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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "internet". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. I hate the new internet. I hate the new tech world. I hate it all. I want out, and I can't be the only one.

      I think most people would agree that the internet and technology in general have absolutely gone to shit over the past decade or so. There is no corner of the internet nor of the software world...

      I think most people would agree that the internet and technology in general have absolutely gone to shit over the past decade or so. There is no corner of the internet nor of the software world that hasn't been affected by enshittification. Everything exists to serve you ads. Everyone wants to extract as much money from you as possible. Every website is in a race for the bottom as they try to find the lowest effort content that makes them the most money. Every piece of software is pushed out half-baked and/or stripped down to the bare minimum with the rest paywalled or with the devs pinky promising to fix it 5 updates down the road.

      Every social medium is just bots. The front page of Reddit is easily 35% easily detectable bots at least and who knows what the rest is comprised of. And it's probably the one that's doing the best at the moment, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, all of them are just bots and propaganda and engagement farming the whole way down. And the worst thing is, they're complicit. Hell, they're actively encouraging it and trying to find ways to make it worse. And I have no doubt Reddit will bend the knee soon enough too (they just banned /r/whitepeopletwitter because Musk made a tweet critical of the sub).

      There's probably some element of rose-tinted glasses here, but the old internet was just so much better looking back. Like, early 2000's to maybe 2012, 2013 or so, that was the peak. No colossal data harvesting schemes feeding into algorithms designed to keep you engaged on their site 24/7 for the purpose of shilling you advertisements and selling your data, no mass propaganda, no Dead Internet Theory (which can hardly be considered a theory anymore). Yeah there was shit content, there was tons of it, but I can deal with shit content and petty forum drama and whatnot; what I can't deal with is all the multi-billion dollar corporations trying to shape the entire landscape of the Web into the perfectly minmaxxed cash-generating machine that does as little as possible for as much data and advertising as possible.

      Modern software isn't much better. Windows and MacOS are filled with anti-user features, telemetry you just can't turn off, Windows will often just install shit on your computer without telling you. They turn your computer into a walled garden, where you can do what you want as long as you play by their rules, but without giving you any real control over what your computer does. Yeah you can delete system files and brick your laptop if you feel like it, but anyone who's ever tried to permanently disable Windows updates will know that in the end you're not the one calling the shots: Microsoft are. And... Like, that's insane, right? It's running on my fucking computer, it's my CPU doing the work, I want to know what the hell it's doing and not just the parts it lets me see, and if I want it to do something different then I should be able to make it so.

      I hate it all. I'm tired. I want out.


      These are my problems. Here's what I've done about it so far.

      • Obsessive privacy on the web. No Google services. Firefox with as much telemetry turned off as possible. Protonmail and ProtonVPN for everything (and I'm considering getting out of those too with the pro-Trump stances they've been taking recently). As minimal an online footprint as I can get, I make as few accounts as possible and I don't use shared or even slightly related usernames (my username here is an exception as it's my Reddit username, and no, it's not my real name), I delete accounts whenever I can and I GDPR request the services afterward. Virtual cards for online payments as much as possible. Will probably make a Javascript whitelist at some point too. Is all of this overkill? Yes. Why do I bother? Because fuck them.

      • As little social media presence as possible. Real life necessitates some amount of social media interaction of course, I have Facebook and Instagram but use them exclusively for messaging. I often see people excluding Reddit from social media but I don't fully agree, even if it's not exactly in the category it still targets a lot of the same psychological weak points in us, encouraging doom scrolling and shaping our opinions through echo chambers and propaganda (it's always important to remember that echo chambers and propaganda you agree with are still echo chambers and propaganda). I still use Reddit admittedly, but I've tried to minimise my usage as much as possible and I'm shopping for alternatives.

      • Free and Open Source software as much as possible. I'm all in on GNU these days. Yes, it's a massive pain in the ass. My job unfortunately requires some Windows-only software so I'm running a dual partition but I'm trying to get as much of my computer usage onto Linux as possible (I use Arch btw). Like I said above, it's my computer, if I can't control what it's computing then it stops being my computer, it's at best shared between me and all the developers of the proprietary software I have installed on it.


      That's my rant. It's been a long time coming.

      There are still things I'm looking to change, especially with how I use the internet. Getting rid of Reddit is the next big step for me, I think. I just can't be bothered with it anymore, but there is still something about it that I love, every time I look through a small niche topic community, or an interesting new hobby sub I've never seen before with years of cool posts for me to go through. And yeah, I do still enjoy browsing through /r/all even when it's 80% shit and objectively bad for my mental health. But at this point the overwhelming mass of utter shit is just not worth digging through anymore. I'm tired.

      Tildes is really cool. It reminds me of the old internet, the ideal usage of the Web. I open the site, I see a link to an interesting article, I read it, I give it a like, I read and/or contribute to the discussion in a comments section. I want more of this.

