Just a quick reminder for Android users, using the guide below should help a bit if you need to have any of these apps installed at all (as far as info the apps grab from your device) - https://lemmy.ml/post/54596

Looking at the comments on the teddit thread I cant say Ive had issues with speed on OsmAnd but like the look of this all the same (and find the search option easier too). Thanks for sharing it!

Really liked this, there’s a lot of Ring doorbells around my area so even without some of the other tech mentioned it still felt pretty relevant.

Ive got a lot of thoughts on these two posts, and am not sure how to articulate them all.

I don’t feel like the point of the project was to be a private YouTube alternative but rather one that avoided take downs and censorship (though the added benefit of not being Google was a plus). This doesn’t excuse the privacy policy, and it would be nice to see it updated if it is indeed something that keeps users away.

I also don’t think Peertube makes it as easy for an existing YouTube creator to port their videos over - the ease of use has seen some larger channels (Louis Rossman comes to mind) use LBRY where I don’t believe they would have other wise.

This part is preference, I find the player (loading) and look (UI, layout) of LBRY to be better than Peertube when sharing with non-tech/privacy focused friends/family/forums (instances also make this area murky). Those users wont use a VPN and/or TOR for anything, so the recommendation to protect their IP address will flat (as does the concern of being a US company).

Those points aside Im glad someone is doing deep dives on policies, even if I don’t think this particular site tried to be a bastion of privacy in the first place it’s nice to have a plain language look at things. I’ll consider looking at Peertube when sharing links when possible but am still glad that LBRY is a thing in the meantime.

I’d be interested to see how work from home has impacted this (practice of screen breaks every 20min). For myself it’s far easier and the pressure to always be 100% “present” isn’t there.

Glad there’s a solid open source Windows option for this!

Step counter is standalone, some of the watch apps need a paired device (notifications, the navigation app, music playback controls) but the health features (heart rate and step counter) are all standalone.

If you pair the device using Gadgetbridge on Android you would get the steps synced and shown in that app, using it without any apps it still counts steps and resets at midnight back to 0 on the watch display.

Not to complicate things but this is also just using the default OS, more options are available and Wasp-OS has a different layout and more options like an alarm app for example.

Video of default OS (recent version) - https://odysee.com/@IzaicNIX:e/infinitime

Video of Wasp OS (recent version) - https://odysee.com/@IzaicNIX:e/waspos

That makes sense, I’d rather not have the currency impeed the messenger (regulations, climate impact, etc) if given the choice.

Arrived yesterday, did the setup with my computer (updates, time sync) and was pretty straight forward.

Size and weight is like a Pebble Time if you ever used one, the band is worse but easily changed. The watch doesnt turn off, and on day 2 Im on 84%.

Havent used the heart meter or the games since they are not my thing, the step counter works well (user compared to Apple Watch on long hike in the video below) as does the raise to wake screen option.

Overall it was affordable, FOSS and seems capable.

Video over view worth watching: https://odysee.com/@pizzalovingnerd:5/the-best-pine64-product-pinetime-review:2

Maybe someone else can chime in that knows, but Session states the following in their FAQ which reads to me as if the crypto portion of the network isn’t yet merged with the messenger at all levels (yet). I would be curious to hear from someone else with more knowledge, as I liked the idea behind the messenger otherwise.

If the two (their coin and the messenger) are able to run together but still stay “unlinked” in regards to message content and I don’t have to hear about earning Oxen by using the service I am more inclined to consider it an option.

The Session team is hard at work fixing bugs and shoring up core messaging functionality, but once the app is working reliably, we’ll be moving on to Lokinet integration to bring voice calling functionality to Session. We’ll keep the community updated on our progress, so be sure to follow our Twitter to stay up to date!

No, your messages are not stored on a blockchain. Messages are stored by swarms, and are deleted after a fixed amount of time (called the “time-to-live”, or TTL). All of your messages are encrypted, and can only be decrypted using the private key which is stored locally on your device.

It seems unlikely to us that Apple has granted Cellebrite a license to redistribute and incorporate Apple DLLs in its own product, so this might present a legal risk for Cellebrite and its users.

I’d like to see where that goes, since Apple doesn’t appear yo have the best relationship with companies such as Cellbrite to begin with (that we know of at least).

Nice writeup, I use both of those programs too (started during lockdown as well).

I’d say that from a user standpoint ads that are based on the page/site content are ideal, but from a business standpoint the drop in revenue (comparatively) by moving to such a model at scale makes it a non-starter (just a guess, no data to back it up).

More speculation: I wouldnt think this drop in revenue is due to quality of the ads themselves but rather how it limits the scope - if we’re no longer serving ads to the individual across websites then this makes the number of times their profile is sold/profited off of fewer.

Contextualized advertising gets my vote, though I’m sure there are other alternatives.

Yeah I don’t know if anyone knew this was coming, in the forum thread other users pointed out how Moxie had stated in last interviews that existing payment methods did “good enough” so something changed.

