Probably an ad, but much more subtle if so. The old ones were so blatant. :)

What makes you do it with a smile? What does it give you that proton or tutanota doesn't?

Nothing has exactly the same experience as MS. I don't think there is a clone project for it.

The two you listed are your best options.

Does LibreOffice have any issues that prevent you using it? If not, it's probably that your expectations are set by your comfort and familiarity with Office and that is the problem you need to solve.

You know it's a 3 character documentation change.

Those that truly dislike MS and telemetry won't.

If I'm using non-free it is Jet Brains.

I tend to use Kate, KDevelop.

MS still slurping code into Copilot from Github and telemetry in VSCode.

By browsers do you mean search engines in the browsers? I use DDG for search. Firefox is king, browsers wise.

That is a massive disappointment. Hopefully Element gets their video calls sorted. Why can I not just have privacy tools that I can use? Why are the good ones taken away?

Sanity is restored.

Love KDE, and good to see them chipping away at these pain points.

Thank you for your candour, and much respect for you going against what could have been personally easy for you to do. Your adherence to your principles over your emotions and personal experiences show a really strong character.

This instance is my go to, recommended instance. You've shown great technical leadership and now you're showing leadership in moderation. If people don't want to see hexbear, they have a choice in .world or beehaw (who seem to defederate quicker than Chelsea putting in a bid for a player they've just heard of). The fact that .ee can differentiate gives users that freedom to choose.

I do think that those opposed to federation with hexbear are a loud minority and using the same arguments as was applied against lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. In many cases they aren't nuanced views, just recycled lines repeated. It's so frequently and so similar, I have wondered if it's brigading. Is this people who were on exploding heads that are still angry and trying to get even?

Please ignore the initial hot response you'll get, and give people time to come to terms with and accept what you've said. They often push and push and push until you yield, and you need to keep strong to maintain this as your choice, which it should be. Even if you do defederate later, do it on your terms and based on clear criteria of what you feel is right. Many will agree with my view, but don't always wade in on debates. Often the ones that respond are the ones that are most emotionally agitated. I am responding to show support for you and what you have been through, and thank you for your transparency. I respect your integrity.

For disclosure: I am a leftie, but personally opposed to communism. I am opposed to authoritarianism on both sides of the political spectrum. I welcome debate with people that differ from them views. I'm already frequently immersed in debate with Americans that have a very different view of capitalism, and I can live with that. I ain't a snowflake, and I don't endorse cancel culture (I do feel a whiff of irony here and I think it's important to raise that rhetoric the right often throw at at the left, because if you believe if free speech, you believe in free speech).

Agreed, a lot of Reddit comments felt very shilly. Firefox is king and helps prevent Google dictate web standards.

A fully working Linux Phone with good battery life that supports a good matrix client with e2 encryption. GrapheneOS is good, but we need initiatives independent from Google.

Now on GrapheneOS on the Pixel 6a. One of the best decisions I made :)

I use DDG. I read here that start page had been taken over by an advertising company, and Brave always felt dodgy from day 1, weird crypto stuff ~~and I think the owners previous company may have sold users data~~.

I think DDG is the best we have right now.