      If anyone has any links to cool sites that I should check out I'd greatly appreciate it.

      152 votes
    2. Highlighting text in Wikipedia scrolls up too fast?

      To be honest I have some problems explaining what I mean, which might be why I can't find a solution or explanaition for it. I use firefox on Linux and out of habit i highlight text while reading...

      To be honest I have some problems explaining what I mean, which might be why I can't find a solution or explanaition for it.

      I use firefox on Linux and out of habit i highlight text while reading it. I always did that and it helps me to read a lot faster and to relax my eyes while reading. It's something i don't think i can get rid of, even if I tried, it's just so deeply burned in.
      As well I use to scroll the text I'm reading to the top out of the same reasons or maybe it's just habit as well, but I realised I cannot get rid of it as well :-)

      So no to my problem:
      Usually this works flawless, i can highlight text and have the cursor where I'm reading in the topmost visible line. But for some strange reason this does not work in the "new" wikipedia layout. where if I highlight text in the upper third of the page it scrolls upwards quite fast which just fucks up everything and makes my day bad. (this behaviour is not present in the old design which e.g. the germand wikipedia still uses)

      Is it me?
      Is it my browser?
      Is there a way to get rid of this, so I can keep my workflow while reading and learing on wikipedia? Is somebody else observing this behaviour?
      Where can I even start to look for a solution? I don't even know what to look for.

      It truly bothers me, as I'm close to every day on it, and it might be my favorite website.
      I heard there is a way to switch to the old wikipedia layout, which might be a workaround. But I actually like the new Layout a lot, so if there is a way to avoid that it would be great :-)

      18 votes
    3. To those who have been trying out Kagi: what do you think of it?

      It’s been about a month and a half since our big Kagi trial giveaway, which means most people are probably about halfway through their trial periods, so I figured we were due for a follow-up. To...

      It’s been about a month and a half since our big Kagi trial giveaway, which means most people are probably about halfway through their trial periods, so I figured we were due for a follow-up.

      To those who started using it recently, what are your thoughts?

      What do you like and dislike about Kagi?

      Do you think you will continue your subscription past the end of the trial?


      Note: I’m not affiliated with Kagi in any way besides being a happy customer myself. I’m asking this entirely out of curiosity.

      54 votes
    4. I hate 2FA

      I get that it’s supposed to make things more secure, but it feels like a constant chore every time I try to log in somewhere. Grab a code from my phone. Check my email. Open an authenticator app....

      I get that it’s supposed to make things more secure, but it feels like a constant chore every time I try to log in somewhere. Grab a code from my phone. Check my email. Open an authenticator app. Repeat this process for every single account, over and over.

      I know there are tools like YubiKey that are supposed to make 2FA easier, but the reality is that most websites don’t even support them.

      I already use a password manager, and all my passwords are long, randomized, and secure. Is there something I am missing that makes this easier, or is this just as infuriating for everyone else?

      74 votes
    5. Walled gardens, privacy, SEO and the open internet

      Hey all! So I was thinking of how when looking at privacy, having a platform being a walled garden (i.e. data not being found on search engines) can feel like a worse experience for what is...

      Hey all!

      So I was thinking of how when looking at privacy, having a platform being a walled garden (i.e. data not being found on search engines) can feel like a worse experience for what is regarded as the open internet.

      I don't have a solid solution for this. So my question to you is,

      How do you respect privacy while sharing content for search engines on a platform?

      13 votes
    6. Anyone interested in trying out Kagi?

      Edit: I have sent my link to three different people and I am out. Assuming they sign up. However, a lot of people also have invite links that commented. I guess a system would be for the...

      Edit: I have sent my link to three different people and I am out. Assuming they sign up. However, a lot of people also have invite links that commented. I guess a system would be for the invite-giver to reply to the comment of the invite-receiver to keep track?

      —-

      I received a link during Thanksgiving that lets me invite several people to a free trial of Kagi.

      I tried convincing friends to try it out but most of them were not even interested in a free trial to a paid search engine.

      If any of you are interested, please let me know.

      I'll give you my link in private and you can register yourself to the free trial.

      Posting just in case people are on the same boat as me.

      --

      Also, I hope it's appropriate to start a topic on this?
      Let me know if this is frowned upon.

      58 votes
    7. Tips for increasing online privacy (without going insane)?

      I've been researching internet privacy and fell down the rabbit hole of...well, internet privacy. I started with deleting Facebook/Instagram and switching to fire fox + plugins. I would like to...

      I've been researching internet privacy and fell down the rabbit hole of...well, internet privacy. I started with deleting Facebook/Instagram and switching to fire fox + plugins. I would like to make more improvements but I really have no idea how, it started with deleting socials and next thing you know I'm looking at LineageOS and de-googling.

