Former USAF JAG here (lawyer). I was always a tech geek, undergrad major was in MIS actually, but I didn’t enjoy coding. Always ran Plex on the side, built my own computers, etc. Grew up with my Dad using Linux everywhere (I found this annoying as I just wanted to play games on Windows).

I didn’t enjoy law (surprise!). I was disillusioned with the criminal justice system too. Quit the law in 2020. Then suddenly had quality time by global happenstance to rethink my life path.

I work in IT now. Restarted at the bottom of a new career but I’m in deep nerd territory now - Proxmox servers, Home Assistant, networks with VLANs, OPNsense router, 22U server rack, Linux as my daily driver, etc.

Much happier now.

Yes it only works on Pixel phones. For other devices I recommend looking at DivestOS, CalyxOS, and LineageOS - in that order from best to worst insofar as de-Googling and privacy are concerned.

If you are on iOS, I recommend using the following:

https://ente.io/auth/

It’s open-source and recommended by PrivacyGuides.

I’m on Android, where that’s also an option I believe, but I’m using Aegis.

Bitwarden also came out with an open-source MFA app, though it’s a bit new so I’d recommend waiting to see what folks say about it.

Raivo uses to be a good (and the only decent) choice for iOS but I believe it was acquired by an insidious company.

As a huge fan of Star Wars content from before Disney got involved and poisoned it (notable exceptions of Rogue One, Andor, some of the animated shows, etc.), I utilize warship names from the Expanded Universe (now called “Legends”) - what I like to call True Star Wars.

My main server is Chimaera. My backup server that also performs as an NVR is Lusankya. My separate mostly-NAS server away from my server rack is Admonitor.

I have sci-fi themed names (not all Star Wars - two other franchises represented here, virtual kudos to those who can identify) for the storage pools too (using TrueNAS SCALE on all three servers):

• Chimaera (Main Server)
  • Star-Forge (Apps/VM Pool)
  • Holocron (Data Pool)
• Lusankya (Backup + NVR Server)
  • Shadow-Broker (Apps Pool)
  • Resurrection (Backup Pool)
  • Spynet (NVR Pool)
• Admonitor (NAS Server)
  • Mount-Tantiss (Apps Pool)
  • Datacron (Data Pool)

Try Neo Launcher and its associated Neo Feed. Amazing control/customization.

I also recommend OpenBoard, but the newer maintained fork with gestures and other features.

Browser-wise - Mull.

Instead of Google autofill for passwords - something like Bitwarden instead.

Instead of LineageOS, see if DivestOS exists for your device. It’s more secure and private than LineageOS, and forked from it.

For your launcher - try Neo Launcher and its companion, Neo Feed.

QKSMS is best for SMS at the moment.

For contacts and phone, try using whatever comes stock with DivestOS. It’s probably the AOSP base of what Google uses for Google Contacts and their Phone app.

I use Google Camera for my Pixel solely because of the processing you can’t get elsewhere that lets me use my phone’s camera to its full potential.

Otherwise try Secure Camera from GrapheneOS team, and/or Open Camera.

The FossifyOrg forks of the Simple Mobile Tools suite is also worth investigating.

Everything is political. Everything. Only the ignorant ignore this.

You might have missed when they tried to overthrow democracy in the January 6th terrorist attack. These people are not our people. It’s a brewing war. They refused compromise for decades - it has been tried. Your lack of knowledge of history and politics is showing.

You’re too naive.

There is a paradox of tolerating the intolerant.

Our enemy are fascists, plain and simple. They don’t deserve a voice. The only intelligent approsch is to combat them, as their purpose is to subvert democracy, however horribly flawed a system it is, with exclusionary autocracy. This era isn’t one of two parties who both believe in democracy, finding some disagreement on issues. This is a crisis, “post-fact” era where truth is ignored, corruption and power-grabs are blatant and undisguised, and bigotry is rampant.

No.

Society tolerating people with evil views begets more evil.

I don’t have one - it took me a very long time to find it - back before also-MAGA Elon bought Twitter, I scrolled back to his history and saw re-tweets and comments in November/December 2020 regarding the election denial nonsense.

If you’re able to find archive of this, I’m sure you’ll stumble into it (assuming it’s not able to be found on the website now).

The trigger for me to even look for this was a random video in which he was badmouthing LA/California in the video/comments and it made me grow suspicious.

I was so disappointed to see that this guy was a MAGA supporter and election denier.

Yes, I do care about the politics of people not in the political space. I don’t think people harboring such lunatic views should be legitimized.