TheKey4427 @thekey4427 - Tumblr Blog

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depsidase

do-not-u-dare

Stole this from somewhere but i think it’s appropriate

wifegideonnav

“bits to use in everyday conversations”

kineticpenguin

A web page that tells you what your browser gave away the moment you arrived. No login, no form, no permission. Most pages do this. None of

bugged-ubuntu

Ah yes, the famous ISP, M247 Europe SRL

the-haiku-bot

Ah yes, the famous

ISP, M247

Europe SRL

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

moth-grrrl-mavis

I love exhausted trans girl Miku

Art by Snale

winry-lucy-beth

I've recently learned that escaping enshitification is actually really easy. When I was younger I would use FOSS (free and open source software) because I usually couldn't afford anything else. Back then the paid options were usually significantly better than the unpaid options so when I finally got money I started using the paid stuff and completely forgot that Foss existed.

If you don't know why Foss is awesome its not just that its free. Open source software has a huge set of advantages. Most software is proprietary meaning that its code cannot be viewed by other people. Open source softwares code can be viewed by everyone and people can contribute their own code to make it better. Open source is often more secure than proprietary because more people have more eyes on it and more people have contributed to it's security. Its also easy to know how much privacy you have with every software because you can read the code. No more "trust me bro I'm not harvesting and selling your data" you know if they are collecting and selling because the code is publicly available.

In the last two months I have been switching almost completely to Foss. I was worried at first because when I stopped using Foss over 10 years ago the average Foss software was genuinely worse than the paid proprietary alternative. Thankfully things have really come full circle. 90℅ of the software I have tried in the last 2 months works better than the proprietary alternative and is 100℅ less obnoxious.

So here is a list of every Foss software I have tried and recommend. There is way more than this available. This list is just what I have used and like personally. Anyone can feel free to add and we can turn it into a master list. Please just take these as a place to start and do your own research to see if these softwares will work for your use case before you fully ditch your proprietary software.

Operating systems

Graphene os: android alt. Security and privacy focused. The most secure and private smartphone currently available.

Linux mint: easy to use linux, 100℅ better than windows.

Pop!: The Linux distro you should use if you have nividia hardware and want to play games using said hardware. Very intuitive and easy to use.

Kubuntu: Ubuntu Linux with KDE desktop. This is the linux distro one I am currently using and I don't have any plans to jump ship again. Better than windows and better than Mac. The companion app for your phone makes life soooo easy. Its pretty and easy to customize to a ridiculously granular level. No fucking notes.

Kindle jailbreak- ko reader: use jailbreak to free your kindle from the tyranny of the bezos. It will download ko reader which is a Foss OS that has every fucking feature you always wished kindle had and let's you read whatever the fuck you want, and have whatever the screensaver you want (no more ads!). Soooo fuck amazon and use this. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough.

Linux FOSS: (some available on windows and android as well)

Calibre: Foss desktop eBook library. Packed with features. You will want to use this with koreader to make managing your kindle easy.

Manuscript: skrivner alt. Does absolutely everything I need.

Bitwarden: password manager (use a keepass fork if you want self hosted)

Next cloud: private google drive and cloud alternative that you can self host if you want but it's not required. App available

Proton VPN: to the best of my knowledge it is the only Foss no log VPN you can get. You can pay for higher speeds. App available

Quad9dns: free encrypted DNS provider. App available.

News software:

Use any Foss RSS reader and for the love of god stop getting news from social media. Take control of your feed!

Apps (I only know for android)

Fdroid: great app store to find Foss android apps and download them.

Antennapod: you can get all of your podcasts fetched to one feature rich app via RSS feed. No need to rely on spotify or music steaming services.

Openreads: it's good reads but private and 100℅ stored locally. No amazon, no social media aspect, it just tracks your reading, you can import your good reads but if you want to import from storygraph you have to make a good reads burner account, import to good reads, then import to openreads. The menus Navigation on this one is a bit cumbersome but honestly good reads app is worse.

Newpipe: YouTube frontend that let's you have YouTube subscriptions, watch YouTube in the background, and blocks all ads, without logging in to YouTube. You will want to use this one with a VPN set to Canada (or any other country) so YouTube doesn't keep blocking it in order to force you to sign in. But even with that extra step its worth it for the privacy and the lack of ads.

Proton mail: one of 2 more private gmail alts. But you should note that email cannot be 100℅ anonymous or private.

I think that's it. There are still a lot software varieties I am slowly finding.

centrumlumina

LibreOffice is a FOSS Office suite that can handle word docs, spreadsheets, presentations and databases.

prismatic-bell

I know people get mad at the name, and I understand why, but straight-up I've been using GIMP for 15 years and it's a good solid art program made under the GNU program. It's worth a look.

penrosesun

To add:

Blender is an amazing FOSS suite for 3D modeling and animation, as well as digital sculpting and motion tracking. Pros use it. It’s a staple in game development. It’s what the Academy Award winning film “Flow” was made on. It’s not the bland name alternative to an industry standard; it is an industry standard.

