"Ensh#ttification" of the Internet and what I'm doing.

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deepthaw

deepthaw

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If you've noticed everything on the Internet sucks anymore, you're neither wrong nor alone.

Enshittification - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I decided my good fight recently would be to rage against the machine and tell all the megacorps to go stick it. Here's what I've done so far, and what it's costing me in real money and effort.

Google Search
Remember when Google had "don't be evil" in their charter or something? They took it out. They're evil now. On top of that, their search has become a pile of self-reinforcing ai-generated crap that crowds out anything resembling usable content. Plus their entire living is made off of violating your privacy as much as possible and turning you into a product.

I tried duckduckgo but their search results really weren't much better. I did startpage as well - same problem. And I'm still getting ads on both. Next step: https://kagi.com

Kagi is a subscription search engine. You pay real money, every month, to do what Google offers for "free." I pay $10/month for unlimited searches. Kagi doesn't track your searches or activity across the web. They don't have ads and they don't offer sponsored results. You can upvote/downvote sites or even block them from your results, as well as see the public lists for an idea of what people in general are up/downvoting. You can create "lenses" (which i've not used) which tailor the search to specific topics or something.

Screenshot 2024-03-07 at 11.39.09 AM.png

Google Mail / Drive
I've done two things: I bought my own domain name, and subscribed to Proton mail. The domain name is ... i forget how much. I pay $12.99/month for Proton Unlimited. This gives me oodles of storage in Proton Drive, their password manager (Proton Pass), unlimited use of Proton VPN and what I really wanted, their mail service. Since I own the domain, I can use my own custom email address at that domain and if I jump ship from Proton in the future, my email address will follow me. If Proton is bought out, I don't lose the email address. I can jump ship. Etc. They have plans that are cheaper than $12.99/mo and if you don't want all the nonsense I have you can probably do it much cheaper (you could just use a proton.me email). Proton doesn't insert ads into your email, and they're heavily encrypted and they don't scan them for anything.

Screenshot 2024-03-07 at 11.56.05 AM.png

Google Chrome
I use Firefox instead. I do have to turn off a bunch of features to get them to leave me alone.

Amazon Prime
When they announced they were adding ads to their video plan, I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription. If I want to watch a show, I rent it or find it via "alternate" means. Or I just don't watch it. The money I've saved by not buying random crap off Amazon because I could get it shipped for free in two days has more than made up what it costs to have Kagi & Proton.

Total costs right now: $22.99/month + whatever the yearly breakdown is for owning my own domain. That's honestly not much more than just one of the streaming services nowadays, and it's made the web much more usable for now.

What's everybody else doing? This is not meant to be a sponsored ad for any of those services (Proton is probably overkill - there's less encrypted, cheaper services out there that would work fine I imagine) and if Kagi goes downhill, I'll jump ship immediately.

(I've also abandoned reddit, closed my twitter account and a few other things but they're not directly relevant to this topic.)
 
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Fenris-77 said:
My best move is staying off Facebook. I also use Duck Duck Go as a search engine instead of Google. I like the idea of a better alternative to Google Drive though. I have way more than 15gb of stuff I'd like to store.
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My Facebook presence has diminished to just enough of an account to message my friends and browse facebook marketplace for random old video game and computer hardware. My sanity is much improved.
 
I, too, use Proton for my mail and have my own domain(s). I have a server I run at home with NextCloud that basically servers as my Google Drive/Dropbox replacement and whatever else I decide to run on the server at home (Gemini server, other little fun things). On the social media side, I'm not sure how I feel about social media overall. I have an account on a Mastodon server and also have a Bluesky account. Stopped posting to X/Twitter, deleted my stuff. I don't want the overhead of running my own Mastodon/ActivityPub server, so my account is on a French server I choose almost at random. I like the tech idea behind Bluesky, but in practice it's still a centralized affair (that hopefully soon changes). I'm still a bit addicted to using Chrome, though sometimes I use LibreWolf (a Firefox browser).

I am an admin for a Facebook group dedicated to the Street Fighter RPG. That's being entangled in a big-tech thing, but it is what it is.

Outside of that, I do try to keep my own websites. I think everyone should have their own little place on the web, and we should be sharing those places with each other, independent of the straight-jackets of some pre-fab social media. I like people having their own quirky web sites. It's fun.
 
SavAce said:
I, too, use Proton for my mail and have my own domain(s). I have a server I run at home with NextCloud that basically servers as my Google Drive/Dropbox replacement and whatever else I decide to run on the server at home (Gemini server, other little fun things). On the social media side, I'm not sure how I feel about social media overall. I have an account on a Mastodon server and also have a Bluesky account. Stopped posting to X/Twitter, deleted my stuff. I don't want the overhead of running my own Mastodon/ActivityPub server, so my account is on a French server I choose almost at random. I like the tech idea behind Bluesky, but in practice it's still a centralized affair (that hopefully soon changes). I'm still a bit addicted to using Chrome, though sometimes I use LibreWolf (a Firefox browser).

