Note: This setup is both for my android and pc Edit: For those recommending paid services and selfhosting, I don’t have the money nor resources for either. Also it seams some people are confusing my android setup with my PC setup so I’ll write it down. Android: Brave(movies) + Ironfox, Search: Brave + DDG, VPN: Proton ( not always on), GPay = Cash, Auth= Aegis Auth, Pass: KeepassDX, PC: Firefox= Librewolf, VPN = No VPN (VERY slow internet), Search: Searxng + DDG, Pass: KeepassXC,
Every time a “privacy” list shows brave, i instantly ignore the rest of it because i know they arent serious.
This, I cringe when Brave and privacy end up in the same sentence. They’re shady af
Get brave off that list.
Does Tuta sponsor one of these privacy roundups every month or something?
Tuta is the best option for encrypted email I’ve seen so far. I used to think proton mail was good, but the ceo supporters maga and they are funding french far right YouTubers. Their reddit subs are also actively trying to censor that fact.
the issue is the inability to use imap and smtp - i use mailbox.org instead
You are doing a good job here! I’ll let others fight over your software choices, and just add some things that you might want to add:
Keyboard app (Android): I’m using Futo keyboard, but there are other options if FUTO isn’t your cup of tea.
Translation app (Android): “Translator” on F-Droid is a feature rich, fully local.
These two can replace respective apps from Google that you like have installed by default.
Mistral AI for chatgpt replacement. And proton is run by a maga trump supporter who is funding french far right YouTubers. So, it is not a good option.
Suggest adding keyboard to the chart. Replace google or other proprietary keyboard with fossify keyboard or heliboard. No keyboard should need or be granted internet permissions.
Already use heliboard
Don’t use brave. Brave is a cult at this point.
I wish Nobara Linux would move off it. Every third or forth update, the Brave repo I disabled is re-enabled. Not a huge deal, but I’d rather see the Librewolf repo instead.
You can raise the issue to the developers but from what I see, they don’t have a public page for bug reporting so who knows how many issues actually exist within the distro.
Given that Nobara is just a fork of Fedora, and I assume you’ve gained a little CLi experience, why not just switch to Fedora?
Why not switch Linux distros then?
I bet one of the maintainers is a cult member (or is being paid to re add it) either way eww.
IIRC, the sole Nobara Linux maintainer is GloriousEggroll, AKA, the creator of GE-Proton that is the go-to for some windows-on-linux gamers.
I wonder why they are weirdly pushing Brave then huh.
I have an older comment regarding GE supporting AI use by Lutris dev & using AI for Nobara’s wallpapers. I also felt like Nobara wasn’t too stable. GE has done a lotta work for that hobby project, but I’ve switched to CachyOS since & it’s been a much smoother experience.
Would switch Organic Maps to its fork CoMaps. (See: this open letter)
And I would never recommend Brave as the first choice; it’s run by a shady corporation and reinforces Chromium’s hegemony.
I think it’d also be reasonable to add ProtonMail to email and Mullvad to VPN since you can have multiple.
How about OsmAnd? Is that still a decent project without world domination plans? I actually have CoMaps as well, but have sort of stuck to using OsmAnd.
Yeah, OsmAnd is really good; it’s what I use as my daily driver. CoMaps/Organic to me feel too limited, but some people may like that.
(I use Vespucci for editing on Android.)
Excellent. Ty for the open letter too. I hadn’t gotten around to understanding why there was a fallout, but now I know.
Its installed in my android head unit in my car, and it just works, and there’s a lot (and I mean a lot) of stuff it can do, so I really enjoy it as my daily driver (ha! Get it?) in my car.
Except OsmAnd hiding functionality behind a cloud with paywall.
Try the OsmAnd open-source version, which has all the OsmAnd+ features unlocked for free: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.osmand.plus/
So this version gets all the paid cloud features, too?
I’m not sure if I know all of the paid cloud features in the current version (and I don’t really want to download it). You can download unlimited maps, which made me switch back in the days.
No Android Auto support unfortunately
I think OsmAnd is great, but I personally prefer the cleaner feel of CoMaps. Just preference.
Something I’d suggest if OsmAnd feels too cluttered for you is to change the settings; OsmAnd lets you change a lot, but one of the ones I do is to change “Map Style” to Osm-Carto.
