Okay, I'm now really getting tired of the same old ignorant social media posts about ethics in technology. "I don't care about the political positions or ethics" of a tech project, group, or company is a sign of luxury and privilege and also utter disregard for the most oppressed and marginalised people that is, to be honest, fucking embarrassing. We ought to always seek better options. Surely the terrible harmful actions of even the likes of Google and Meta have made it obviously necessary.
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Jul-2023 07:55:14 JST Jay Baker (they/he) -
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Jul-2023 18:48:40 JST Jay Baker (they/he) Speaking of ethics, I'm particularly interested in privacy, security, non-profits, co-ops, and worker-owned initiatives, and I absolutely loathe Google et al. I've always come back to the Mozilla Foundation and the Firefox web browser over the years, I rejected Brave because of that bigot Brendan Eich, but the funding from Google itself makes Mozilla a problematic option. I just this week finally tried out Vivaldi web browser and built-in email client from the worker-owned Vivaldi Tech in Norway, and it's *so* powerful and versatile, albeit based on Chromium, with Chrome Web Store access. Also, Firefox containers are a biggie for me. Ah! I'm now feeling conflicted again! #WebBrowsers #Vivaldi #Firefox #Mozilla
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novatorine 🏴🏳️⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Jul-2023 20:56:49 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️⚧️ @MediaActivist try LibreWolf! It's Firefox, but with all the google and pocket shit (and proprietary blobs) ripped out and the security settings maxed. They are very up to date with upstream Firefox too. It's what I use
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Jul-2023 20:59:57 JST Jay Baker (they/he) @anarchopunk_girl I used LibreWolf for quite a while but was a bit intense for my needs and a few things broke haha, but yes, I should have mentioned how awesome LibreWolf is!
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Jul-2023 22:10:34 JST Jay Baker (they/he) @funkybuddha @anarchopunk_girl Exactly, I've started to recommend Mullvad browser as a nifty alternative to cryptobro bigot Brendan's Brave; I like what Mullvad did with that -- got their own search engine now too, though I believe it's just for their VPN customers. Now I just have to figure out which I prefer from Firefox and Vivaldi (though currently using one for personal and one for my main work).
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Diss Appear (funkybuddha@mastodon.green)'s status on Friday, 14-Jul-2023 22:10:35 JST Diss Appear @MediaActivist @anarchopunk_girl yes if you need top-tier it’s LibreWolf vs Mullvad browser
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yoasif (yoasif@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jul-2023 01:41:25 JST yoasif @MediaActivist I don't see how going to a Chromium browser because Google pays Mozilla for search engine placement makes a whole lot of sense, personally. 😅
If you have an issue with Google's money why do you have no issue with Google's tech?
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jul-2023 01:41:25 JST Jay Baker (they/he) @yoasif Exactly! I've always advocated for the Mozilla Foundation and for Firefox and Gecko as resistance to the dominance of all things Google. But I realise that Chromium is an open source project financed by Google and browsers like Vivaldi strip away the Google garbage. While folks can complain that Mozilla take money from Google, and Vivaldi don't, as you rightly point out they're still contributing to the creation of a reliance on a Google resource and take money from Microsoft for Bing etc. So it's really splitting hairs when it comes down to it!
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jul-2023 02:06:41 JST Jay Baker (they/he) @yoasif Good points! So much is polluted by Google, and it's too bad their money has been pumped into both the Chromium projects as well as Mozilla, too as it creates a dependence, but at least Firefox as software is free of that, yes; Mozilla needs to be much better supported by folks than it is. Bloody capitalism!
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yoasif (yoasif@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jul-2023 02:06:42 JST yoasif @MediaActivist I don't see it that way, I think the Chromium option is clearly inferior. Using a browser built on Chromium tech serves the interest of Google's vision of the web, whereas anyone can use a different search engine in any browser they use.
I don't see that as splitting hairs, I see the difference here being much more significant.
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Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jul-2023 03:53:54 JST Jay Baker (they/he) @Reddog Yes!
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Reddog (reddog@mastodonapp.uk)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jul-2023 03:53:55 JST Reddog @MediaActivist The ethics and the politics should be top of the list.
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