I am an admin for a Facebook group dedicated to the Street Fighter RPG. That's being entangled in a big-tech thing, but it is what it is.

Outside of that, I do try to keep my own websites. I think everyone should have their own little place on the web, and we should be sharing those places with each other, independent of the straight-jackets of some pre-fab social media. I like people having their own quirky web sites. It's fun.
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what's yo mastodon? that's the network i'm actually active on. i joined via sdf.org, which is a public access unix server dating back to ... a long time ago. i actually a few bucks monthly to help with the costs of running it.
 
Brave Browser has been my primary web browser for a few years now.

I have been using Kagi as my main search engine for several months, and my only search engine for a couple of months.

For e-mail, I use Kolab Now in Switzerland with two of my own domain names. Kolab Now uses entirely open source software.

For social media, I stick to Bluesky and Reddit. I wish that there was a viable Reddit alternative, but there just isn't.

For online shopping, I use a combination of a local supermarket that delivers, Target, Micro Center, and B&H Photo.
 
Doesn't everyone else use a Coupler to connect along with Netscape for MS DOS? Speaking of that I've been having issues with my autoexec batch files.<sigh>



I agree with Cory's classification of the "Enshittification of the Internet", I truly hate it along with the apparent need of "IoT".

Internet of things - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


I feel more for my kids and grandkids (As well as others), Figure I've got 10 to 20 years left on the planet give or take, so all the worst that is humanity's deterimented stupid, I won't have to deal with.
 
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I have my own domain name and pay for a subscription on a webhosting service. This means I could make a webpage if I wanted too, which I did have once but I have taken it down again. So for now I only use it for email. All costs considered, I pay about 100 danish kroner (about 14-15 dollars) a month for this.

I dropped Twitter, oh sorry Elon, X years ago. My Facebook account have been deleted by Facebook themselves. Either it had been hacked or I didn't log in enough. Didn't care to make a new account. I only go on Reddit when a search takes me there.
I watch very little Youtube and then only channels I'm subscribed to. I do sometimes use it as a radio though.
This forum is the only forum I visit regularly. When I want to know something about some videogames, I visit a site called rpgcodex. I only lurk there though.

I try not to buy from Amazon, except from third party sellers and a couple of times were I couldn't find what I wanted elsewhere.

I use Firefox as my browser, but have it on the strictest settings plus a bunch of extensions for privacy installed.
That Brave Browser Lunar Ronin Lunar Ronin mentioned above look interesting. Maybe I should switch.
 
What irks me most about modern search engines is how resistant they are to requests that they must include or exclude certain terms. Google claims it allows you to define these and other logic, but in practice it's very bad at it and has been for ages. Other search engines seem little better.
 
DDG for searches, no social media, just a few forums, and use Firefox. I try and spend less time on the internet in general. Sometimes with more success than others. Flip phone for the weekends.
 
Sharrow said:
What irks me most about modern search engines is how resistant they are to requests that they must include or exclude certain terms. Google claims it allows you to define these and other logic, but in practice it's very bad at it and has been for ages. Other search engines seem little better.
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Google doesn't run a search engine but a ad rev platform. It tries to suppress not revenue generating results as much as possible without being too obvious. It tries to not give results more than a few years old, even if that results in nothing found.
 
I used to use Opera back in the day when it was ad supported (assuming you weren't paying for it). Ditched it after it became a shitty, featureless chromium browser, and now I use Vivaldi, which is basically the original Opera owner.

I do have my own domain, but I mostly just use it for our private RPG group forum. The email associated with it doesn't get much use, and I still use google drive -- to move away, I'd need a replacement for gsheets, and everyone else in the group would also have to get on board with moving to a new service.

I have two followers in Instagram, and have posted two or three pictures of my dog. I have sent one tweet and followed one person on twitter. I have a relatively small group of actual friends on Facebook, and it occasionally shows me new and interesting bands. Facebook thinks I'm a 100 year-old man called Herbert, which is amusing. I have, with some reluctance, started using Reddit and Discord over the past few years.

I kind of use Startpage for searches, but it's pretty horrid, and I find myself going back to google a lot. I will probably investigate this Kagi thing.

I have been watching Boardgame Arena gradually enshittify itself, which is frustrating.

My continued use of google services probably makes me part of the problem, but I've never been reliant on or a big user of social media (and I've been using ghostery to block social media links and like buttons since forever).
 
