thayerw

joined 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Mullvad VPN provides a variety of blocklists, including ads, trackers, malware, gambling, social media, and adult content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The biggest hurdles are unavoidable under stock Android, but it really depends on your needs. What are you trying to protect against?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Any offline or disconnected smart TV, pi 4 with Kodi (LibreElec), Steam Link, blu-ray player, AVR, and a Logitech Harmony remote to tie it all together. We have a huge disc collection that we've ripped and we also grab media from the library.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Glad you found something that'll work!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Nice writeup, thanks for sharing. For your music woes, have you tried plain old VLC? It's what I use for music (and Mpv for video) and it's been fine. I like that I can keep my mp3 folder structure the way I like it and still be able to browse and queue albums without relying on metadata.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Just replying to my own comment to say that folks should think very carefully about switching to a personal domain name for email, for the very reason mentioned by the OP.

What if your domain registration lapses and someone else grabs it? What if you can't afford the cost five years from now? What if you just don't like the domain name someday? All of these reasons will be problematic and some can result in identity theft and significant fraud. It's definitely not a decision to be taken lightly, particularly if you have a lot of online accounts.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

No, once you delete a Google account it can never be used again, by anyone (link).

I use a password manager (KeePass XC/DX) to track all of my accounts.

In your situation, I would update whatever accounts you do know about to the new email address you intend to use. Set Gmail to forward emails to this account too, and then stop using Gmail for everyday mail. Leave your Google account active for a year and see if any issues crop up.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

if I recall correctly, there is a separate link in the same settings area for deleting any data stored from off-site partners.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

From a societal point of view, that's a pretty sad read. I recently created a mastodon account--I'm not entirely sure why but I always wanted to give it a try--and this is exactly the kind of thing that has kept me from posting anything yet. It's kind of just shouting into a void and not knowing what kind of response will come back (if any, given the platform).

At least with platforms like Lemmy, there is a clearly defined topic of discussion, and generally with like-minded contributors.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

For all its faults (and there are many), Huawei continually features some of best phone cameras available worldwide.