ID: 2952f9dd-80bb-4465-8ca1-9d2bb0ce3a0b
Title: Rant #5 -- Privacy and security - Communities and websites
Authors: Nova[有線魔女] <novaburst@envs.net>
Date: 2021-10-04T00:07:38-00:00
Date-Edited: 2021-12-15T20:57:10-00:00
Topics: Rants

I think it was about fucking time to express why I dislike those kind of things.

# Their recommendations

Literally most if not all the things they recommend are inherently wrong. 
Some examples :

* Matrix for decentralized messaging
	* Literally wrong, your best bet is XMPP

* Cloudflare DNS for avoiding Google's DNS (are you kidding me?) 
	* e.g. this appeared on PrivacyTools' website

* Using a certain model of smartphones (Google's Pixel phones with some Android spin-off)
	* Your best option is to not to use one at all, you can't be private on those devices.

* Using Firefox and/or Chromium
	* Just abandon the modern web at that point, seriously, those two are trash.

* Using dubious-at-best email providers
	* e.g. ProtonMail, Tutanota, CTemplar. Neither of the three respect any standard at all, and the clients are webshit *only* accesible through a browser, and they don't allow the user to use a sane email client.
	* Come on, some of the corporate ones even do allow an user to do so, though it's tricky as heck.

* Using a somewhat less bloated Windows system
	* You'll go insane trying to remove spyware on it since the OS itself is spyware. You can't be saved, unless you use a sane OS.

# Communities

I was moderator of one in Telegram, and I also was a participant on some other ones on Matrix. 
I had really painful experiences in both, and just wanted to never again join any of those rooms. 
When for example I've recommended XMPP many times on those rooms, I always got turned down by some Matrix shill, and attacking me with 'ad hominem', what was the response of the admins/mods there? 
Nothing, they just keep it going. Only for me to end up going mad.

# Websites

Modern web is bad, seriously. Why in the name of fuck you use JavaScript on your website?
Why do you need TONS of those shit only to show some content?
e.g. Techlore's website doesn't load on a sane browser[1] like NetSurf, or text-based browsers.
As for PrivacyTools (now PrivacyGuides since it changed name) it abuses of a pseudo web standard known as HTML5 which of course it won't work on sane browsers.


I guess this is all for now, i'll give you some advice, *always* do your own research, don't follow anything blindly without knowing about it, and , most importantly, be conscious of what you're doing.

Stay safe!

[1] Well it loads, but the end result ends up being unusable, anyway.