What can we do to keep the web open?
Just use Firefox
Shout-out to Librewolf as well (basically Firefox with better privacy focused configs).
People don’t care enough about using browsers that reduce Google’s influence on web standards (i.e. non chrome-based browsers)
IME, big momentous events are actually continuous transitions that we only notice in a drastic moment.
This whole chrome thing has been building to this for ages. So beyond using Firefox, there’s also some basic principles that need to be formulated and distributed as “it’s free because you’re the product” is now … not to mention breaking up monopolies.
And an alternate email service like ProtonMail.
They also have ProtonDrive as an alternative to Google Drive. Apple’s iCloud is also end-to-end encrypted now. pCloud is another popular option. There are a number of choices for secure cloud storage these days.
Web search is a bit more difficult. DuckDuckGo is heavily integrated with Bing. Brave Search is hit-or-miss. Yahoo is just a front-end for Bing.
If you need live document collaboration, you’re probably already in a setting where either Sharepoint or GSuite are mandated. If you’re not, BitAI may be worth looking into.
All great advice, but I personally cannot urge people towards pCloud. I have one of the permanent tiers, but I found the service frustratingly buggy and, when contacted, support was rude and unhelpful. There are so many little odd limitations on the pCloud file system it was frustrating. I also worry that their buy-once business model is not sustainable.
Sync.com provides an even more secure service (zero-knowledge across the board) with similar (better than US anyway) privacy protections in the host country (Canada) that has been, so far for 2 years of use, rock solid (I couldn’t go a week without pCloud farting out some error). The subscription model is affordable and generous and the customer-facing pages for sharing files are very professional looking (important to me, because I professionally share files and pCloud looked like a hobbyist page in this regard AND leaked private information).
EDIT: Regarding iCloud. Not only is iCloud end-to-end, but you may turn on zero-knowledge encryption now, as well (Advanced Data Protection I think is what they call it) so that Apple doesn’t even have the keys to decrypt your data, making it quite similar to sync.com now.
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Swiss technology company that focuses on privacy products. Initially funded by a Swiss startup capital firm and now uses a subscription model. ProtonMail is not open source or non-profit, but the product they offer is privacy. Switzerland also has strict privacy laws and resists state-based information requests. Best option is to run one’s own email client server, but simple folks like me don’t have the skills to do so. (FWIW, I use ProtonMail and think it works great.)
For web search, I always first try SearXNG, but if I dont find what I need, I use startpage.com (private frontend for google.com)
Kagi is also really nice. But it’s not free…
I am confused by why everyone thinks this is a big threat?
What stops the FOSS community from just continuing to allow ad blockers and other webpage editing features?
If the web is DRM’d in a way that requires chrome or windows then it could be difficult to bypass.
I remember the days of, “sorry, you must use Internet Explorer to use this website” when visiting my bank.
I remember that government sites were the same way it was frustrating.
DRM is already applied for certain content in websites such as Netflix, etc, and it makes it waaaay harder to bypass.
For example, Netflix (and the others) use DRM to block Linux computers from higher quality content. Why? I guess “hackers” and “think of the children”. Truth is… content is already pirated from the second it gets released on any of these platforms… so they are not really fixing anything… I guess they really want you to use a tracking OS.
Imagine this kind of system but for an entire website. Big companies imposing their devices and software as the only way to access a website… which is really just HTML and Javascript files, entirely platform agnostic… but who cares? They are struggling for money so they are squeezing every little possibility.
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You don’t need to “be smart” to switch to Linux. Linux for the most part ‘just works’ these days of you choose the ‘right’ distro.
Agreed but you do need to be willing to tinker a bit. Even ubuntu required a lot of tinkering to get working on my system. I’m all for getting people to switch, and it’s much easier than it was 15 years ago when I started, but for most people they’re not going to just install linux. We definitely are in the <1% of users.
If you have bleeding edge hardware, that can be a problem from time to time, but if I’m being honest, I haven’t seen any real issues since the early 00’s needed tweaking to work. To suggest that Windows is tweak free is disingenuous, and Apple is a walled garden that is designed to ‘just work’ but Apple expects their users to just buy a new device when something becomes mildly inconvenient to them.
Yeah, but you can’t tell me that the levels of tweaking are the same.
For example. I have never had to go in and modify conf files for nvidia drivers on Windows to be able to run basic games. My ubuntu install? Definitely had to.
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Well, it all comes down to tastes and preferences, but Linux Mint is made to be a very easy transition for (ex-)Windows users. It works out of the box, looks intuitive and has great support on their forums. Give it a try and if you feel like you want to try out other distros later, it all gets easier once you are familiar with Linux overall.
