thayerw

joined 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

I can't say that I'm surprised when a privacy-focused company has a dose of unfounded or biased paranoia. For me, this is not reason enough to distrust them.

I also don't fault them for doing away with SMS when most of the populated world had already moved away from SMS by then too. As a North American relying on SMS for about half of my messaging needs at the time, I wasn't happy about it either. But I don't fault them for making that decision, and ultimately it did push me to rely on more secure options, which I see as a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago

Noooo! Ugh, that's so disheartening to hear but I can't fault imsodin for his reasons. I sincerely hope that someone steps up to the plate, even if only for the F-Droid releases.

For anyone else interested, the discussion is taking place here:

https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002/7

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I can only speak for myself, but I would never trust opaque, proprietary software to manage my credentials, especially in a networked environment. For me, that's a total showstopper.

I've never had need to use Bitwarden or Vaultwarden as I've always been happy with KeePass, but this news would definitely have me choosing an alternative.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

For what it's worth, I only ever had sync issues when sharing a database between devices with transient connectivity. Once I added an always-on instance of Syncthing into the mix, collisions were a thing of the past.

We've been using KeePass trouble-free for many years now, sharing a single database across more than 6 devices, with frequent use and modification.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

If you want free tier with good privacy practices, Proton is going to be the best option.

I have several paid webhost accounts already, so I just use those for email. Any important messages (which are increasingly rare) are saved to PDF and stored offline (business/tax/medical info, etc.), and the rest is purged once read/sent.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Despite some of the comments here, I suggest that you don't overthink it; just buy an APC Back-UPS 600VA and be done with it. You have relatively low power requirements. The UPS will provide some surge protection (490J), several minutes of uptime, and a USB connection for automated shutdown.

The 600VA unit is less than $100 USD and replacement batteries are about half that. I've been using several of this same model for years without issue and we have many brown/blackouts being in a rural BC community. The batteries have lasted me 4-5 years.

You can always plan for something more significant down the road, if your hardware or needs change, but this should do fine in the interim.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Lots of great responses here already. In terms of simplicity and ease of maintenance, Hugo is going to be the best solution with its single binary, built-in features, and ease of setup/use.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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 2 months ago

Glad you found something that'll work!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months 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.

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