@r343l On a new laptop, I wipe Windows without ever booting it, then install Linux. In one case the easiest way was to just pop in the SSD from the previous laptop destroyed by impact, then switch its boot system over for the newer UEFI-only board.

I block all known ad networks and all known trackers unconditionally. I also block both Google and Facebook in normal browsers and will not allow FB to run Javascript even in Torbrowser as I consider the site malicious. No white list, no exception.

@r343l even tho I know all of those things, I'm usually unable to do them unconsciously because of my adhd. This has lead me to completely isolate from the internet and slowly go back rethinking each part and putting counter measures.

This shit is not easy and should be taught in schools. Using always an adblock, never use gmail, avoid meta and commercial social networks like they were satan, using linux, ... Mostly avoiding being a product in the first place. One you're there, you don't have to do mental gymnastics for each easy task.

@r343l

Agree that it's a deeply uncomfortable read... on the rot economy & most of all that bottom line (also in yr excerpt), about needing 'us' - including tech gurus - to understand that "most people are not like you and are actively victimized by the tech ecosystem". Ouch! 😐

@r343l I found one of the comments interesting. I can't link to it. "L" writes: "What you described in your piece is the Black experience in America in particular. Every part of American life for Black people exploits and demeans you. Every part of American life for Black people is constantly equal parts draining and enraging. This is every day. Every. Damn. Day. What I find fascinating is Black people are largely ignored when we point these things out. Even liberal white people don't get it. But as soon as middle-class white people have to endure what has been the non-white experience in this country, white people become radicalized. That's the only way tech has equalized America. Tech exported the Black Experience to white america and white people hate every second of it." The comment goes on a bit longer.

I would like to CC @mekkaokereke on this for their perspective, if they have time.

@r343l IMHO modern tech allows democratization of control over others.

Democratic (enlightenemt) values were intended to support individual agency in opposition to feudal values of ownership and control by a few over the many.

I also only use FOSS and am currently swimming hard against the current of corporate control of every aspect of my participation in society. It is exhausting.

@r343l Or, you just use open source software, apps, services.

A forking threat a day keeps the enshittification away.

#opensource

@r343l

Ed also has a very interesting article on

The Men who killed Google. [ Search ]

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

This is the result of taking technology out of the hands of real builders and handing it to managers at a time when “management” is synonymous with “staying as far away from actual work as possible.” And when you’re a do-nothing looking to profit as much as possible, you only care about growth. You’re not a user, you’re a parasite, ....

@r343l It's a must-read (though it could have been edited down by at least a third).

There was a sentence where he referred to our tools and my brain immediately corrected "tools" to "products". Tools serve you, products serve their sellers. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

@r343l Heh the article put up an enter your email pop-up.

Best defenses: debloat your laptop (win11debloat), use firefox and ublock origin, do not use a smartphone. Seriously, do as little as possible on a phone. Most of the annoyances, for whatever reason, are aimed at phone users. Use a laptop.

@r343l This article inspired me to go on an unsubscribing-from-emails binge this morning.

I discovered one organization that has been peppering me with unwanted messages will only let me unsubscribe by logging in to their website. I don't have a login for their website. I don't believe I ever did. I don't know why I'm on their radar at all.

I found some other organizations have set their "notifications" options up as 40+ individual checkboxes distributed over 12+ separate options pages. It looks friendly and compliant but it's really not.

@r343l A personal anecdote from dealing with this issue head-on:

I used to work in consumer facing computer repair. About a third of what we did was malware removal, but around 2/3rds of tickets resulted in malware removal because it's so common. It was mostly malvertising adware that we removed.

Re-opened tickets for malware removal dropped by about 80% after I started showing people how to install an ad blocker on pickup. 80%.

Ad blockers are basically equivalent to antivirus nowadays.

@r343l

Uncomfortable, you mean like eating the red pill?

@r343l Very uncomfortable:

"The fact that so many people likely use a laptop that is equal parts unfit for the task and stuffed full of growth hacked poison is utterly disgraceful, because it means that the only way to escape said poison is to simply have more money. Those who can’t afford $300 (at least) phones or $600 laptops are left to use offensively bad technology, and we have, at a societal scale, simply accepted that this is how things go."