I use DuckDuckGo and Firefox. I have a lot of things turned off on Windows, including Cortana and/or Co-pilot. I used LibeOffice for document preparation, and I bought Affinity Publisher 2 for advanced layout.
I'm embracing the forum renaissance. I'm looking into RSS.
If someone's EULA sucks, I endorse breaking the hell out of it.
 
I use Linux as my daily driver, Firefox for browsing, with NoScript, and uBlock Origin installed to keep the junk away. DDG for search. While I use Google Workspace, I have all of their extraneous domains blocked, which inconveniences them greatly in tracking me. I bought a decent Synology Disk Station for local storage, and backup the data once a month to iDrive. I also run Plex on the Synology for local video streaming.

One new thing I did recently was install the DDG browser on my phone, and made it the default browser. It blocks trackers from apps on your phone, and gives you a report of what it found and blocked. Totally configurable too, so you can allow certain apps if you want, or block them all (which tends to break your phone) Not sure if it works for fruit company phones, since fruit company makes you use their browser engine no matter what "browser" you install. But works good on Android. Not perfect, but if you absolutely don't want to be tracked via your phone, toss it in a lake...
 
the GDPR discussion in the other thread made me think of something here - dealing with companies who can't comply with regulations like this is an important part of overall cyber security. It implies they don't have the processes and procedures in place or the staff training or quality.
 
I Use Facebook, Google, Way too many Google services and Microsoft Edge.
I'm sure my actions are fueling the rise of Big Data but...I can't bring myself to care. As long as Youtube works, I get messages somehow and can stream Netflix I'm happy. And I think that goes for the majority.

But still, keep fighting the Man you Linux wielding warriors. I salute you.
 
I practice "public face" and "private face" as an online philosophy.
Meaning, I use Brave, Falkon and Firefox as my browsers. Firefox is the one I use for social media, when I visit them. Brave and Falcon are what I use for that stuff I call "for the soul".
My search engine is Brave's search, usually, or sometimes, DuckDuckGo. I'm not quite so happy with the latter, but it's serviceable.
My home OS is Linux, and has been for years. If I could get Linux on my Android phone, I'd have been a happier customer. As it is, it uses Brave.

I use social media to coordinate RPG games, mostly. Whatever else I might do in my life, it simply doesn't get shown on social media:shade:.
 
I use what works for me and discard what doesn't. As far as tech goes, my concerns pretty much start and end there. I don't use much social media, but I find value in the few platforms that I do use.

This is for personal use, of course. For work, I use what I'm required to, either by my employer or my customers.
 
Stumpydave said:
I Use Facebook, Google, Way too many Google services and Microsoft Edge.
I'm sure my actions are fueling the rise of Big Data but...I can't bring myself to care. As long as Youtube works, I get messages somehow and can stream Netflix I'm happy. And I think that goes for the majority.

But still, keep fighting the Man you Linux wielding warriors. I salute you.
Click to expand...
I'm starting to think that we'd be better off with something like this instead.

1709922913376.png

1709922694027.png

1709922727263.png
 
Jetstream said:
I don’t believe that. They might claim it, but I’m gonna call it a lie.
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Okay? If they were lying it would come out eventually and wreck their entire business model. Seems easier and more profitable to tell the truth.

Kagi Search Privacy

Better search results with no ads. Welcome to Kagi (pronounced kah-gee), a paid search engine that gives power back to the user.
kagi.com kagi.com
 
No social media for me. Switched my email to Proton from gmail. Qwant search engine. Brave browser. I even loathe to log in to Youtube nowadays. Luckily their content creators (at least those I have followed), don't frequently do quality stuff anymore. This is my son's impression as well, so I'm probably not alone in thinking that. Oh, and no smartphone! I once had one gifted to me, but didn't even put my sim card into it before giving it to someone else. I feel that the only thing I'm missing from not havng a smartphone is easily available driving instructions to unfamiliar places.
 
StubbornMule said:
Dragging a file while holding down the shift key still works, doesn't it?
Click to expand...

Not from what I can see but I'll try it next time I'm on my work computer.

Without having two screens dragging and dropping is still clumsy and a waste of time.

Even with two screens it's pointlessly finicky.
 