Krita is a fantastic FOSS application for digital painting. Everyone I’ve ever talked to who uses it has loved it to death.

OBS is the absolute go-to choice for screen recording and live streaming. You can use it to record your entire desktop or a specific window, capture audio from multiple sources, and even add overlays, webcam feeds, or transitions to your videos.

VLC Media Player is the best media player, hands down. It’s lightweight, it’s reliable, it supports virtually every audio and video format known to man, and it has built in media conversion and even basic editing. I truly can’t imagine why anyone would use a media player that isn’t this one. It’s just the best there is, easily, no contest.

Audacity is a fantastic multi-track audio editor and recorder. It’s free and it’s good, and podcasters love it for a reason.

And believe it or not, Thunderbird is a really good email client now. I’m not even joking. If you used it back in the day and hated it, please give it another chance, because the glow up is unreal.

vulpinesaint

saying "question mark?" and "however comma," out loud are game changers. punctuation on the go. and it's always the funniest thing that anyone around you has ever heard

meysq

playing gta online as philomena cunk

wicked-felina

Can't leave a perfect Philomena interview sitting in the tags.

the-haiku-bot

Can’t leave a perfect

Philomena interview

sitting in the tags.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

catasters

cyprozombiegirl

if you're a trans woman it is very important that you're friends with people who are interested in living and living well. Find gym rats, painters, academics, devoted gardeners, gourmands, cinephiles, audiophiles, wine snobs, fashionistas... anyone who is deeply devoted to something in life, that fascinates them, brings them peace, and compels them to live. Learn from them, ask them to show you what's so good about ____. Imagine yourself as one of those anime slice of life characters who've learned that they can be satisfied (fulfilled even) with life as long as they pursue their love of __. The world is full of so much misery for us, and so many of us let that misery and hatred eat away at us until we're depressed, angry shells of people. Refuse that, choose life, choose learning how to live well. Choose enriching your senses by training them.

swanjolras-blog-archive-deactiv

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

swanjolras-blog-archive-deactiv

this is far and away the most popular post i ever made on tumblr. people have asked me if they could illustrate it, people have asked me if they could turn it into a novella, people just messaged me to say it made them cry. that means more to me than i can say.

you probably heard that the mars opportunity rover died today.

it was hard news to hear. i cried at my desk at work. it doesn’t make it easier that it was only supposed to run for 90 days at all; it doesn’t make it easier that it lived 14 years longer than it expected to. it lived a full life. it lived a very good life. it was the first set of eyes on miles and miles of mars. it was an explorer, it was tough, it was very, very brave. and none of that makes it easier, none of that makes it okay that it is not going to sing happy birthday to itself again.

about a year ago, my childhood cat died. i loved her more than anything. i don’t live near my family any more, and i wasn’t there for it, but my parents were, and they held her while her body gave out, and they say she knew she was with them, she knew she was loved.

i know opportunity was a computer inside a movable body, and not a person, or even an animal. still, i wish it had had people to hold it. i wish it had been with the people who cared for it. it seems very hard to me, to die so far from home.

but i think - to the extent to which we can say computers “know” things, which i think is a great deal; i think knowing is most of what computers do; i think if they have a consciousness, knowledge must be nearly all of it-

i think opportunity knew it was loved.

every couple of months i dream that i’ve gone home and my cat’s there. even now, even though my grieving is over and done with, i visit her in my dreams, and i hold her, and every time, she purrs. she missed me. she’s so happy to be with me again.

that’s a very human thing, dreaming of what we’ve loved. what we’ve lost. dreaming things that outlast death. like robots, and singing.

#Fav #tearjerker #Omg I love you silly bots

communist-hatsunemiku

apple_spa

imagine-benedict-cumberbatch

imagine Benedict Cumberbatch furiously trying to hide a boner.

voidripper-archive-deactivated2

officialjared19

this is the ugliest post on this earth and if i have to see it so does everyone else

#Fav #I love this post sm

demilypyro

I feel like every time this topic comes up people just don't understand that Kill la Kill is not just some "problematic fave" to me. it's not me excusing something obviously offensive just because I like it, or something. that is something I do; that's Danganronpa. but I've never pretended Danganronpa is good, and this isn't Danganronpa. Danganronpa is NOT as smart as Kill la Kill, or as full of meaning as Kill la Kill. and my enjoyment of Kill la Kill isn't motivated by nostalgia or whatever. I have no issue criticizing my darlings, there's plenty of stuff I used to like that I don't anymore because I went back and found it distasteful. hell, I'm pretty critical of the politics of the Mass Effect franchise these days and people know I used to be like a superfan of that series. but when I went back and rewatched Kill la Kill with a critical eye, I only liked it *more.* I genuinely just think Kill la Kill is a good, feminist, antifascist work. I think if you really look past its surface, if you're able not to flinch from your discomfort, there's just a lot of rich nuance and meaning to be found. I don't just excuse Kill la Kill, I *champion* it. and people just don't want to accept this.