My own list of software, Open Source Everything, has taken a few suggestions from there. It’s a good list.

Are you one of its maintainers?

What does their router do that any router with openrouter doesn’t lol

It financially supports OpenWrt, for one :)

Well, switching to GrapheneOS shows that you don’t care what those companies do, and that you’re willing to fight. It means those companies lose one more customer. The more people that use GrapheneOS, the more companies will be forced to support it.

This is very bad news, because this means any app that wants your data could do the same.

Ideally, you would have zero iOS or Android devices in your household

*besides custom Android distributions that respect privacy ;)

That’s a good idea! I’ll be sure to include that in my post, thank you!

I know Proton VPN offers NetShield to its paid users. I forgot about DNS filtering because GrapheneOS doesn’t recommend using it over a VPN and the filters can make you stand out, but that’s just me. Good gift idea!

Good one!

This is meant to help you with ideas, not a strict guideline. You’ll notice I mentioned the following for the Google Pixel phones, for example, since I knew not everyone would be happy with it:

Other phones exist for this category, but the Google Pixel is a good baseline.

These gift ideas may not be for you, but plenty of other people would be happy with them.

Quest: Kali Bandits

The Kali have been terrorizing villages across Linuxia. I beg you, young traveler, help us fight them off. I’ll reward you with riches beyond compare!

Objective: Protect the village from the Kali bandits.

Reward: +500 gold

The questmakers haven’t updated the quest descriptions in a while. I’m waiting for the next update when they port the Whonix ISO kit.

I have [Ancient] Debian Armor and a GNOME as my companion. I often equip the Tor Browser Cloak of Invisibility. If slain, I will drop a Locked KeePassXC Database Chest. After completing the mission Revive bricked Linux system, I was awarded with the [Rare] Ego Potion. When drunk, it boosts all stats temporarily during a battle.

I personally can’t stand any other options except for Cinnamon (since it got a redesign) and a few distro-specific ones. That’s just me though. Explore away!

I use both: GNOME works better for a desktop, KDE Plasma works better for a laptop.

There are more than those 2 options for a Desktop Environment, by the way ;)

I’ve been waiting for a post like this. Every single time I have tried Windows 11 I have fallen in love with the UI and UX. Sure, it can be buggy at times, but that’s true with anything. It has always pained me a little bit every time I have to replace it with Linux. KDE Plasma 6 is the closest I’ve been able to find to Windows 11. Microsoft in my opinion did a really sleek and nice job making Windows 11 pretty, especially compared to Windows 10.

People have recommended me VLC in the past. If it’s anything like the usability of the desktop version, I’m going to say it’s a hard pass. The nice thing about playlists compared to folders is the same song can be in multiple playlists without duplication. My files have all the necessary metadata for albums and whatnot, but it’s really playlists that are the issue.

Here are some helpful links from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) on the topic:

https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-travelers-carrying-digital-devices

https://www.eff.org/files/2017/03/10/digital-privacy-border-2017-guide3.10.17.pdf

https://www.eff.org/files/2018/01/11/border-pocket-guide-2.pdf

https://www.eff.org/issues/border-searches

I’m sure there’s more that I haven’t put here, feel free to sift through the search page

Having lived in the U.S. my whole life, (and this doesn’t speak for everyone), it’s not the dystopia people make it out to be all the time. In fact, people will likely judge you for wearing a face mask. If you care about hiding your face, sunglasses and a cap is enough. Remember to be reasonable with your threat model!