This is good info, but be careful about suggestions of Microsoft products, Office, Word, Bing, etc. Microsoft is just as evil if not worse than Google and imo not an alternative at all.
I can confirm Microsoft IS another privacy domino.
Why do you think MS Teams is such a bloated piece of crap? You'll see that it eats up a ton of RAM on the system.
It acts as this weird mediary between all MS Office documents, PDF viewer, internet browsing, downloading, storage, etc. None of this is really necessary if you have other programs like Adobe/Sumatra. Dropbox etc.
All of this is connected to your Microsoft account, which you have to authenticate with your phone, and enter with your fingerprint.
Thats why Win10 was a free upgrade, theres all sorts of privacy issues with Microsoft. Microsoft is basically competing with Google by copying their strategy.
OMG f Microsoft Teams. My work computer has 8gb of RAM /w HDD (ie not SSD) and the profile keeps making Teams load in the Background during startup. Along with Mcafee and other work programs they used up over 90% of RAM, which makes the HDD work very hard and makes the computer very sluggish.
Example: Opening the NOTEPAD takes over 30 seconds. Notepad!
I had a hard drive failure a few months ago, but had backed up what I cared about prior to it. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, I brought my computer to a repair place and the guy said it would be a little over $200 to put in a new solid state hard drive. I decided to do it myself (youtube is good for a lot of things :) ). I bought one for about $125. I had to re-install Windows 10, but what was weird, even though I never signed up for any kind of backup with Microsoft, some of my personal photos re-appeared when Win10 was installed! (they were in a screen-saver folder, or something like that). It was almost like Microsoft was telling me, ever so subtly, "We have everything!". The good news is, with the old hard drive, it would take about a minute for the laptop to boot up from a cold start, now it takes about 10 seconds.
Ive got a linux phone i have no idea how to use. Pinephone. Im not much of a programing guy but i cut my teeth on 3d printer firmware and it was a ton of fun. Easy simpleton type of stuff is right up my ally.
This phone has hardware kill switches for the mic, cam, wifi and a few others. Still glitchy from the reviews ive watched, but i could resist. Ever since watching enemy of the state years ago that has been my understanding of what we are up against.
They have been using echelon to monitor all communication since before the internet. They've got ALL the data.
microsoft goes through your stuff too, I had an archive of my research on onedrive and I got my account locked. After literally a couple months they responded that I had objectionable content (violence or terror attacks) in my share. Probably 9-11 documentaries or something.
Any recommendations for actual devices? I've got a rooted OnePlus and I uninstall most of the Google shit, but I think I'm gonna pull the trigger and switch everything. But what keeps them from using Android to do whatever they want? iOS is worse I'm sure. I've looked at Librem phones, can anybody vouch for them?
Also how about a streaming device that doesn't spy on you? I never connected my "smart tv" to the internet but I've got a Chromecast and an Amazon fire stick on two different TVs. I don't use the microphone remote with the fire stick, but I'm sure the Chromecast is just spying through my phone.
I've got a rooted OnePlus and I uninstall most of the Google shit, but I think I'm gonna pull the trigger and switch everything. But what keeps them from using Android to do whatever they want? "
Do some research, but you should be able to install a custom ROM on your existing device. LineageOS in my go to, but there are others as well. XDA developers is a good place to start researching what you might want.
This is good info, but be careful about suggestions of Microsoft products, Office, Word, Bing, etc. Microsoft is just as evil if not worse than Google and imo not an alternative at all.
I can confirm Microsoft IS another privacy domino.
Why do you think MS Teams is such a bloated piece of crap? You'll see that it eats up a ton of RAM on the system.
It acts as this weird mediary between all MS Office documents, PDF viewer, internet browsing, downloading, storage, etc. None of this is really necessary if you have other programs like Adobe/Sumatra. Dropbox etc.
All of this is connected to your Microsoft account, which you have to authenticate with your phone, and enter with your fingerprint.
Thats why Win10 was a free upgrade, theres all sorts of privacy issues with Microsoft. Microsoft is basically competing with Google by copying their strategy.
OMG f Microsoft Teams. My work computer has 8gb of RAM /w HDD (ie not SSD) and the profile keeps making Teams load in the Background during startup. Along with Mcafee and other work programs they used up over 90% of RAM, which makes the HDD work very hard and makes the computer very sluggish.
Example: Opening the NOTEPAD takes over 30 seconds. Notepad!
I had a hard drive failure a few months ago, but had backed up what I cared about prior to it. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, I brought my computer to a repair place and the guy said it would be a little over $200 to put in a new solid state hard drive. I decided to do it myself (youtube is good for a lot of things :) ). I bought one for about $125. I had to re-install Windows 10, but what was weird, even though I never signed up for any kind of backup with Microsoft, some of my personal photos re-appeared when Win10 was installed! (they were in a screen-saver folder, or something like that). It was almost like Microsoft was telling me, ever so subtly, "We have everything!". The good news is, with the old hard drive, it would take about a minute for the laptop to boot up from a cold start, now it takes about 10 seconds.
Ive got a linux phone i have no idea how to use. Pinephone. Im not much of a programing guy but i cut my teeth on 3d printer firmware and it was a ton of fun. Easy simpleton type of stuff is right up my ally. This phone has hardware kill switches for the mic, cam, wifi and a few others. Still glitchy from the reviews ive watched, but i could resist. Ever since watching enemy of the state years ago that has been my understanding of what we are up against. They have been using echelon to monitor all communication since before the internet. They've got ALL the data.
Aw man! I missed out on getting one!
M$ Office: Open Office, Libre Office Word: see above Bing: DuckDuckGo, Brave Search
Honestly, it's kinda scary how good bing actually is. If it wasn't owned by microsoft, I'd almost recommend it.
Almost
https://harpazo.proboards.com/thread/57393/duck-left-political-donations-abuse
They aren't the privacy safe haven they claim. I've stopped using them.
Brave search, Linux Mint, libreoffice
microsoft goes through your stuff too, I had an archive of my research on onedrive and I got my account locked. After literally a couple months they responded that I had objectionable content (violence or terror attacks) in my share. Probably 9-11 documentaries or something.
What did Q say? backup offline?
Yeah. he was talking about THIS time.
Thank you, ty, for the No More Google link!
Any recommendations for actual devices? I've got a rooted OnePlus and I uninstall most of the Google shit, but I think I'm gonna pull the trigger and switch everything. But what keeps them from using Android to do whatever they want? iOS is worse I'm sure. I've looked at Librem phones, can anybody vouch for them?
Also how about a streaming device that doesn't spy on you? I never connected my "smart tv" to the internet but I've got a Chromecast and an Amazon fire stick on two different TVs. I don't use the microphone remote with the fire stick, but I'm sure the Chromecast is just spying through my phone.
Do some research, but you should be able to install a custom ROM on your existing device. LineageOS in my go to, but there are others as well. XDA developers is a good place to start researching what you might want.