The first link goes into amazing detail on that. In short: all your information concerning location as well as current IP and some other metadata gets send to a basically unknown company with no transparency on how that data is handled.
I highly recommend reading the first, linked post though!
My pricing experience is from Europe so that could be a different approach to their markets.
Good luck!
Sorry for that hazzle! My story is quite different but exactly the same: my father in law "didn't get around" to do backups and lost his HDD full of important photos and documents.
That said: I'm quite sure that there are huge regional differences. Without knowing your country just keep that in kind.
I phoned around several companies. I had a simple first benchmark: either directly speak with a tech savvy person (big plus) or being forwarded to one.
That eliminated already half of them who had more business than tech.
The important thing to look out for in hindsight is their transport standards, i.e. how does the broken disk get to them and how does the rescued data get back?
Be careful of companies who have the potential to take the disk hostage ("we give a quote after first analysis").
Paying per file rescued sounds weird to me because that's not how the rescue process usually works from what I understand.
The company I went with was very upfront about the best and worst case what to expect, etc. They were very transparent about the risks and their process as well.
Nearly all of the critical data was rescued and delivered on an encrypted disk. The key was handed out after final payment - a process I quite liked.
In short: talk to the people and find a way to figure out whom you trust most.
As they are closed source no one can tell you their true privacy policy. It seems better than average from what I've read but you never know...
Personally I use logseq and sync the files via a Nextcloud instance. I can only recommend it, although I also recommend spending an hour to learn the tagging and linking logic and reading through their guide on what's possible. I still only leverage a minor part of the potential myself.
One that is closer to onenote (I think, never used onenote) is Joplin.
It literally is!
But that's not what OP asked / wanted to dicuss? The person you're attacking simply answered the original question:
"would it be a danger to the whole of humanity or our evolutionary progress?"
While I think the data alignes with your observation and your interpretation of the risks are on point it deviates from the point the person you answered to.
Cups
linux printing server - if you want to share a printer over network or just use one locally on a linux machine.
(not OP but same boat) Doesn't really matter to me because google knows my servers external IP which is a non-issue: I don't expect google to try to attack me individually but crawl data about me. There is no automatic link between my server and my personal browsing habits.
In terms of attack vector vs ease of use , self hosting searxng is a nobrainer for me - but I do have an external server available for things like that anyway so no additional overhead needed.
Thanks for the clarification! A wish you an awesome start into the week :)
Preventing teenage pregnancy by obfuscating sex has the same idea.
I agree with the boundaries part. The second part though: they will figure it out either way... At least my brother did when he was young and our parentsgot a nice lawyer in voice for that (fucked up laws, I know, I know).
Personally I want them to learn about ransomware! If that cost me a PC... My fault.
As your perception sounds quite negative I'll try to change your view!
Instead of looking down on people fanatifally following a "celebrity", take pity on them:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
In short: their brain chemistry tricks them into thinking that they are following a friend and have the emotional reactions and interests as we'd hope our real friends do.
I find it really sad to be honest.