Carto, for context, is the vector map that you’d find by going to the OSM website. Much cleaner color scheme, imo.
My problem with OsmAnd is that it’s so very slow. Like, you zoom in and it takes seconds to display the map.
“Takes seconds” seems like a strange experience. I remember OsmAnd years ago performed like that for me – clearly, painfully loading in the individual tiles. But nowdays, it smoothly transitions between LoD and has no problem smoothly scrubbing over e.g. a major city.
I’m using offline vector maps, for context.
Edit: Trying online tiles again, I’m assuming your problem can be resolved by switching to offline. You can have the offline data update automatically such that you don’t have to worry about it. CoMaps and Organic only use offline maps, which is why they’re similarly snappy to offline OsmAnd.
This is under Configure Map > Map Source, and you only need to download for the region (usually e.g. a province) that you’re using.
Tried it out, but since I was so used to the standard OsmAnd style it just felt wrong some way.
It really like how OsmAnd allows for so much customization e.g. in map styles
dont use brave
Thoughts on Vivaldi?
Just use Firefox with uBlock Origin and PrivacyBadger.
Firefox needs to add tab groups on mobile first
Still a proprietary black box you shouldn’t trust and chromium based so you reinforce the chromium monopoly
Why is vivaldi helping a chromium monopoly?
I understand it is based on chrome tech, and I guess that means it can use chrome extensions maybe? But how does it help chrome if people use it?
Agreed, but occasionally I have to use a site that doesn’t work properly on Firefox-based browsers. I mostly use Cromite to deal with that, but want a backup in case Cromite dies like its predecessor Bromite did.
Firefox is my daily drive and I use Ungoogled Chromium for the rare times Firefox doesn’t work
I agree. Firefox is “almost everything” for me. The example that comes to mind for it not working is WebSerial. That’s when the UC comes out. Also there was a brief period where the Papa John’s website checkout didn’t work in Firefox.
If Firefox doesn’t work I just click away
Ty - I’ll give UC a try.
Can you tell me why? I found out ddg was just repackage bing results so I’ve been trying brave for now.
Here’s a good summary of some of the shady practices that they’ve done by way of @cannedtuna@lemmy.world. It’s a summary of this article: https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/
-
- Brendan Eich donated to anti-LGBT political organizations, politicians, and initiatives such as CA Prop 8 which banned same-sex marriages.
-
- Brave promised to replace ads with privacy friendly ads that would actually pay publishers and even users with a volatile cryptocurrency while keeping a cut for themselves. This never actually came to life and was criticized as “blatantly illegal”.
-
- Brave collected donations for popular content creators without actually involving or seeking consent from said creators. In short they accepted donations in crypto for creators, but would only pay out if it reached a minimum value of $100. When called out, Brave said refunds were impossible.
-
2020 — Brave injects referral links when visiting crypto wallets
-
- Brave injected their own referral links for services such as Binance without informing users or asking permission.
-
- Brave turned their home screen image rotator into a place to serve ads, many of which were suspicious or crypto related.
-
- Brave added a Tor feature which exposed users DNS requests
-
- Brave refuses to disclose their crawler bot to websites since many websites want to block Brave Search. Brave will only chose not to crawl a website if it also blocks Google’s crawler.
-
2024 - So-called “privacy browser” deprecated advanced fingerprinting protection
-
- Brave removed a the Strict, Block Fingerprinting privacy feature from their browser.
-
- Brave paid for targeted ads for users searching for Firefox in the Play Store and ran a campaign to “Forget the Fox”. When called out on this the VP publicly denied it and claimed it was photo-shopped.
-
- The VP of Brave, Luke Mulks, frequently posts about all things crypto, from NFTs to FTX, and uses AI-gen images to promote them. He also frequently re-tweets right-wing activists.
-
- Brendan Eich’s feed also frequently contains right-wing content and Republican propaganda despite his claims to be “independent”.
I jumped onboard in the beginning (2016?) when they would show you “tailored” ads in exchange for their crypto. I made about $30 or so before I got bored of the endless crypto scam ads, despite having that category disabled.
Then came the referral link scandal, and I went back to FF until I found Librewolf.
