ungoogled-chromium

Let me tell you a secret: any linux distribution is a kernel + a set of pre-installed drivers and programs + their configs. Nothing more than that! Most distributions use the same kernel and roughly the same set of programs. The only differences are in the desktop environment and initial settings.

I would recommend Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) as a start choice. Do not trust those who say that if you choose a “beginner’s distro” you won’t have to get into the console or text configs. Your choice of distro will determine how often you’ll do this.

As a regular user, I’ve used different distributions and always something didn’t work. Many issues couldn’t be solved via GUI, so I had to deep dive into both the console and all Linux services.

P.S. Arch Linux daily-driver.

Arrr! Ok, correcting to “with both hands”! Sounds better?

Both hands in favor!

Clive Barker’s Undying

We are together with you in favor of XMPP (I am with both hands)! You just “won’t sell” that kind of solution to very many people. We are already living in a zoo of messengers. We need to come up with at least two that will cover all the basic needs and offer sufficient privacy.

Matrix’s groups have an important difference from SimpleX. Even if the primary server is gone, the related servers will still have the copies.

This!

Seems that’s true. Text-only communication in Briar is built by design. I see this from its communication scheme. I don’t think any other message options will come up. So I am also on it in case of the Internet outage. Besides, you can chat properly only when you and your contact are both online. Not a very handy option for daily use.

So SimpleX.Chat for privacy and Matrix for public groups.

Agreed. I’m using the native Windows version, written in C#. The developer stopped updating it because he switched to a cross-platform version. I take his point, as not everyone has experience with the technologies that are available on all systems. Electron is the solution. However, even the older version has all the features I need and an awesome UI/UX!

I would recommend Sayonara Player for Linux. It’s not as awesome as Dopamine, but I still love it. I couldn’t find anything better for Linux!

Sounds reasonable! 👍

Dopamine. The best player after some years of searching.

If a server is hosting our data, albeit in encrypted form, there is always the risk of the server being compromised. You know the history of PGP and why OpenPGP was created, don’t you?

One of the options, where every user device is a server, is a blockchain. But I think you’ll also agree that this scheme doesn’t give complete privacy.

The issue of privacy in this case is a convenience issue. To me, federated is not a checkbox type property: it’s either there or it’s not. To me, it’s a spectrum: some protocol is more federated, some less so. We could design a fully privacy-aware protocol and service that can only partially be considered as federated. You may disagree with me, but I haven’t seen a clear definition with a complete list of federated protocol properties 😉

Agreed, it’s a contradiction to be privacy and federated at the same time. The federated protocol helps the network to be fault-tolerant and cooperative. In other words, it’s easier for us to find each other, and afterward it’s harder to lose each other. It obviously doesn’t condone privacy 😄

Like Snikket

I think it’s unlikely this kind of service exists or is going to appear. There’s a blog post by developers of the present implementations of XMPP. It explains the difference between decentralized services and centralized ones, and why the Signal messenger is more popular than all other messengers. A must-read.

Here, the author refers to protocol as federated, not application. That is, he is comparing Matrix, IRC, SMTP, ActivityPub, etc. If a protocol can be used to develop an application that is decentralized and distributed, then such protocol can be called a federated protocol. I agree with you that labeling HTTP and FTP as federated is bizarre. But the author compares them because they are all from the same OSI model layer - application layer.

I’m not the author, just trying to give an explanation of how he was thinking (and I’m most likely wrong 😄).

The author’s explanation using HTTP as an example:

HTTP has somehow managed to live in a parallel universe, as it’s technically still completely federated: anyone can start a web server if they have a public IP address and anyone can connect to it. The catch, of course, is how you find the darn thing.

We recently discussed it in another thread. I recommend you read it, there are a lot of facts in the comments that will definitely help you make up your mind!

Now it’s completely dependent on Bing’s results! I’d even say it does a worse job than Bing. I compared results for different queries and Bing was much better than Qwant! In fact, if you read their privacy policy, they sell your private data to anyone who asks for it.