And yes, what you mean is dual booting and Mint asks you on install if you want to choose that option and sets everything up for you.
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Ubuntu or Linux mint are good options. There are other newbie friendly distros out there, but I only tried these 2.
Yes you can dual-boot. When you start your computer, it will show you a menu where you can choose between Linux or Windows.
Ubuntu has gotten a reputation for doing intrusive bullshit too, so I wouldn’t recommend that to someone looking to get away from it.
Sounds ‘ominous’
I was trying to convey that there is no right or wrong answer to which distro to choose, but some distros are more advances than others, so if the most applicable distro is selected it should be fine. But I get what you’re saying.
Amazon too, Went freaking nuts trying to figure out why I couldnt watch any of my shit above like 180p quality on amazon. until I found out they intentionally and maliciously degrade the quality on non-windows machines.
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This abomination is generally the answer to any DRM related fuckery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
Stop supporting those who intend to close it.
I just want remind everyone that Windows 11 requires your computer to ship with TPM2.0 enabled. This will complete the circuit meaning remote streaming websites can ensure you don’t have DRM on your machine.
TPM is a security token loaded into the firmware of the BIOS put in by the manufacturer to ensure you haven’t tampered with the operating system as shipped and controlled by them.
That will be nice for those websites.
What about pirated win 11? Is it possible to remove the token?
If you don’t have a valid token generated by the hardware device on your machine, the website can just refuse to serve you.
A hacked copy of windows wouldnt boot with TPM switched on.
The TPM module only generates valid tokens it if your boot sequence isn’t tampered. That boot sequence can force your machine to validate itself with windows servers to ensure it isn’t hacked.
A hacked copy of Windows may be prevented from working when you go online.
Sticking to FOSS and decentralized apps as much as possible. And using less invasive apps like Firefox over chrome. Be willing to jump shit when corporate throws in bullshit if you have to use something closed.
This is the only way to slow the spread of enshittification around the web. It will be less convenient for the end user, but ultimately it’s the only way to stop big companies from fucking the web
Except that wont even slow it down.
because tech nerds like us that actually know about it and use it are a slim minority.
The only thing thats going to really stop it is fear mongering and the weights of governments. . and we know how much government loves to crack down on trillion dollar businesses /s
As many people as
peoplepossible need to use Firefox.Twice in the past few months I came across a site that would not work with Firefox. The other time it actually did work, but said that it recommends chrome to function properly.
The first one was a local government form that would not let me select boxes, but chrome worked without any problems.
The second was some 3d game or something like that.
If it’s a random site, then fuck it, I’ll just not visit it again. That’s their issue, not mine. If it is something important, I’d try changing the user agent. That works most of the time.
I feel the same way you do. I’ll try the user agent thing next time. I’m totally all in on Firefox and well safari on iOS, but if they ever allow it to be changed, I’ll be Firefox all the way.
Look into user agent extensions for Firefox. Sometimes tricking a website into thinking you’re using chrome is enough to get the site to work.
Could you maybe still go back and find those links? I use FF for well over 10 years now. And I would say, the amount of websites that do not work, are less than one a year. The only reason are really bleeding edge css filter or MediaDevice instantiations (Webcam, etc.). Video, JS, and HTML is nearly Browser agnostic by this time. I would love to see those non working firefox websites everybody always talks about.
https://www.matecat.com/ for one
FWIW it works fine in Firefox if you change the user agent.
They actively prohibit to use their website with FF. When I look at it in Chromium (only Chrome and Chromium are allowed. No Edge, No Safari, …) I can not see anything why it should not work. Drag and Drop an Image into a dropzone.js container is no crazy technology. Imgur does it every day.
Do you know why they think it would not work in FF? It is just a translation service. I think this is not a good example, as it more seems like they do not want to support webkit and optimized it only for chrome, but their product does not seems to crazy for FF.
They also have Google Drive files connections. Maybe they have just bundled their product the the google ecosystem and therefore prohibit FF/Safari/etc. But this is not the problem of FF/Safari/etc., they just decided to offer a google product only on google browser.
(I would not support such a vendor lock-in, but that is just my 2 cents)
I 💯 agree and I don’t like it either (I use Firefox as my daily driver). However I occasionally work as a translator and the competing CATs are inferior. So I have installed Chromium just for this one website.
I was an early adopter to Matecat but I stopped using it to be fair… what do you like so much about it? I’m using OmegaT and DeepL for MT atm
The second one that recommended chrome, I honestly can’t even really remember what it was.
The local government one is local to just a few city blocks, so I’m not going to share it. But the only thing that didn’t work was when I input my city for example, the next box to select the street did not activate. When I clicked on it no streets were listed. Just a single empty box appeared.
When I did it in chrome I listed my city and then the next box populated with the streets.
