I've reached the next stage in the process of reclaiming control over my tech and that entails switching my spreadsheets away from Google. Stage one was about turning off notifications, removing bloatware and changing settings to be more privacy-oriented whenever I got a new device, etc. Second stage: replacing numerous different software with Obsidian, a huge productivity and convenience win. So these days I use Obsidian for almost everything but it doesn't do spreadsheets yet (if ever).

So I did some research and it looks like LibreOffice is the only option that doesn't come with some sort of AI stuff and makes the .xls(x) file format I can display in Obsidian. This conversation is not about why I'm choosing to avoid AI features and companies that won't allow me to turn them off, but that's what I aim to do, as much as possible. Edit: I also want a local installation that works offline and doesn't send anything to some cloud.

I searched Tildes for LibreOffice and found some damning comments but they were all fairly vague and I'm unsure how much the disappointment applies to LibreOffice Calc specifically, so I thought I'd ask about people's experiences.

My use case is primarily for personal finance calculations, as well as costing sheets for work. Not super complex high level math but there are some more complicated formulas and I do like to have conditional formatting options too. Mainly I'm interested in reliability, even if the thing isn't as feature-packed as Google Sheets. I'm on MacOS if that matters.

Hey all,

I've been using adblockers since the very early days they were available as Firefox Plugins, but the recent report on LG Smart TVs listening in, gathering device info, and sending it home has motivated me to do something at the level of my router.

I've got a Smart TV that's never been connected to the internet, but I want to cover all my bases. Same with my car, potentially, and the washing machine. I want to stop this crap at the source.

I've tried looking at the Pi-hole documentation but I'm confused already. I'm on MacOS and pretty comfortable using Terminal, and a Netgear Nitehawk AX2400 router.

Is it as simple as purchasing a Raspberry Pi device and then I'm good to go, or are there other things I need to buy before I jump in?

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid. I'm jealous of everyone on Tildes saying how their Pi-hole mostly protects them, and I'm so angry at this endless stream of data mining and sending it back to corporations I haven't consented to.

I'm in a position to make decisions about our B2B product and the accompaning marketing site. This is a startup, so now's the time to set precedents before there's momentum and any sort of vendor lock-in. The only context I think is relevant is that my product is for medium sized manufacturing companies. Anyone visiting our site is doing it because they would be interested in it for their business.

I bring this up here because I know many people are privacy conscious and I want to nudge my company that direction. So I have two related but slightly different topics:.

1. for our marketing site where people come to learn about the product and try to get in touch with us - What kind of "tracking" is appropriate to you? Hubspot is one of the industry defaults that was recommended we use. However I noticed that Firefox and privacy badger block it by default. If I were to try to build it myself, it wouldn't be third party, so I don't think anything would block it (I'm aware of people that block all JS, but I'm not gonna worry about that group for my purposes.) How do you all feel about first party usage tracking for B2B?
2. Similar question here but for when people log into our product. We're looking at using posthog for this.

Any thoughts are appreciated, thanks.

I'm asking "I" in the sense that I'd personally like an answer to this question, but really this is more about using VPNs in general.

Currently, I just use the server with the lowest latency because that gives me the least friction.

However, thinking about the GDPR in the EU, or California's data privacy protections: should I be strategically choosing a server based on those? Is there any benefit to having my traffic routed through a jurisdiction like that, or does that not really matter?

EDIT: To further clarify: will all the different websites out there log less data or treat my data differently if they believe my traffic is coming from the EU/California?

I'm curious as I'd be possibly interested in a solution that works for me. I'd be looking at devices (mainly a robot vacuum cleaner) that are able to operate without a mandatory internet connection that send over data to a datacenter to collect your information without your explicit knowledge (nearly everyone just clicks 'accept' when reading the ToS after purchase).