't want to be on this for the rest of my life.

If this doesn't get fixed, I might stop watching youtube altogether. I'm not giving youtube my data. F that!!

It was very fun. I'm surprised by its optimism for the future. Bill's dad is a creep tho.

I know it's buggy due to being an outdated app launcher. But what I can say, I miss the motion effects.

Since tuta stopped requiring a password for outgoing emails to different websites, I added my email address to my site.

If you want to have apps/websites that are less invasive & enshittified, there are options.

Search Engines:

Brave Search: Uses its own search results

Duckduckgo: Pulls search results from bing

Ecosia: Ecofriendly search engine, pulls from bing

Ekoru: Ecofriendly search engine, pulls from bing

Kagi Search: Uses its own search results

LibreY: Decentralized search engine that pulls from google

Metager: Pulls from yahoo on free plan, google & bing on paid plan

Mojeek: Ecofriendly, uses its own search results

SearX(NG): Decentralized meta-search engine that pulls from multiple sources choosen by you

Startpage: Pulls search results from google & bing

Browsers:

Basilik: same browser engine as pale moon

Brave: Forgetful tabs, Private Browsing with Tor, Bult-in Adblock, Built-in Torrent Client

Dillo: Its own browser engine separate from Chrome/Firefox/Safari

Firefox: Tab Containers, Built-in Tracker Blocker, Adblock Support, Warning: They Updated their TOS & Privacy Policy to Remove "Don't sell user data"

Floorp: Tab Containers, Highly Customizable, Features that Help With Multitasking (Web Panels, Multi-row tabs, Workspaces etc)

Ladybird: Its own browser engine separate from Chrome/Firefox/Safari

Librewolf: Tab Containers Enabled by Default, Built-in Adblock, Autodelete cookies by default

Mullvad Browser: Built-in Adblock, Built-in No Script, Always Private Browsing by Default, Mullvad DNS by Default

Pale Moon: Its own browser engine separate from Chrome/Firefox/Safari, retro browser themes, compatibility with older extensions

Seamonkey: Retro browser themes, compatibility with older extensions

Supermium: Retro chrome browsers tabs, compatible with Windows 7

Waterfox: Highly Customizable, Tab Containers by Default

Vivaldi: Highly Customizable, Features that Help With Multitasking (Web Panels, Tab Stacking, Workspaces etc), Built-in Adblock

Zen Browser: Tab Containers, Features that Help With Multitasking (Workspaces, Split View, Web Panels, etc)

Email:

Disroot: Ecofriendly

Mailbox: Ecofriendly

Mailfence

Protonmail: Comes with Proton Drive, a VPN, & password manager

Rise Up Email: For leftwing activists

Startmail

Thundermail

Tuta: Ecofriendly

Vivaldi Mail

App Stores:

Accressant

Aurora Store: A privacy friendly way to access the google play store

F-Droid: Open source apps only

Obtainium: Get apps from google play store, f-droid, or github

Youtube:

Third Party Clients:

Freetube: Subscription categories, Sponsorship block

Grayjay: Sub to channels accross video platforms (Youtube, Twitch, Peertube, Nebula, Odysee, etc)

Invidious

Libretube

Newpipe: Subscription categories, Access to Peertube/Soundcloud/Bandcamp

Piped: Sponsorship block

Revanced Extended: Sync with Youtube Account, Sponsorship block, Return Youtube Dislikes

Tartube: Youtube/Twitch/Peertube/Odysee/etc Downloader

Tubular: Subscription categories, Sponsorship block, Access to Peertube/Soundcloud/Bandcamp, Return Youtube Dislikes

Alternatives:

Bitview: 2000s youtube layout

Eracast: early 2010s youtube layout

Nebula

Means TV: Like Nebula but focused on lefttubers, Co-operative owned

Peertube: Decentralized, Webtorrent, RSS feeds, Video/Torrent Download

Odysee

GooglePlay/Youtube Music:

Third Party Clients:

Nuclear: Play spotify/youtube music playlists without an account, Dark Mode

RiMusic

Alternatives:

Bandcamp: Free Ad-free Streaming, Paid for by Downloads/CD/Vinyl/Merch sales

Free Music Archive: Free & Ad-free

Funkwhale: Free & Ad-free

Internet Radio, like SomaFM or icecast

Last FM

Physical media like CDs or old records

something rhyming with smiracy

Soundcloud

Extensions:

Decentraleyes (Replace third-party services from websites with ones directly from website, unbreak ad/tracker blockers)

Libredirect (Redirect to more privacy respecting sites/apps)

PeerTubeify: Chrome, Firefox (Redirect youtube links to peertube)

Privacy Badger (Block tracking cookies)

Privacy Redirect (Redirect to more privacy respecting sites/apps)

Redirect Tube (Redirect youtube links to Freetube)

Ublock Origin (Block ads & tracking cookies)

Translations:

DeepL

LibreTranslate

Maps:

Magic Earth: Real Time Traffic

Map Roulette

Open Street Maps

Organic Maps

OsmAnd

Google Meet:

Jitsi Meet: Slack Extension

Cloud Storage Drives, File Syncing, and Worksheets:

Cryptpad

Filen

LibreOffice

Nextcloud

Mega

OnlyOffice

Proton Drive

Syncthing

Authenticators:

Aegis

Bitwarden Authenticator

Ente Auth

Keepass

I'm gonna use Freetube for youtube on android too simply because I'm too lazy to redo my Newpipe subcription categories. So I figured that importing them from my desktop will be easier.