I’m not sure if this makes sense, I’m from but not in the US and I’m trying to write about it in a way that makes sense.
Biggest issue i’ve had is AMDRewards site not working on firefox. AMD just ignores the issue and treats it like its a bad redeem code issue, no matter how many times I’ve laid it out for them.
So 3 fucking times I’ve had to install the linux version of Edge, to redeem the code, and download the PVT, just to get my shit. (and immediately uninstall edge afterwards).
I miss the fucking days when they just put the cdkey in the box, and didnt treat me like a thieving piece of shit that had to go through 5 different hoops to prove to them I’m not.
This is one of the reasons to use FF. I know it can be a bit inconvenient, but these sites don’t care about optimizing for anything but Chrome because it has such a huge market share.
And you can keep a second browser installed for the few times this happens, e.g. Chromium or Brave. Also an addon to change your user-agent string for a website works 90% of the time.
I keep brave or chromium installed for cases like this (if I really have to access that website).
Regular use it’s just Librewolf. No point in adding to the chrome’s stats, and still sending data back to Google on top of that.
Same! I have a copy of chrome, but I should get rid of that and just use brave. I didn’t really think about it and just put chrome on there in a rush.
Brave IS chrome. Same engine and shit. We need to eliminate the one engine monopoly. Very few people know the actual value of Firefox’s existence. It does suck at times. It’s not the greatest browser out there, but it NEED to keep existing if we want to save the web from Google’s Monopoly
I know microsoft is not loved by anyone, but this is why I was so furious when they caved and switched Edge to Chromium… Especially since they caved because Google literally abused their position to intentionally and maliciously degrade performance on Edge.
Cause I’d rather have Microsoft/IE/Edge still out there sucking up % away from Chromium, than them ceeding their land and territory to google.
I mean just for instances when a page does not work with Firefox.
Like I legit needed to fill out then government form, I don’t know what to tell you. I use Firefox all the time, but the site legit wasn’t working. I can’t skip out on the form and then just tell them, if it didn’t work on Firefox.
That’s understandable. It’s not a crime to use chrome when you have to. Shit happens, but as long as you’re aware of the importance of Firefox, you’re good. I use brave and Vivaldi all the time on certain things, but my main browser for everything else is Firefox.
Support financially FOSS developers. And stop using corporate shit.
Don’t close the browser.
Start replacing your Google and Microsoft products and services with alternatives, bit by bit. Begin by switching to Firefox for the browser.
@floofloof already using firefox to reply here from my mastodon to lemmy post. But definitely this is not enough.
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Use tech and services outside the big tech. Just Fedi over standard social. Use Peertube instead of Youtube.
Run Firefox.
Set up your own servers for yourself or start a community. Matrix, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.
Run SearXNG as your search or help others by hosting.
If you can work of free and open source code that helps decentralize and give the power back to the people or create something new. Even if you can code, learning a project and helping others with it or helping create docs, etc.
Spread the word, but don’t be annoying. Help less technical folks get decentralized.
It’s very difficult and can be disheartening, but you don’t have to cold turkey all of it. Each drip in the bucket helps until we’re all united and become a tidal wave.
When all the power is centralized that’s when those central players think they can do whatever they want.
Instead of SearXNG which just uses big tech search engines, shouldn’t people use something like https://yacy.net instead? Just a thought.
I’ve never heard of yacy.net but I will check it out. Thank you for the info!
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Fire a full Iowa class broadside of anti-monopoly legislation at google, and break it up into like 40 different companies.
and learn from the mistakes of ATT and NOT let them buy eachother back up to become an even bigger monster a few decades down the line.
Create good content and post it on a free platform. Also give it a permissive license.
A free license is better. Corporations can benefit from the work under permissive license without giving back.
I was looking for the umbrella term. At this point I’d take anything. I know like 5 youtube creators with more than a few subscribers and a couple of conferences that/who publish content under a CC license. And that’s it if you’re looking for free videos that discuss current topics and get new ‘episodes’ on a regular basis. It’s better with written text / articles. But I also like videos and podcasts.
I always wonder… can a truly open and free new internet be built? What would be the options in doing something like this? Maybe running on existing hardware (fibre, towers etc.) to a certain extent…
Just like everyone else said spread the word and de google, Microsoft, apple, etc… your life
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Thats the neat part, you dont Cause unless they average populace starts caring about an open it will eventually become what Google truly wants, and we are well on our way there
Google now controls
- Access to the internet
- Devices using that access
- Software to access websites
- Many of the website you use
- The ads you see
But that’s not enough, apparently
Its a mega Corp, its never enough
Why do we just get the suckyparts of cyberpunk man, thats so unfair
