People allow their TV to connect to the interpipes? Tut tut, I thought y’all were better than that!

mobile Chromium doesn’t have ublock anyway…

Kiwi browser on Android is Chromium based & has had the ability to add extensions such as uBlock for years

I really like it. Tech comminities & some others are very bouyant & interesting but niche communities really struggle. Even direct replacements of big subreddits struggle. Hopefully this improves.

One tip from my own experience. I use Voyager & blocked a load of US politics keywords.

And another, I subscribed to as many interesting Lemmy communities as i could then browse Home feed in the main & occasionally All to see if any other interesting communities crop up that could be worth joining.

Welcome & enjoy.

I dunno if TV is dead per se as we all enjoy watching shows/movies. Not really interested in gimmicks - we only have 4K as all new TV’s are 4K & we only got it because our previous TV failed & they can no longer be repaired.

All i want is a good quality dumb screen. You can stick all your smart features where the sun dont shine, I’ll handle everything via a separate box that I control thank you. I’ll not be at the mercy of your shitty EULA, you won’t monitor my viewing habits or force ads into the UI or remove your dogshit apps without warning. Our TV has never been online, HTPC with a couple of USB TV tuners, uBlock Origin, an interface of my choosing, remote control & lots of storage handles everything. Still perfectly happy watching SD stuff, the only 4K we watch is YouTube.

Kiwi browser (Brave & Firefox on desktop) with: uBlock Origin, Sponsorblock, DeArrow (fights YouTube clickbait thumbs & titles, same dev team as Sponsorblock), Violentmonkey with a few scripts: Google Shut Up, Search cookie auto reject

They hype 4k/8k recording capabilities but the average buyer is unlikely to realise exactly how fast this eats storage.

I had to buy a new phone when my last one broke. Needed S Pen & external SD so I opted for a used Note 20 Ultra in conjunction with the same SD card ive used since I first bought a smart phone.

I self host my own Nextcloud but cloud isnt the answer. Even in this day & age in a big city or driving, streaming is not available all the time. I insist that everything important is available offline: maps, notes, all media be it music, podcasts, audio books …even movies/TV shows seeing as these phones can easily be connected to a TV for use with Kodi or similar. Another thing is recording footage of holidays etc for editing. It all takes up space.

I’m of the opinion the external SD was only removed for profiteering reasons.

Can’t remember the last time I installed anything from Play store. Every app comes from Github/FDroid/XDA etc & updates through Obtainium. I dont use any Google service & this sounds like get another garbage decision from Google

MiXplorer. If you don’t already use it theres a bit of a learning curve but I just ran a quick test & it found a file 6 directories deep in /android/data/… with no problems at all

1. I don’t want to scramble round in the dark looking for a Bluetooth “bud” when it inevitably falls out in the night
2. I don’t want to have to charge yet more stuff
3. I don’t want full on Bluetooth headphones, I have Sony MDR7506 when I want quality audio & a set of small in ear Sennheiser for nighttime podcasts

The point is, the dongle is simply not a good solution

I cant sleep without listening to podcasts & i charge the phone at night so this is one of the reasons why i was reluctant to upgrade my old phone.

When I inevitably had to upgrade I bought a USB C headphone/charging dongle for about €15. All good, I’d been worrying about nothing …Until it broke within a few months so I had to go without podcasts for a few nights whilst I waited for the replacements to arrive (might as well be prepared & buy a spare right?). Guess what? The first replacement lasted a only few months again. So far, a lack of headphone jack has cost me an extra €45 inside of about 6 months. Absolutely ridiculous

I used Reddit for mindless nonsense but mostly for finding answers in niche topics. As good as Lemmy seems so far it will take a long time for the user count to be suffient enough to fill the information void. I’ll bet our time spent here will increase as user volumes increase

Still holdin out for a concealed S Pen

Like others have said I too gave up on Play Store a long time ago. If I need an app it comes from Github, XDA, F-Droid etc. Obtainium for updates

Some years back there was a password manager which stopped sync through cloud (probably Dropbox) & insisted it went through their own servers instead. The whiff of subscription service was in the air so I switched Keepass.

I sync Keepass between devices myself but I recommend Bitwarden to family who probably couldn’t figure out how to set sync up with Keepass if I’m not around. I stick with Keepass as I like the key file aspect & because it allows multiple documents to be added to entries (restricted on Bitwarden). The documents are available offline, such as vehicle breakdown documents etc. Could be very useful one day!

Good job I don’t use any Googles apps. High proportion of my apps are from the likes of Github

Just a few of my daydreams whilst getting kicked by The Man:

• Video editing in TV industry
• Owning a cycle/Segway hire place at some beautiful tourist spot
• Buying, improving & selling property

Lemmethinkaboutit

Wouldn’t trust any of them. Who knows where that data will end up. Especially when they suffer an inevitable breach

• Google/Apple/Samsung pay. They’ve had enough data over the years without knowing my banking habits.
• Alexa/smart speakers. Always listening device in the house? No thanks
• Smart doorbell. I don’t want to send data directly to whoever Amazon wants to share it with yet I can’t avoid being recorded whilst walking the dogs round the neighbourhood
• AI. Nervous about where this is heading

• OsmAnd. Navigated me through numerous countries on holiday. Found us places to eat. So useful it persuaded me to start updating the map locally to help any fellow travelers

• Joplin notes. Use this every day without fail

• Nextcloud. Self hosted cloud that Ive come to rely on