Google Play and F-Droid are both available

You can also use their DNS server without having to install anything

OK I read the bandcamp thing and… It’s not enshittification at all. Can we stop applying the term to every online service that kinda gets slightly worse for some reason or another?

Just in case:

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification

None of those things happened with Bandcamp

You’re probably better off using dedicated websites for each site you need to download videos from.

They are usually ridden with ads, but it’s not a problem if you use uBlock Origin or similar addons

While I kinda like what Bellingcat does, you do have a point. Crowdsourcing decisions rarely lead to good outcomes

But it looks like Proton does not choose the beneficiaries. From their statement:

‘Recipients are nominated by the Proton community and selected based on community feedback. Proton doesn’t nominate the recipients. Recipients cannot be changed after the raffle begins and the fact that some find Bellingcat controversial was not known beforehand.

This. Also, third part clients are usually just web wrappers for the actual official site

What is your issue exactly here? The fact that this could go against the GDPR? If that’s the case, I don’t see how a third party client would help. IG would still collect info about you and show you ads. Also, you would probably get the same popup asking if you want to subscribe. Nothing would change (except that with a third party client IG would not be able to collect as much info about you as with the official app)

Anyways, you still have the option to not pay and keep using IG as before. Nothing changes.

Probably my favorite pieces of software from Europe (not strictly the EU) are

Proton (ProtonMail, Proton Calendar, etc) - Switzerland

Inoreader (probably the best RSS reader ever - and I’ve tried lots) - Bulgaria

No. You’re generalizing something while we were talking about a specific case. 17$ for a plane ticket is just not feasible, when you account all the costs associated with flying. In this specific case, there has to be something wrong somewhere. It’s not an abstract theory, it’s just numbers not adding up.

If it’s that cheap, though, it just has to be shit. It’s just not realistic, otherwise

I transitioned e-mail address twice. What has worked for me is doing it slowly. Keep the old address around: from time to time you’ll get emails from services you did not even remember being subscribed to. Also, if you don’t use a password manager, now it’s the perfect time to start. I suggest Bitwaden

Because they’re making society and the world worse entirely for profit and they’re also conditioning ignorant people like you to stan for them.

Yes. But not via Whatsapp, that’s all. It’s probably the least bad app they own

How is it not better? Are you actually arguing that plaintext and e2e encrypted messages are somewhat equivalent? It IS better, period. Not ideal because it’s still owned by Meta, but definitely better

The way Whatsapp stores data is arguably more secure than Telegram, i.e. not in the cloud but only locally. It sucks if you lose access to your phone and you have not set up backups via iCloud/Google Drive, but it’s definitely better in terms of privacy and security.

That’s just plain false. WhatsApp is at least e2e encrypted and its UX is great, compared to the other apps

You either don’t know what you’re talking about or you’re just commenting in bad faith

Except at least WhatsApp is a great product, feature-wise

Fair enough. BTW that’s the first and only coherent response I’ve read yet

Instagram, FB Mesenger, SMS…? IDK why you guys don’t just use WhatsApp. It’s the standard messaging app everywhere in the world (except the US, of course)

EDIT: Wow, lots of people in denial ITT. Look, it’s simple: you can hate Meta/Facebook as much as you want (and I do), but you can’t deny that WhatsApp is a great product, feature-wise. People who compare it to SMS, Instagram chat, FB messenger or anything else are honestly laughable. The only service that can hold a candle against it is perhaps Telegram