I’m a noon to Linux but I still love using terminal to download apps and stuff because it just looks cool. ASCII makes me feel like I know my way around computers but I’m just installing Firefox lol

Its kinda funny that when I read “hour-long wait calls” I initially thought you were complaining about being on hold for too long. I just couldn’t imagine a scenario where they were helping you the entire time and it was positive lol

Just my two cents but as others have said, not being publically traded helps a lot. The focus on short term benefits that come with shareholders stops “master plans” when they come with mistakes. Learning from relative failures, like the steam controller and the like, ultimately contributes to major successes like the steam deck. Being able to stay committed to improving the software experience over time, instead of killing the product when it didn’t immediately succeed, is fairly rare in the tech industry. And in all honesty, it would be better if they released a polished profuct, but being committed to it made it a success.

I feel like the pressure to have a majorly successful product day one means that smaller companies can’t innovate the way they want to, so they have to find other ways to produce revenue. Huge companies, like Apple can afford to do both but still stumble, like with the vision pro. Maybe it’ll be a success, but for now its not great and iteration makes it more difficult to maintain the original vision.

What’s the best way to transfer to another secure email provider?

In September, I was using reddit, had an iPhone, etc. I was generally aware of digital privacy, probably moreso than the average person, but by no means was I knowledgeable.

I was running a beta on my iPhone at the time, for context. I had a short conversation with my roommate while my phone was in my pocket. I took it out to text my partner and pressed the dictation button. My phone proceeded to type out the majority of the conversation I had had maybe five minutes earlier with my roommate. Literally ruined my ignorance is bliss and now I have a Pixel with grapheneos and use almost exclusively open source software with a major focus on privacy. Obviously this is an anecdote from some idiot online and I can’t verify what I’m saying at all, but the experience definitely shook me.

I switched to grapheneos on pixel 9 straight from iPhone. The only reason I have any google stuff on the phone is because of RCS messaging. There is literally nothing I have any issues with on this phone, software or hardware. It has been a very smooth and comfortable transition. I very much recommend giving it a try. I think you’d be surprised how little google (exclusively) gives, compared to how much they take.

We’re a small nonprofit, so we usually just go with whatever is cheap and works most of the time. We don’t have many issues with it, so I don’t think its on the list of things to fix.

I use Linux at home but my work computer uses windows. Work just bought me a new laptop with windows 11 pre-installed and I got ads to upgrade to a new “AI capable computer” on the login screen. This computer is maybe 3 months old and there are already ads telling me I need to get a new one.

I like KDE and xfce. My hardware is pretty old so I appreciate how light xfce is, but I like KDE connect too.

They are starting to test opt-out telemetry and from what I read, it sounded pretty invasive. I’m no tech genius though so I’d check the links in that other comment.

I started on mint a couple months ago and so far I’ve tried as many distros as I could find. I liked manjaro but then found out about their controversies so I’m currently on endeavour os. Half of the fun for me has been experimenting with different desktops and whatnot, which has gotten me back into computer stuff.