      If anyone has any suggestions on where to go next while staying realistic/not going crazy, i would love to hear them. I am not really sure where to set my expectations, basically I would like to have more control of my data. The other day Google photos gave me a memory recap which kind of creeped me out! I am suddenly not fond of whatever is going on under the surface of Google photos that's making collages and trying to sell my photo books. Also g-board giving me a pop up in the text prediction row asking me to rate the app??? Ew.

      I am a fan of self hosting and run a small NAS (open media vault) but this too quickly turns into the privacy spiral and leaves me thinking I should throw my phone into a river and live in the forest. Would love to hear your thoughts/advice/opinions!

      54 votes
    8. Very unusual behaviour trying to use Duck Duck Go. Any suggestions for what to do?

      Solution I added 20.43.161.105 duckduckgo.com to my hosts file and everything is working fine now. I also changed DNS servers away from my ISPs, thanks to all the recommendations in this thread....

      Solution

      I added 20.43.161.105 duckduckgo.com to my hosts file and everything is working fine now.
      I also changed DNS servers away from my ISPs, thanks to all the recommendations in this thread.

      cat /etc/resolve.conf
      nameserver 1.1.1.1
      nameserver 1.0.0.1
      

      That seems to be working

      > nslookup duckduckgo.com
      Server:		1.1.1.1
      Address:	1.1.1.1#53
      
      Non-authoritative answer:
      Name:	duckduckgo.com
      Address: 202.39.62.156
      Name:	duckduckgo.com
      Address: 2001:b000:1a0:3505:202:39:62:15d
      

      except (note that non-autoratative IP address which belongs to my ISP) ...

      > ping -4 duckduckgo.com 
      PING duckduckgo.com (202.39.62.156) 56(84) bytes of data.
      

      My ISPs address again. More...

      traceroute to duckduckgo.com (202.39.62.156), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
       1  * * *
       2  * * *
       3  * * *
      ...
      30 * * * *
      

      Why do ping and traceroute not use the new DNS server's I've configured (after re-booting too_)
      The only thing to work is to add

      20.43.161.105 duckduckgo.com
      

      to my hosts file and now everything seems to be working as expected, though I have doubts now that changing the DNS configuration has done any good.

      I know ISPs cache things like youtube to reduce costs so I'm wondering if 202.39.62.156 handled caching of duckduckgo, and they pointed their nameservers there and that box is broken.

      Thanks for everyone's input and patience (lol are you still reading???)


      Original Question

      I've used Duck Duck Go as my main search engine for many, many years.
      I have several search engines installed in Firefox including 2 for duck duck go. One for the /lite version and one for the full version.

      [See update at bottom]

      In recent days neither of these work. I would type my query into the search engine, press enter as I have done for years.

      All I see is a blank page.

      The latest development is that when I try and enter ANY search to either of those engines I get a GOOGLE 404 not found page.

          
          traceroute duckduckgo.com                                                                                                             ─╯
          traceroute to duckduckgo.com (216.239.38.120), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
           1  * * *
           2  * * *
           3  The usual internal routing of my ISP
           4  ""          ""            ""
           5  ""          ""            ""
           6  ""          ""            ""
           7  ""          ""            ""
           8  * * *
           9  any-in-2678.1e100.net (216.239.38.120)  4.089 ms  4.077 ms  4.181 ms
          
          ping duckduckgo.com                                                                                                                   ─╯
          PING duckduckgo.com (2001:4860:4802:32::78) 56 data bytes
          64 bytes from any-in-2001-4860-4802-32--78.1e100.net (2001:4860:4802:32::78): icmp_seq=1 ttl=117 time=10.1 ms
          64 bytes from any-in-2001-4860-4802-32--78.1e100.net (2001:4860:4802:32::78): icmp_seq=2 ttl=117 time=8.52 ms
          64 bytes from any-in-2001-4860-4802-32--78.1e100.net (2001:4860:4802:32::78): icmp_seq=3 ttl=117 time=6.87 ms
          64 bytes from any-in-2001-4860-4802-32--78.1e100.net (2001:4860:4802:32::78): icmp_seq=4 ttl=117 time=8.83 ms
          
          --- duckduckgo.com ping statistics ---
          4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3005ms
          rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.873/8.584/10.118/1.155 ms
      
      cat /etc/resolv.conf
      > MY ISPs name servers
      > MY ISPs name servers
      

      Sure enough I cannot find any pages on the site 2001-4860-4802-32--78.1e100.net which is obviously belongs to google.

      This is very very strange.

      Could someone verify if they can use DDG or whether they see the same as me?
      Does anyone have any idea what's happening?


      UPDATE
      I can connect to and use DuckDuckGo using a browser VPN. This appears to be a mess made by my ISP.
      I'd still like suggestion to overcome the problem though.

      14 votes