2026 - “pay $60 to REMOVE our bloat features”
Oh? I haven’t used their browser since ~2018, good to know that I continue to have made the right decision. I now use librewolf on my desktop and IronFox on my phone
It includes a lot of crypto bullshit, and I believe the founder is a right wing weirdo, but don’t quote me on that.
To also point out the good stuff: their browser has some pretty good anti-fingerprinting and privacy measures build in.
2026 - “pay $60 to REMOVE our bloat features”
Jumping on the bandwagon here.
I didn’t know proton had contacts
Don’t use proton. Ceo is maga, and they are funsing french far right YouTubers.
Close to what I normally use. I prefer CoMaps instead of Organic, Mullvad VPN instead of Proton & Artix instead of Arch.
Why Artix instead of the real Arch btw?
Artix doesn’t use systemd, iirc
Same, I just recently switched Artix OpenRC
Arch BTW… 😎
I don’t see much love for Futo apps in here or Reddit (new here from Reddit). Why is that?
They are source available instead of FOSS which puts a bad taste in many of the FOSS advocates on here. I believe they also have backing from Curtis Yarvin. I hate that Grayjay is one of the only consistently working youtube front ends.
Here’s what I read that laid out this issues.
https://drewdevault.com/2025/10/22/2025-10-22-Whats-up-with-FUTO.html
I’ve found NewPipe to be a good YT alternative for Grayjay.
Why would I trust a commercial venture
At least with hosting or VPN services there’s the excuse of you have to pay for a finite resource that costs money.
Oh. I had no idea it was a commercial venture. I thought it was just another FOSS team. Just found the keyboard the other day and it’s been far better than Fossify.
Try heliBoard, making sure to add swipe library. Futo for voice transcription doesn’t have a match yet.
Futa apps
You’re right, “Futo” kind of sounds like that slur. What a good joke.
Ty, comedy is my passion.
Oh, that’s so cool to hear, I love comedians. Tell me a similar joke about a dance-tracking app called “Jigger.” I’m sure you’ll come up with something that is funny and consistent with the joke above.
TIL a racial slur with over a hundred years of use to demean and insult billions of people is the same as the word used to describe big titty dragons having penetrative sex with automobiles.
Please post the updated slurs.txt so I can call you them.
Oh, so slurs aren’t funny if you have empathy for the people whose suffering they reference? Interesting, I wonder what that says about your perception of trans women. I have a hard time believing you give a shit about African Americans or any African diaspora at all either, you just know that there’d be more consequences for making fun of that slur and its violent history.
Good joke, chud. Now go eat shit somewhere else.
Hey since you know a lot about this stuff, can you settle the balls/no balls debate?
I use LibreOffice BTW
It is getting to that point tbh. If you work with people who have to use office suites often, there is a growing presence of the LibreOffice guy.
My recommendations:
Organic Maps -> CoMaps (they got forked because of some bad decisions.)
Brave -> Helium (has full uBlock Origin and Ungoogled Chromium patches, and no crypto bloat)
LibreTube -> PipePipe (has some nice features like live chat, and less buggy in my experience)
LibreOffice -> OnlyOffice (has better Microsoft Office compatibility, and easier to use in my experience)Disable your third-party DNS, that only works to make you more identifiable as you’re already using a VPN. You can also use Syncthing to sync your password vault etc. between your devices. I’d also recommend using Posteo instead of Tuta because it is cheaper and its privacy policy is kinda better.
Onlyoffice is a little bit shady tho, it might be worth considering staying with libreoffice. But the eu wanted to switch away from ms office and made their own fork of onlyoffice, because of said shadyness, so that might also be worth looking at.
How would you
comparerate Pipepipe to Newpipe?Brave -> Helium (has full uBlock Origin and Ungoogled Chromium patches, and no crypto bloat)
Does it have a way to sync between devices? This is one of the things Brave does fairly well that the recommended alternatives tend to lack.
I use Librewolf on desktop and Ironfox on mobile, and they sync using the Mozilla encrypted sync service. I haven’t heard of any shady business with their sync yet, and it works pretty well for me.
That said, I don’t store passwords, addresses or payment methods in my browser, so YMMV.
