rufus

Software. 99% of the time there is some Free Software alternative that either somehow does the job for my personal tasks, or is better anyways.

Linux and a browser with an adblocker will get you most of the way on the computer.

For real-life I don't have good advice. You could move somewhere where it's less common. But I think sports for example comes with ad banners everywhere.

I've been using Android for quite some time and I can say the operating system is pretty stable and reliable. It might have been a different story 10 years ago, but as of now it has good security measures, sandboxing etc, handles whatever you throw at it and isn't as locked down as iOS is.

I think you're right. Having a semi go past you at 50mph is mental.

I think at some point I need a detailed lecture on how cycling feels in the USA or go and see for myself. It's really difficult for me to judge all of this. Only thing I can say is the sidewalk is a very, very dangerous alternative. But it might very well be the case that you don't have a good alternative.

We usually avoid sharing roads where cars drive at 50mph. Most of the time it's 30mph where you'd get in such a situation. You're allowed to use the sidewalk if you're younger than 10 yo. It's plain illegal for people older than that. In the city cars have to keep a minimum distance of 1.5m to bicycles, that's about 5 feet in crazy people's units. Usually that means the car drivers are forced to switch lanes when going past a bicycle. And it's a bit more sideways distance outside of the cities. All of those rules are written in blood. We're not good at sharing the roads, but car drivers slowly learn to abide by the law and actually keep that distance, it's really getting better in recent times. (But far from perfect.) And my city is half-heartedly building some more bicycle lanes and seperate small roads across the city, exclusive to bicycles. All of that is a major effort and we still get accidens on a regular basis.

Take care.

As I said I don't know how driving is in the US. I heard it's really bad in some places. I know it's the way we do it here. There is just one road and cars and bicycles need to get along and share it. It's not always easy, you're right with that. But the sideway isn't an option. Pedestrians and bicycles don't mix well and there regularly are really bad accidents. And the cyclists also get killed by cars there.

There are studies. You end up having a 10x or 20x higer chance to die when cycling on the sideway by being missed by a car driver (I forgot the exact numbers). You can try and mitigate for that by really paying attention yourself, slowing down etc. Keeping track of all the cars around you. I'm not sure if you end up at the same chance to die as if you were cycling on the street. I'd hop off my bike and walk it across the junction if i were on the sideway.

Btw. is it legal to cycle on a sideway where you live?

It's because you're exactly in their blind spot. If they're on the street and you're on the sidewalk next to them. They'll run you over at the next junction, as it has happened in this case. It's always right turns and things to the side of cars. And you'll be exactly there when cycling on the sidewalk.

Additionally car drivers don't anticipate fast moving things on the sidewalk. They'll have a quick glance at the sidewalk directly before and after the junction. Because a pedestrian can only move so far in the time until they made the turn. Then they'll watch out for other traffic on the street, signals and so on. In the meantime you'll emerge out of nowhere on the pavement, moving at 5x the speed of anything that's anticipated to be there and that's going to be a problem.

I don't know how it's in the US. But generally you should just cycle in plain sight directly infront of them on the road. It's difficult to miss that.

Your questions are too short and vague, I don't understand what you want and what the letters "wd.vp" stand for.

Here is gluetun's wiki with a description how to get protonvpn running: https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun-wiki/blob/main/setup/providers/protonvpn.md

When you've signed up, you are provided with more information, help, tutorials and configuration files by protonvpn. Read that, too.

You could also type your questions into google.com or look for step-by-step video guides on YouTube.

Yes, me too. I've unsubscribed from the political and news communities, several weeks ago. That helps. And I don't think it's specifically a Lemmy problem. It's everywhere. And since lots of people use Lemmy as a news feed, we get all the doom posts in our timelines.

I think most people here left Reddit when Spez started the thing with the API and asserted his dominance during the protests. That's when we learned it's not our platform, but his. And he has a very different vision for the place.

People who properly like 4chan don't really mix with other people. It's for trolling, shitposting, sharing porn and gore amongst random stuff or shouting at each other. More anarchy than other places. And filled with incels and 14 year olds. I mean it's a bit more than that and it has it's unique culture. But there isn't really an overlap with people who like places like this one. This is less anarchy, you can discuss your Linux server adminisration woes here without getting yelled at. Or share pictures of your crocheting pieces. Of course also memes and pictures.

So in summary: Where else would I be? I'm not 14 anymore and Reddit gave me the finger.

It's the same concept. Downside here is the tools they're provided with are a bit rough and need some more polish. It's been an issue for some time. And there are less people here. That also means less moderators and that can sometimes be an issue.

On the plus side people tend to be a bit nicer here. So we can most of the time get away with it.

There is drama both there and here. Occasional disputes and arguments whether somebody deleted something out of personal motivation or because it was warranted. Some people have an attitude and don't listen. Usually everything works to an acceptable level. I'd invite you to join and see for yourself.

Power abuse can happen. I don't think there is a technical solution to make things like that impossible. It's the instance admins who are responsible to handle that.

Make a request per the GDPR.

Sign up for an account, choose a location, then configure your Wireguard client with the provided values.

But as we pointed out in the discussion, it won't get you Bittorrent. They'll immediately block you if you download torrents over that.