Deliverer of ideas for a living. Believer in internet autonomy, dignity. I upkeep instances of FOSS platforms like this for the masses. Previously on Twitter under the same handle. I do software things, but also I don’t.

  • 0 Posts
  • 119 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 5th, 2023
  • chirospasm@lemmy.mltoOpen Source@lemmy.ml•You need to stop using Brave
    8·
    12 days ago

    If it’s viable for you, slightly modified Mulvad browser + Searxing for search.

    Mullvad browser is a variant of the Tor browser, but rather than being used to connect to Tor, it’s built on the stripped away version of Firefox that Tor builds. This means no ‘phoning home’ telemetry to Mozilla or Google. The only default connection Mullvad browser uses – and this might be why I would suggest modifying it – is the DNS gets routed through Mullvad. Nothing wrong with that, as they have some solid adblocking DNS servers. But: having a choice for that is good. The default should not be assumed.

    Searxing uses a number of search indexes that have been consistently effective when compared to commercial search engines, and it’s open source and deployable on, say, a home server. There used to be some public instances available. Searxing is good.

    Were setting up a Searxing service for yourself somewhere not as viable, and you want to try a service that you pay for (rather than them using your data as ‘payment’), I would recommend something like Kagi. They offer an interesting feature to their service, and this is why I suggest them: they have a privacy tokenized search, which valdidates but obsfucates you as a user when you make a search request. I think it is smartly engineered, and I can appreciate it for what it is.

    For privacy and security purposes, alike, I would avoid Zen and Floorp. They do not get security updates as often.

  • chirospasm@lemmy.mltoFirefox@lemmy.ml•I know you don’t want them to want AI, but…
    224·
    2 months ago

    Although this has been heavily downvoted, the author has a point: what do private, safe AI experiences in a software mean for the common browser user? How does a company that was founded as an ‘alternative’ to a crummy default browser take the same approach? For those that do and will use the tech indiscriminately, what’s next for them?

    Just as cookie/site separation became a default setting in FF eventually, or the ability to force a more secure private DNS, what could Mozilla consider on its own to prevent abuse, slop, LLM-syncophantism / deception, undesired user data training, tracking, and more? All that stuff we know is bad, but nobody seems to be addressing all too well. These big AI companies certainly don’t seem to be.

    Rather than advocate for Not AI, how do we address it better for those who’ll simply hit up one of these big AI company websites like they would social media or Amazon?

    Is it anonymous tokenization systems that prevent a big AI company knowing who a user is, a kind of ‘privacy pass?’ Is it text re-obsfucation at the browser level that jarbles user input so that patterns can’t emerge? Is it even a straightforward warning to users about data hygiene?

    The above is silly, and speculative, and mostly for conversation. But: maybe there’s something here for your everyday browser user. And maybe we ought to consider how we help them.

  • chirospasm@lemmy.mltoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Every time
    49·
    6 months ago

    There’s a psychic in the movie that tells Peewee that the bicycle he lost is in the basement of the Alamo – the joke being that this is one of many instances where Peewee’s naivety gets the better of him, sending him off in another odd direction. The plot continually plays off his innocence.

    Nowadays, visitors to the Alamo reference the question on tours as a running joke.