I know the title seems obvious. But I keep seeing leftist youtubers make generalizations about activism & how they know x opinion isn't coming from activists because of their own experiences with activism. But a lot of the time their experiences contradict another activist youtuber's. And quite frankly I think we just need to accept that people have different experiences. That's not even getting into how there's different types of activism: mutual aid, campaigning, book readings, protests, strikes, etc etc. Yes, sometimes "x opinion isnt held by activists" is a justified response, like when people act like nonviolent action is inherently ineffective. But I'm talking about things like experiences working with specific progressive ideologies, or whatever.

I was reading a blog post. It got me thinking. When I was younger, I too tried to be weird. But now that I stopped caring as much, I think I've gotten weirder in some ways. When I was younger, my "weirdness" was listening to metal & being terminally online. Now I do those things. But now I also like experimental media/music, have far left political beliefs, get nostalgic for older digital aesthetics despite liking dark mode, etc. One thing I stopped doing however is pretending I dislike pop music. Granted I honestly think pop music is better now than when I was a teen.

Even though I've mostly stopped caring, sometimes I still feel insecure about my weirdness. Not because I think the people who'd think less of me are worth any of my time. But because being able to connect with someone over a shared interest is a magical feeling. When I like something popular, it is easier to find that shared interest with someone. Yet at the same time, it is also magical to find something obscure or niche that you like, almost like finding buried treasure. It was once hidden and yet you found it.

With finding obscure/niche media, it can be more of gamble in regard to quality since you have almost no other opinions to go off of. The truth is I don't think my weirder interests make me more or less interesting. The true key to being an interesting person, it seems, is in how charismatic you are, if you can make a story worth telling.

I added an edit to let people know to check if their firewall is blocking inbound connections to the program.

There seems to be more options for customizing your desktop to be retro than mobile imo.

On desktop, you have stuff to customize your taskbar, start menu, icons, modded apps, userstyles, etc. Stuff that is up to date. Some OSes have more options than others (like Linux). But generally, you can find something. However on mobile, you only have custom keyboards & icon packs. For icon packs, you need an app launcher obviously. But if you go with a modern one, the rest of the UI will stay minimalist. If you use an outdated app launcher, it will probably be buggy & none of the widgets will work, unless you're using an old phone (speaking from experience).

So I gave up on customizing my phone. I sort of miss the motion effects for TSF Shell though. It was probably the closest I could get to using Windows Longhorn before it got turned into Vista. I still use skeuo skins for AIMP & a custom keyboard pad. But that's about it.

Since I joined multiple social media sites this year, I thought I'd do a comparison.

Bluesky & Mastodon:

My experience on Bluesky & Mastodon are pretty similar in that both are twitter-like sites that have a fandom culture & lots of hot-takes. But there are key differences.

For one, most of the fan content on Mastodon is scifi while Bluesky doesn't seem to a preference when it comes to fan content. There's also more Gen-Xers on Mastodon than I thought there'd be. (Granted there are some on Bluesky too.) Mastodon also has a lot more hashtag events like a weekly event where people liveblog monster/alien movies. Even though there is still drama & discourse, the community feels more tightknit overall. They also have slightly different features with Bluesky allowing for quote retweets & Mastodon allowing one to edit their own prev posts. The feed feature on Bluesky & Mastodon function differently too. On Bluesky, you can get to customize your feeds to be whatever topic you want (very useful). On Mastodon, there's only the Local Feed (your instance-only), Global Feed (all instances), and the Explore tab (trending posts).

Spacehey:

Meanwhile Spacehey is very far removed from the twitter-ness of either of those sites, for very obvious reasons. It not only brings back a lot of the features from older social media like myspace, it has a similar community to myspace too. There's less of a focus on fan culture or drama & more on personal blogging, sharing music, etc. However there is still a bit of media/art appreciation on there too, with its own blog/forum categories for movies/tv and art. They let you subscribe to certain blogs and forums too. On top of blog posts & forums, it also has these temporary posts that autodelete after a certain time called bullet-in posts. The concept feels refreshing in a world where nearly everything is permentantly archived.

Pixelfed & Pinterest:

Pixelfed & Pinterest also have a chill community due to it mainly focusing on aesthetics rather than textposts. That said, there are some key differences: one being the near-invasive algorithm of Pinterest that, while mostly effective, negatively impacts your search results. One feature Pinterest does have that I like is the ability to scrap your saved images to together to make a "board" (a collection based on a specific topic/aesthetic). Pixelfed has Local & Global Feeds like Mastodon. It also has dark mode for both desktop & mobile. Pinterest only has for mobile.

It feels as if every social media site has its own unique set of features & culture.