Good read on the subject here - https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency

Forum thread if you want to gauge users opinions. There’s some good discussion/conjecture, some are mixed on whether this will alienate existing users or be something that actually makes sense later on (with points made that the fees for this coin could be used to fund Signal development and the like for example) - https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-help-us-test-payments-in-signal/30817/71

One users take on using this feature here -

I just tested the process of adding funds and sending money, and it works fine. It took less than a minute to transfer just short of half a MobileCoin from an exchange to my Signal wallet.

Then it took a second or two to transfer 0.24 MobileCoin to another Signal user.

However, at a cost of 0.01 MobileCoin (nearly £0.50), I dare say this is a non-starter in the UK (except maybe for people superbly concerned with private payment privacy) where we are used to free instant bank transfers, Paym (same but using mobile numbers instead of account numbers), free Revolut transfers, etc.

To top that, the process of obtaining MOB in the first place was quite convoluted - I had to obtain BUSD first, then send it to FTX to be converted into MOB. Who would go to such lengths for casual small payments? Not anyone I know. My use cases would be when a bunch of us go to a restaurant and share the bill, when we gather up to buy someone a birthday present, or when we buy e.g. a streaming subscription together and need to settle up. We have so many free and much faster ways to do that, both in the UK and Europe, from bank transfers using real money from our banking apps, to Revolut, N26, Monzo, Starling, Wise, even Curve will do transfers soon… The list is ever growing.

It is an interesting feature but at the current level of complication and cost I don’t see it gaining any meaningful foothold in the UK or EU.

Thanks, that was a good read. I disagree with this as I didnt ever think I needed to be able to send money in my messaging app:

Payments present a tough dilemma for Signal: To keep pace with the features on other messaging apps, it needs to let users send money. But to do so without compromising its sterling privacy assurances poses a unique challenge.

If the tech having the coins privacy holds to audits though that is indeed a nice/good thing, though this sounds like almost too big a hurdle due to the level of scrutiny that could be involved:

“Signal as an encrypted messaging product is really valuable. Speaking solely as a person who is really into encrypted messaging, it terrifies me that they’re going to take this really clean story of an encrypted messenger and mix it up with the nightmare of laws and regulations and vulnerability that is cryptocurrency.”

Russel Brand videos have shown in the recommended section between views, looks like he did at least a few on the subject. Also on other platforms like Odysee there have been a few as well.

I didnt read them all but thought that the fact he responded at all was nice - I also liked how other (non creators) were pointing out things such as what you said above.

I don’t know where I fall on the issue, but an example of a comment I enjoyed was the one below. Ive started to see more WEF pushback listed on other videos as well, so I might dive in to be better informed.

Comment:

Johnny is emblematic of the type of “journalism” that Vox promotes. Which is essentially “This BIG problem can actually be explained by these 3 points! pretty illustrations The solution to this problem is not structural change but simply us being cognizant of these issues so that we can be nicer towards each other :)”. Anyone reading this, check out Adam Ragusea’s “How I became the Mariah Carey Christmas chord guy (and why I hate it)” video. I like his take on how Vox boils things down to compete in the “attention economy” and how it makes it entertaining, but not accurate.

The OP of the other video engaged in the comments, good discussion from all sides (at times) regardless of the position.

It’s definitely an interesting topic, I like the idea that we’re seeing a possible rebrand due to others not buying into the status quo - it doesn’t feel like that at times over here (USA based view)

I wish the USA carriers weren’t restricting devices that don’t have VoLTE, there were some better older options that wont be feasible going forward (next year or so).

Thanks for the name/recommendation, hadn’t heard of his video but will check out. I used KaiOS on a fliphone for a bit, but didnt like how I couldnt change the Google based shortcuts to other things (could have been model specific, not sure if it’s that way on others).

USA centric info below:

A lot of the flip/dumb phones that are newer/would support things like Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) are either KaiOS or Nokia’s Series 30 (or a variant of that).

KaiOS isnt that “dumb” and has got some funds/interest from Google, and has apps like WhatsApp - https://www.kaiostech.com

The Nokia devices that don’t have KaiOS are like the 225, they come with Facebook preinstalled though I am not sure if it’s an app or a web wrapper/link - https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/nokia-225-4g

If you’re looking for pure tracker protection things like this could work (since you’re not doing anything but calls and maybe SMS) but as you point out there is a productivity trade off - how far you are willing to go depends on your threat model and what you can live with.

GrapheneOS is more secure but is not always as private, there have been multiple discussions over the difference and the GrapheneOS website still calls some of these out if I recall. It is better in the fact that there is no Google, but the point isnt to be as private as possible but rather be secure (which comes with some privacy by default).

I don’t have a good answer for you, but hope some that info helps.

Edit: forgot to add, but you could try out Linux devices like the PinePhone or Librem 5 - if you like to tinker and get involved they’re good options, but some people don’t find then usable depending on what you’ve come to expect from a mobile phone (the software is still being developed, it’s moving fast but will have hiccups compared to other devices). Worth a look though if any of that sounds interesting!