I figured this may lead to an interesting discussion in the comments.
How has your use of Technology changed in the past year? I’ll start.
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Due to the rise of streaming services and Sony/discovery removing content from libraries, I downloaded all my iTunes purchases onto a 2TB SSD (which I’ll soon need to get another).
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Like many, I’ve stopped using Reddit outside of Google search.
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I’ve reduced my subscriptions to just two. (Apple One and Google One)
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I’ve purchased DVDs/Blu rays of my favorite uncensored shows (Family Guy and American Dad) and ripped them and watch them through Cloud storage (Google Drive via Infuse for Apple platforms, and Kodi for Windows)(I’ve also purchased MakeMKV just because it is so damn useful)
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I’ve used Google App Scripts to bypass some Gmail limitations to make filters that I otherwise couldn’t. For instance, in Outlook.com, you can block email addresses and domains before you have ever gotten an email from them. In Gmail, you can’t. The best you can do is create a filter that deletes them. In my case, I’ve created a Google App Script that runs every hour and looks for (@.mil) domain emails and marks them as spam. (I am in college, and I fucking hate that they give my email to recruiters.)
I’ve started archiving my media much more vigorously. Due to the corpos enshitifying so much, the amount of media I have ripped and preserved on my own NAS has exploded.
I started torrenting again for the first time since college.
I gave up reddit and use Lemmy and Fediverse exclusively, except for the occasional tech issue I have and then search old reddits for advice/solutions.
I watch YT exclusively through GrayJay, NewPipe, and FreeTube now.
I’ve become much more active converting people to Linux. So far I convinced two friends to buy Steam Decks, one friend to buy a Framework laptop and put Fedora on it, converted my parents to Linux Mint, and may have two more people switching to Linux on their main computers in the coming year.
I’ve also been pushing more FOSS software and hardware to family and friends, trying to convince them to care more about right to repair, FOSS and the like.
This year I am planning to build a new NAS that will be a self-hosted defeater for streaming and get my close friends and family onboard. Hopefully they will slowly give up their subscriptions.
We’ll see how it all goes, but I’m very optimistic about FOSS tech in the coming months and years, so much great stuff happening!
- Switched to Linux
- Switched to Firefox
- Set up email forwarding to a new account on Proton Mail
- Finally upgraded my PC
- deleted my Reddit account. Only use it if I land there from a web search
- Started using Firefox containers - keep Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc in their own containers
- Deleted my Dropbox account when they started deploying AI tools late 23. About to delete Google Drive.
- Migrated to paid Protonmail. Intend to wipe my Gmail data in next couple of months
- Migrated to paid data backup service
- Bought a steam deck, connected it to my living room TV and now PC game in my living room (had a steam link but never got into it before, but steam deck has changed how I play)
- Cancelled most streaming services
- Started using Freetube software and Libredirect to escape YouTube
- Installed fdroid open source store on my phone and switched to many foss and non cloud apps.
Basically mostly I’ve started taking my privacy and data much more seriously. I was already privacy “aware” but the explosion of so called AI tools in my industry (healthcare) has made me realise the value and importance of my data, and how much of it is being stolen and exploited by private interests. There are also examples of how private data is being extracted from this bullshit AI tools.
I’m increasingly understanding how important it is now to actively protect my data and also fragment my internet presence as much as possible.
Not OP but I’ve been using duplicity for over a decade. Zero lock-in to any particular cloud storage, uses rdiff and gpg for the incremental computation and encryption… it’s awesome.
Just this month I’ve switched over from S3 to Dropbox for cloud storage due to price, and other than the large first backup, my backup script worked flawlessly.
I can’t recommend it enough.
I’ve stopped trusting anything online due to AI being a cancer on the internet and it’s only going to get worse.
My trust in anything on the internet has eroded over the last ten years. Information, news, offers…it’s all pud-pulling capitalist circlejerking and the most cynical propaganda imaginable.
Deleted my Twitter account and switched from Reddit (accounts are not deleted) to Lemmy.
Switched from Chrome back to Firefox after more than a decade.
Dropped Windows in favor of Linux Mint.
Unsubscribed from Netflix, Disney+, etc. Now I only torrent the films, series, etc. that I know I’ll watch more than once, for stuff that I only plan on watching once I use Stremio with the Torrentio add-on.
Started using my old Facebook account after several years just for Marketplace.
That’s all I can remember at the moment.
EDIT: Oh yeah, ditched PornHub for NoodleMagazine.
