I’m part of a podcast and we also do not have any adverts or sponsorship. We sell merch and we have a ko-fi account which we mention once per episode (if we remember to lol).

Subject matter is um…kind of niche though I suspect.

We have a deluge of data - we have very little information.

The great thing about a lot of very good Linux distros is that you can run them from whats called a ‘live USB’ meaning you download the ISO of the distro you like the look of, put it on a USB drive, then reboot your PC and boot to the USB you just created (you might need to alter your BIOS boot order). There’s a full guide here. The point here is to give the distro a try without putting anything on your harddrive so Windows is safe. If you like it, most distros will let you dual boot so you can have Windows and your linux distro on one machine.

In terms of the right distro a lot depends on what you’ll be using the PC for. For a really good, stable general purpose distro I think Mint is perfect.

Tuta, StartMail, Mailbox all have good reputations for privacy respecting services.

1. Do I actually need it? For example, I like the gnome ArcMenu extension but I don’t really need it, so no to that one.
2. Read the reviews and/or ask in the relevant community, or a Privacy community like this one.
3. If the code’s up to date in a repo see where (if anywhere) its phoning home to.
4. If its not but I still really need it, install it, then run Wireshark and see what its up to, if anything.

That’s why I replied directly to you. Are you new to how public, threaded conversations work?

Do be an adult. Lemmy isn’t that big that you don’t recognise usernames.

Are you trying to be wrong on every thread about this you post in? To follow up on @EldritchFeminity point about the LGBT community, one of the other groups first targeted by the Nazi’s were the disabled. Trump is on record as stating (as per his nephew) that disabled people should ‘just die’ and has openly mocked disabled people. His views are so close to 1930s/40s era Nazism as to make no real difference.

Literal thought policing (“what you privately think”)

Are you suggesting that a statement that he made is not what he thinks?

quasi-religious purity logic (“has tainted Proton”)

lol, sorry you’re incapable of processing descriptive language :) I’ll rephrase it to ‘has negatively affected Proton’s image in the eyes of some’.

This nicely reveals the kind of busybodying inquisitorial mindset that keeps losing elections for US progressives and thus landing the rest of the world with Trump.

Neither I, nor Proton, are American so its difficult to see how my opinion keeps landing the world with Trump.

Trouble is Andy, we now know what you privately think and all the follow up statements in the world can’t put that genie back in the bottle.

Proton is an org that exists in an industry whose customers do not trust easily. Publicly aligning with someone utterly untrustable, either as an individual or as a board, has tainted Proton and adversely affected peoples ability to trust. How can we ever know when Proton will find it acceptable again to respond positively to a Trumpian decision or how it might affect our privacy?

The privacy community is always told to verify, not trust. The board of Proton have decided to publicly state something that leads a lot of people to be unable to trust them - namely supporting the choices of an extreme right wing leader who has repeatedly demonstrated the foolishness of trusting anything he says or does.

This CEO is totally free to have their own thoughts but its verging on the ridiculous to think that other people aren’t going to have a negative reaction to them and seek alternatives. Its next to impossible to trust a company that express approval of Trump decisions because its impossible to trust Trump. And Proton going out of their way to publicly state their approval when they are not even a US org and would’ve lost nothing by simply not saying anything suggests a board that was keen to publicly express support for Trump. It inevitably makes people who are already on the receiving end of Trumpian hate legislation, or who soon will be, wonder what else Proton might be willing to do for Trump in the future.

1. Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran by Lowen.
2. Erosion / Avulsion by Hidden Mothers
3. Bloom & Decay by Dawn Treader
4. Absolute Elsewhere by Blood Incantation
5. Hellfenlic by The Infernal Sea

just confirmed my point

Or maybe you’re so used to posting on a platform that’s bad to hold a conversation on you don’t notice when you’re part of one on a platform that is good at being conversational on.

You don’t really pay much attention do you Mr “look for the signal”?

If you stick to the apps that are indicated as being well supported it’s good. The main reason I use it is because I’m part of a team that includes people not comfortable with the command line so having a web interface to manage a server means not everything falls on my shoulders.

I’ll save you the time: “It’s just conjecture”.

The blog style format (post + threaded comments) is a lot more inviting to a conversational style than microblogging. Some Masto instances have very open post character counts but some are much more limiting - as are Bluesky and Xitter. If you’re not able to explain your point clearly it hampers the ability to have a decent conversation about it.

Speaking as one, the majority are decent people but there is a minority who are openly fash and a sadly growing amount who tolerate fash bands cos the riffs are good.

If its open source and privacy respecting then I’ll use the app. If its not and I have to use the service then website

Great to see another brand new browser under active development!