Lol. Well, that’s most people’s take on privacy. OMG they are taking our data and showing us ads that we hate. But I guess we can’t do anything about it. Oh well.

Correct. While there are many (good) programs available for no money, that is charity based on desire and passion.

Free in FOSS isn’t about price, it’s about freedom.

I take the stance that I’m privacy minded and while I think everybody should be I don’t force my opinion on them. I do express myself and usually my “odd” behavior makes people I know question me, which I then give an answer for.

Most people don’t understand why they should strive for privacy. I usually start soft with ads because it’s a universal that nobody likes ads and they’ve experienced all the listening and tracking stuff but not connected the dots.

If they are responsive then in later conversations I can go more into deeper thoughts regarding it all. If I rake them down the rabbit hole right away their head will explode and run away.

I recently swapped to Mint and have been enjoying it. I still have Windows as my daily driver and I have a handful of things that I still need windows for, but I have a media center and a gaming PC set up both on mint. There was an odd quirk with Steam where it didn’t launch after some update, and it was a bit asinine to be honest. But after a few hours of research online I found the issue and modified a file so it loaded properly. Stuff like that sucks, but it gives me experience navigating the OS and understanding how it works.

To your point though, it overall just works. My wife uses it no problem and is getting use to where things are. I maintain the system though, ensuring updates are applied and searching for solutions when needed (for instance, we use caffeine to stop the monitor from going to sleep when playing games with a controller)

Have you checked out Affinity? They support Mac and iPad, and are comparable with the core Adobe suite. Its a buy once scenario (per major version release). My only problem is they don’t support Linux.

Of note, they were purchased last year by Canva, but it has been stated they will keep the Affinity products separate for purchase.

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Don’t kid. I did that with a folder in my testing just to eliminate the variables. Of course I put it back.

My issue was that my initial setup was accessing it from a different machine, and windows at that. I had to simplify in order to make it all mentally make sense.

Thank you for this. I appreciate the write up, learning a few things, and just the general let’s all get along heart behind it.

Just as a tip, set up and use a spare machine if you have one to make the transition easier. I’ve been running Mint now for a few months.

I have a test machine that I am learning and getting familiar with, setting up a virtual machine to learn that (I have some windows apps I will not escape from so running in a VM is my solution), etc… And all of this is with the freedom that if I break something I can wipe it and not care. I have since set up a media center and a gaming machine as well.

That experience is getting me feeling better about he whole thing. Honestly learning little idiosyncrasies like folder permissions not being inherited (I say as I set up my media center) are the things you juat need to learn through practice. Just my two cents as I am only a step ahead of you in a similar journey.

This just happened to me. I purchased shoes and they shipped via Amazon even though I didn’t buy them there.

I think that’s part of what people don’t understand. Amazon isn’t a website that sells stuff, they are a dozen infrastructure based industries.

Shut down their website and they still have the logistics to fulfill for the sites you shop on and their servers are probably hosting them too.

Goes to show, he should have made a run for it and hit a bunch of people with his car. Then he’d get a reduced sentence.

I don’t actually agree that your analogy applies, because it ignores my point.

Neither “side” (as if there were only a binary choice but that’s how they want you to think) wants you to have privacy. Be united with those who want to fight for those rights instead of divided on other policies which are political smokescreens.

Maybe a better analogy is that we are drowning in water that is not cold, maybe it’s tepid and maybe its boiling. But arguing over which is worse really doesn’t matter because we’ll be dead in a minute anyway.

Neither did he last administration and neither will the next. They want us polarized and fighting each other so we don’t fight them.

I’m assuming the windows machine is a work PC and the Linux is yours right?

Because what you describe doesn’t sound like a “windows” issue but rather an IT management issue.

You can put off updates and reboots a very long time. And always be able yo postpone them.

Applying updates on boot daily sounds dumb to me. But I’m also figuring your IT dept has poor (or no) sense in managing their inventory well. Most updates can be applied silently at a scheduled time.

Also, your machine sounds old and/or poorly maintained the way you describe it. If its more than 5 years old your company is just cheap.

I’m all for griping about Windows but this seems off to me.

I use two domains.

One is my name for people that actually know me.

The other is something random (it has meaning to me but nobody else would think that). I use that for all my “private” emails, creating aliases that forward to me.

The most important thing is to pick something easy to understand so its easy to convey. My domain is actually quite long, which normally is a bad thing but its distinct words so people understand it when I give it to them verbally.

If they only spent this time and money on training the managers to…well, manage their employees.

Stop thinking “time at your desk” is a kpi and start measuring results instead. It cuts the crap employees that are worthless and that in and of itself is a reward to good employees and team morale.

I would rather have a productive employee get results in 4 hours and then leave than a crap employee who needs the full day to get the same job done. Then the good employee will learn to streamline it so they can get the job done in 3 hours and I win because my efficiency went up. They win because they get another hour of their life back daily…or dare I say, they want more work and I give it to them along with a pay increase.

As many have said, it shouldn’t matter.

Personally, I have been known to look at email addresses because I assess everything the resume gives me. No, I don’t really care what provider you choose, but it’s a tiny bit of information.

So if your email name is “BigBootyQT” then I have a glimpse of your personality and how you may or may not fit in the role. That’s a real example BTW. It also might bear light in other ways, say if you’re applying for a job in cybersscurity but you’re using a yahoo email. Yeah, that’s a negative mark.

Will any of this be THE reason I ditch somebody? No. But it weighs with the rest of it. I would not disqualify somebody for a typo for instance, but it is a negative because that should not have occurred (especially of the role requires attention to detail).

Just a slight positive spin on this. I mean, I get it. Just like all of you I read this headline and say, no shit.

But its good these articles are out there. Its not for you and me. It’s for the average person who doesn’t think about this and is blissfully unaware.

Yeah, I can argue they should care and all that, but that’s pointless. This is a sign that the average person is becoming more aware, and the status quo can change.

We all have those friends and family that we wish would…just do things differently. Maybe they will now, or soon.

Just think, wouldn’t it be great if your “arguments” with your family are over messaging each other over SimpleX instead of Signal?

Is that what it does? I thought it deleted any profile other than the primary one.

With that in mind, security and privacy are two completely different things.

For instance, I would say that WhatsApp is fairly secure. It just isn’t private at all. Meta can (and does) see and track your meta data.

Why is that important? I liked these 2 examples I read somewhere because they are simple but explain how powerful it is. Your phone calls are private. Your carrier isn’t allowed to listen in on your call to know what you talk about. But they can see that you called a suicide hotline while standing on a bridge. They can see that your doctor’s office called you and then you called an abortion clinic next. The following week your GPS location went to that clinic. Are these things Person A would willingly tell their phone provider? It’s none of their business so I assume not. But they essentially are when they don’t care about their privacy.

Another stance I take is that even if they don’t care about their privacy, can they at least respect mine? I don’t give their phone number out to anybody that asks. But non private apps look at all their contacts so they are doing exactly that to me. Think of the last spam call they got. If they knew it was because of you wouldn’t they be upset?