Ahhh sad to hear, but thanks for your reply,
now I know that I can stop searching,
and start hoping for quick implementation of Wireguard config support for Netbird :)

Thanks for your suggestion, but after going through the Github issues,
I’m afraid that it’s not possible yet to connect to Netbird using a Wireguard config file:

• https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/2504
• https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/2627

I believe Briar currently is one of the best options out there, together with SimpleX.

However I lack usage experience with both.
Since no one I know makes use of them…

It was already hard enough to convince only a handful of my friends to start using Session and Matrix/Element (which are not the best options anymore), but I’m kinda doubtful about my success rate of making them switch once again…

My success with convincing people to use Telegram has been better though, since that’s the most commonly known, but nearly no one wants to install an app they never heard off before, just to chat with only me :P

Also “convincing people” lately goes smth like this for me:

• Do you have WhatsApp or Messenger so I can send you some pictures?
• No I don’t use apps that do not respect my privacy, but you can send em to me through SimpleX, Briar, Session, Matrix/Element, Telegram, Discord or email :P
• Upon which most choose Telegram or Discord as their means to contact me, sadly no one had Briar/SimpleX yet.

*Don’t Use Session,
if your threat profile includes government’s spending ±100k to crack your encryption, since their encryption is not the best out there.

Which they likely won’t for an average privacy conscious user, but they might for high ranking criminals.

It was a good read though,
I won’t invite new people to Session due to it.

But the title is a little click-baity,
“Session’s encryption is not the best”,
would be a more honest title.

deleted by creator

Oh did not know that, sad to hear.

They did remove traffic to the old Yuzu domains though, which now are in the hands of Nintendo, used to monitor which users use emulators.

Do you have other suggestions for promising successor forks?

Suyu, it’s the continuation/fork of Yuzu:
https://suyu.dev/

Also Azahar, the continuation/fork of Citra:
https://azahar-emu.org/

There’s 2 parts to this:

• Android Auto app (on your phone)
• Android Auto Head Unit software (in your car)

Both of which are currently proprietary,
and would need to be written as FOSS from the ground up by reverse engineering the above 2, which would be a huge undertaking.

Also flashing custom Head Unit software to your car will be very hard, is not well documented, and likely will void your warranty, giving low incentive for developers to even attempt it :/

The best you can do right now is aa4mg (Android Auto 4 MicroG),
which at least allows to replace the proprietary Google Play services with a privacy respecting FOSS alternative and Android Auto’s dependencies with empty stub packages:
https://github.com/sn-00-x/aa4mg

Full disclosure,
I helped with writing aa4mg :)

Been using VSCodium for a few years now, for loose file editing,
no complaints about it, imo it’s what VSCode should be.

uBlock Origin Filters to get rid of Copilot bloat on Github
uBlock Origin => Open the Dashboard => My Filters => Add:

github.com##.copilotPreview__container
github.com##.AppHeader-CopilotChat
github.com##li.ActionListItem:has-text(Copilot)
github.com##li.ActionList-sectionDivider:has-text(Copilot)
github.com##li.TimelineItem:has-text(Copilot)
github.com##div.pb-4:has-text(Copilot)
github.com###copilot_free_global
github.com###copilot-button-container
github.com###blob-view-header-copilot-icon
github.com##a[href*="/resources/articles/ai"]
github.com##a[href*="/settings/copilot"]
github.com##a[href*="/features/copilot"]
github.blog##a[href*="/features/copilot"]
github.blog##a[href*="/ai-and-ml"]
github.blog##article.changelog-label-copilot
github.blog##article.changelog-label-models

Also disable + block everything under: https://github.com/settings/copilot

Oh wow did not know that.

Well, if them spying on you and selling your data was not enough to make you switch to an alternative, then maybe/hopefully lack of search operators will be!

You can use the - (minus) sign,
which excludes pages that contain the word which has the - in front of them.

For example, currently I’m replaying GTA V single player, but when I search for content related to it, I’m often given articles about the online version.

To solve that I search:

GTA V <insert-topic-of-interest> -online

Which excludes all articles containing the word online.

I use SearXNG though,
but afaik this is implemented by most search engines.

My coping mechanism:
Block/filter out the news!
(Except for positive/uplifting news)

It does wonders for your mental health!

Most news sources are for-profit,
and they did some research,
apparently depressing news draws more attention / clicks, which results into more profit for them, but it isn’t good for your mental health.

Other news sources just drive an hidden agenda, and aim to manipulate you to believe whatever the rich guy that owns the news site wants.

Also, try to have fun while humanity is sliding down in the background!

Whether you’re depressed or acknowledge and then ignore the facts, will have zero impact on the final outcome which will apply to the whole world.

So might as well aim to be happy in the meantime :)

Afaik Qubes runs all software in containers,
which isolates them from each other,
which is great for privacy.

However, OP only asked for Chrome,
and I assume the jump to Qubes might be too big.

To only isolate Chrome,
I’d recommend a Flatpak instead.

Or even better Ungoogled-Chromium.

Regarding AI, I filled it in as following:

• What is most important to you right now about technology and the internet?
  • Other (please specify): Fuck AI
• In your opinion, what is the most important work for Mozilla to do right now?
  • Other (please specify): Do not implement AI
• What is most important to you in AI?
  • Select nothing

Yes, the script uses git svn under the hood,
however it simplifies the process of a fair amount of steps,
to just x1 easy CLI command with an in/output parameter.

Nope, only SVN => Git

SearXNG: https://github.com/searxng/searxng

It enhances and respects privacy,
is open source and self hostable,
and queries multiple configurable search engines (google, bing, brave, duckduckgo, …)

You can find a list of public hosted instances here:
https://searx.space/

However I prefer to slap an instance randomizer on top, so each of my queries goes through another public SearXNG instance, for more privacy, and mostly, to bypass rate-limiting after frequent queries.

For this I use:

• On Desktop - GimmeASearX:
  https://github.com/demostanis/gimmeasearx
• On the go - SearX NeoCities:
  https://searx.neocities.org/

I posted a guide last year on how to do it on Eternity for Lemmy:

https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/6091026

I have an MSI Bravo 17 for work since this month,
quite happy about it so far.

My experience with MSI is best price/value for hardware specs, but with shitty build quality.

However this one feels quite sturdy compared to earlier MSI laptops.

It can get loud under heavy duty,
but it goes quiet again under low workload,
for now at least, my previous MSI laptop sounded like a jet engine whenever it was powered on.

The one you posted seems particularly suited to run Linux upon, since it’s an all AMD machine, and their Linux support is great.