Voros said:
Windows has removed the Move function for files. Bloody amazingly stupid.
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Wait, what? I take it that this is a Windows 11 deal? Fuck me. Idiots. It's still there with my uptodate Windows 10 system.
1710699820837.png

I'm seriously considering just stretching out my system until Windows 12. Seems every other OS version they fuck the dog big time. Both my Desktop and Surface support Windows 11 but there was soo much I didn't like intially that I'd kept staying on the fence with migrating to it. This is just another "fuck no" example for me. Hmm maybe I'll migrate the Surface to it just to dick with it. Part of me just doesn't want to spend the time dicking with Microsoft and other OS shit anymore, I've got better things to spend my time on. ::mutters, spits and wander off::
 
Acmegamer said:
I'm seriously considering just stretching out my system until Windows 12. Seems every other OS version they fuck the dog big time. Both my Desktop and Surface support Windows 11 but there was soo much I didn't like intially that I'd kept staying on the fence with migrating to it. This is just another "fuck no" example for me. Hmm maybe I'll migrate the Surface to it just to dick with it. Part of me just doesn't want to spend the time dicking with Microsoft and other OS shit anymore, I've got better things to spend my time on. ::mutters, spits and wander off::
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We have Windows 11 on our work computers, and I really don't care for it. I might end up stretching Window 10 out until 12, like you said. That's my usual update approach with Windows, anyway, since historically the every-other-version tends to be more irritating than the ones on either side of it.

I'm really tempted to just go all-in on some flavor of Linux for my main desktop computer, instead. I have it running on half of my computers at home already (and all the servers), and have used it for decades, so it wouldn't be hard.
 
carpocratian said:
We have Windows 11 on our work computers, and I really don't care for it. I might end up stretching Window 10 out until 12, like you said. That's my usual update approach with Windows, anyway, since historically the every-other-version tends to be more irritating than the ones on either side of it.

I'm really tempted to just go all-in on some flavor of Linux for my main desktop computer, instead. I have it running on half of my computers at home already (and all the servers), and have used it for decades, so it wouldn't be hard.
Click to expand...

Linux For the Win!

I'm using Manjaro at the moment. Love, love, love the GUI interface! It checks off all the little annoyance boxes, stuff like letting me use the keyboard for almost everything, and asking me what I want to do (Logoff, Restart, Shutdown) when I press the Power button on my keyboard. :gooselove:
 
I'd have dropped Windows a long time ago if I both had the time and energy to figure out how to run my games on Linux.
Otherwise I just use Firefox and Duckduckgo.
I had merciful foresight and never got into social media when it first started. Now days I only use twitter to follow artists/creators I like, and even then I only us twitter because that's where everyone still is despite it's rapid enshittification.
I've avoided Amazon like the plague due to too many friends and acquaintances suffering from their terrible work culture and environment.

My naive hope is that the whole system will just come crumbing down in a second Dotcom bubble, but that's as likely as hell freezing over.
Sigh... a man can dream though... a man can dream...
 
My first IT intern job was castrating and uninstalling parts of Windows for a fish processor company. Every time I found a new way to hammer down some bit of bloatware it felt like a little life victory.

Still have to put up win WinShit at work, but haven't used it at home for a few decades and don't miss it. Still have to help troubleshoot my in-laws stuff. So tempted to find a looks-like-windows shell and swap in a 'nix. But their issues aren't really with the OS, just the occasional scammer and crappy easy-hack passwords they keep forgetting and won't correctly write down in one place.
 
carpocratian said:
I'm really tempted to just go all-in on some flavor of Linux for my main desktop computer, instead. I have it running on half of my computers at home already (and all the servers), and have used it for decades, so it wouldn't be hard.
Click to expand...

bleys21 said:
Linux For the Win!

I'm using Manjaro at the moment. Love, love, love the GUI interface! It checks off all the little annoyance boxes, stuff like letting me use the keyboard for almost everything, and asking me what I want to do (Logoff, Restart, Shutdown) when I press the Power button on my keyboard. :gooselove:
Click to expand...
Yeah, guys, I hear you out. I'm just a normal user with no more IT knowledge than the next guy who paid attention in a 90ies high school, and I love everything about Linux, including the interface...::honkhonk:

I mean, it's probably a problem if you want to run games, but I don't have time for those anyway. Too many RPGs to read when I'm in the mood for games, too many books to read, too many instructionals to watch, and too much other stuff to do when I've got any spare time and am not in the mood for games:grin:!
 
I still use Windows for my main pc, just because of games, but I have a variety of other things running various Linux stuff. My NAS/Plex server/kavita server is running on Truenas Scale which is Debian Linux based. The mini computer I have connected to my tv that is mostly used for emulation or for remote playing Steam stuff from my desktop is using ChimeraOS which is Arch Linux.

But to be honest, I find W11 perfectly good as a consumer OS.
 
I set up a trial of Kagi a while ago. Lasted longer than expected, clearly I don't search as much as I thought I did. After the trial, I decided to pay them $5 a month, if for no other reason than encouraging competition is good. Much better results than I experienced with Startpage.

The AI tools available on the $10/mo plan do sound vaguely interesting. I might try them out at some stage.
 
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