We value your privacy

And this is why we are going to violate it in every way possible!

I built a home server based on an Intel N100 motherboard a while ago. I've put proxmox on it and run my Home Assistant installation, Nextcloud, several other stuff and even my router as an OpenWRT VM!

I chose to go the N100 motherboard route mainly due to the flexibility it offers. But you can just buy a N100 based NUC and you get effectively the same performance and incredible low power consumption.

I would recommend against the Pi 5. It is way underpowered in my opinion. Plus with a x86 system you just have a lot more software compatibility.

You are not blocking just Chrome though. You are also blocking Vanadium on GrapheneOS.

To be fair though it works fine with JavaScript disabled. I only enabled JavaScript to test it.

I use RedReader without an account for years and never had any issues with it. It's one of the very few third-party apps that gotten a pass during the apiocalypse.

Smart products themselves are not the issue. The issue is making everything cloud based. The solution is companies designing their products so they can be controlled over the network.

It's a fucking bed! It doesn't need a persistent connection to some server. The problem is that they also want to mine and sell your data.

There is special category for Internet of Shit devices, that not only are cloud based but also require a persistent connection to a server to even execute basic functions.

One more reason, there is a "copy as cURL" option in the Firefox developer tools network tab. It gives you a perfect cURL command including all the necessary cookies and headers to send the exact HTTP request that your browser just sent.

I was using Ubuntu Touch back when Canonical launched it in partnership with BQ. I still remember how annoyed I was when reddit kept telling me to download the app or continue with "Google Chrome" when I was on Firefox. Those where the days.

Signal may not be the best in a technical sense, but it is good enough and it has the network effect. I've been pleasantly surprised when in the span of a few months I met two different people actually in real life, who happened to already be using Signal.

Signal is also just as usable as the big tech alternatives, which makes it not a very hard sell to friends and family. For quite a few years now I have managed to convince everyone I communicate with to do so over Signal. There is no chance I would be as successful with something else.

Please give me an example of content that you can't find anywhere else?

I really dont know what answer you expect on that. It's no secret that the vast majority of creators only upload their videos on YouTube. Should they mirror them on something like Peertube? Well, yeah, but this is not in your control.

It's "degoogle", not "limit google use"... And no, it's not impossible. What a myth to spread in this forum. :-)

Please answer to me honestly. Do you block all Google related domains on the DNS level including anything related to Google reCaptcha? If yes, please tell me how exactly you are using the web in 2025? And if you don't, then you are still relying to Google services.

Google has been pretty aggressive with blocking IP addresses of VPNs for quite a while. The only solution is to just try different VPN servers until you find one that works for the time being. Or, you can use Invidious. This instance has been working pretty well for me for quite a few months now.

There is content on YouTube that is not available available anywhere else. Using an alternative frontend with a local account like NewPipe is de-googling to an extend. If that is not de-googling then neither is using something like StartPage for search.

The whole point of de-googling is limiting as much as possible your data exposure to Google. Completely eliminating it is impossible. Unless you are fine with not being able to access the majority of the web due to the use of reCAPCHAv3.