There are quite a few posts here that echo my thoughts on this but I think that many of them also miss the mark. I think that we need to take a step back. There isn’t one thing to blame or a single thing that is at fault.

Most of us live in places designed for motorised traffic. That’s an unfortunate fact. And because of that we have certain responsibilities, like being mindful of cars and traffic in general. I think that we can all agree crossing a high-speed road with your eyes closed is a terrible idea, no matter what you’re wearing.

However, I also think that divers have certain responsibilities manoeuvring a tonne or so of steel at high speeds in the direct vicinity of people and property. And speaking from experience, most people aren’t aware of the inherent dangers of that, or simply don’t care about them. Going over the speed limit and running stop signs are considered normal and I’ve been called out before for not driving aggressively enough.

Road design also plays an important role in general road safety. Most places I’ve been to have frankly terrible road design that favours motorised traffic above all. Pedestrians being the most vulnerable road users should be protected and kept safe, just like people cycling and other road users. However, with road design being as it is, that burden is shifted onto the drivers themselves.

Yet people seem to forget that one shouldn’t be booking it around corners if one can’t see what’s on the other side. For all they know there could be a literal brick wall waiting for them. The same goes for narrow urban streets. Drivers should lower their speed and be just as mindful of other traffic, like pedestrians have to be. And yes, I know that that doesn’t work in the real world, as people are selfish. That’s why we need to tackle these issues together, as a civilised society.

One last thing: I don’t like that we’re hating on particular groups of people. People will act like they do, no matter if they’re driving a car, riding a bike or if they’re just walking down the road. In the end we’re just people and we shouldn’t see a pedestrian as a lesser person just because they’re choosing to walk; or the other way around for that matter. At the end of the day we all just want to get home.

With all of that said: stay safe out there!

I’m in the same boat as you and have tried time and time again to make it work using standard PC stuff. And yeah, it works but having to faff about with Kodi, torrents, or drivers got really annoying very quickly. If you actually want to use any of the big streaming providers (think Netflix, Prime, Disney, etc) you’re at best going to get 720p, if anything at all on linux, without extensive tinkering. Running Windows or getting a cheap M4 Mac Mini are also valid choices but I frankly just want to sit down and watch something and not have to wait for Copilot or any updates, aside from the rather clunky desktop experience.

For me the easiest compromise to make was to get an Apple TV. It — mostly — just works. All the big streaming apps work without hassle and I’m still able to watch my media collection through Jellyfin.

The way I see it, if you want to use any streaming apps, you have to play by their rules — DRM and all — no matter if it makes any sense.

Yeah, I tried to use it as my daily driver a while back and what bugged me most was the terrible battery efficiency. Running the full desktop version of Firefox certainly didn’t help. At that point the camera also didn’t have any drivers. Since theres been some progress and we now have a work in progress driver for that model. Frankly it’s amazing that this works at all and I’m incredibly grateful for anyone working on this.

I’ve actually been rather lucky and managed to convince most of my friends to join me on Signal so we barely need to rely on SMS anymore. But last time I checked there weren’t any real Signal clients availabe for Linux phones. Of course, one could always use the desktop version but that still requires a phone to be linked to. Someone has managed to get the Matrix/Signal bridge working and rely on Matrix for the final delivery but that seems like too much tinkering for me :D

Most of them don’t support generic 2FA codes and sadly require some sort of proprietary app that talks to their servers. Setting them up usually also requires some sort of identification; think receiving a pin in the post. As far as I can tell, the only other option for me is to rent some sort of pin generation terminal from the bank which is, of course, ridiculously expensive.

I don’t think that it’s the lack of quality hardware what is stopping adoption of Linux on phones. There are many resons why I don’t consider someting like PostmarketOS viable as a daily driver for most.

First of all some apps are just not available on Linux. Banking apps are a prime example. Most banks are now requiring some form of app where I live and they don’t even consider Linux. But that’s also another problem in it self.

Secondly: driver support. Drivers aren’t something one thinks about when talking about phones. But they are needed and mobile phones being what they are, most manufacturers aren’t really open to do anything in that regard.

As an Android developer I’m also annoyed by the restrictive power management of Android. But it’s there for a reason. On PostmarketOS my phone would be dead after sitting around all day doing noting. On Android I can maybe squeeze two to three days of use out of the same phone. And that’s not even with the OEM rom.

That being said, I hope for a future were all of the current issues can be solved and we finally have a viable alternative to Apple and Google.

To be clear, I’m in no way trying to defend what Google is doing.

Powertop

• using a PrivateBin or PasteBin link.

IIRC that’s essentially what ProtonMail is doing. If you send an email to another provider and set an expiration date. An email along the lines of “this email is encrypted; open this link to view its content” shows up in the recipients inbox.

This would work just as well with any pastebin or other “self-destructing” link, like you said. But for me the whole idea of self-destructing information doesn’t make much sense. Others have already mentioned that there is no way to ensure that a copy wasn’t made at any point. A simple screenshot would, for example, defeat the whole point.

Also clicking on links in emails still gives me a strange feeling. Maybe it’s just me but I’ve received so many phishing attempts over the years that I don’t really trust any links in emails.

I don’t want to discourage anyone trying or implementing such a system. What I want to say is that adding a link to a known resource is probably your best option.

More often than not gently heating the tip of the pen with a lighter will revitalise it. It’s worth a shot before throwing it out.

That’s sadly where it’s at. I’ve been lucky and managed to convince most of my friends to give Signal a go and in the end we stuck with it. But we’re all technically minded people so YMMV.

If you’re in the GNOME ecosystem, you could give Authenticator a shot. It’s worked quite well for me so far.