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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • It’s a word that has become popular in general in the last year-ish. But if you hear it more here. It is likely because it is a term used to describe the dynamic that pushed people from Reddit and other platforms to Lemmy. So you will here it more here, since pretty much everyone here has been personally affected by it.

    Basically we are a self selecting group of people who chose to leave (or minimize use of) big tech platforms. And are therefore much more likely to be aware of the problems with those platforms.





  • xe3@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldFF Evangelists
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    7 months ago

    Google is in the process of undermining the effectiveness of uBlock Origin and other adblockers on Chrome and other Chromium browsers. I believe that change comes into effect this year.

    But even before those changes were announced, uBlock Origin’s creator and main dev has stated that uBO is most capable on Firefox.






  • xe3@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlHow I like my pi
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    9 months ago

    Pihole is a great project, but it is objectively less capable than uBlock Origin.

    That is not a criticism of the software. It is just a fundamental fact that DNS based adblockers are less powerful, and less granular/precise than Browser based adblockers.

    They do work well in combination though (the DNS level adblockers gives you moderately effective network wide blocking, and uBlock Origin gives you exceptional blocking but is limited to the browser.






  • What you are feeling is natural and relatable. You need to find a balance and define your threat model.

    Privacy maximalism and/or FOSS maximalism etc is natural impulse when you first begin to grasp just how quietly exploitive, invasive, and commoditized the modern internet is. But it also leads to burnout and can be isolating if you are too rigid about it.

    Define your threat model, and your priorities. Accept that perfection is not attainable and do the best you can. It’s less overwhelming.

    My advice:

    • pick ONE easy to use and well established/reputable messenger that is privacy respecting (Signal is the obvious choice in my eyes). Make it known that this is your preferred messenger (and have a short, not super technical and not super political explanation why you prefer it). Try to get the people you are closest with or communicate with most, and the people you think are most likely to be interested to start using it.
    • Then, have a preferred fallback or two (basically the “least worst” mainstream option). Depending on your circle, iMessage, RCS, WhatsApp, or Telegram might be that fallback. None are anywhere near perfect but they also aren’t the worst and sometimes you have to meet people where they are.

  • I agree with your critique of both the algorithms today and the often relatively low-effort, unoriginal, self-interested, and self-absorbed people that tend to rise to the top of these systems. (While still acknowledging there is a lot of great content as well)

    I try my best not to let the Algos shape/direct my viewing.

    With respect to YouTube, I:

    • Disable the ‘front page’ and ‘trending’ category.
    • Disable ‘auto play’
    • find content in two ways: directly from a list of the channels I subscribe to, or by deliberately searching for something.

    It’s certainly not a perfect approach, but it does a lot to focus my attention on things I actually care about and minimize the effect the algorithm has on what I see or view.