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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: January 23rd, 2024

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  • Right, Apple doesn’t have an ad-revenue & tracking empire to protect, and should Safari adopt PPA, the discussion changes. It would no longer be the API used merely by Firefox with its (estimated) 2.7% user base trying to gain any traction, it could be Chrome holding back the tech used by a cumulative (estimated) 20% of web users. That’s a very different conversation.

    Also, despite advertisers and big tech’s best efforts, the chance remains that legislation is passed somewhere imposing stricter privacy protections on the web. Again, should that happen, PPA might be well positioned as an alternative to past methods of measuring ad effectiveness that advertisers wouldn’t necessarily like… but any alternative that works could make them less resistant to such an important change.

    All hypothetical, of course, but if you never consider future possibilities, what are you even aiming for?






  • That might be overly optimistic? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, here.

    From my understanding, the main drive behind adding AP federation is to allow users of separate code forges to collaborate on each other’s projects, much like how users of lemmy can interact with communities of other lemmy instances. This is big because it could break the “but everyone is on GitHub” problem.

    Currently, it’s difficult to justify completely leaving GH, since those that do leave behind countless users and developers who won’t follow them and create yet-another-account on one-more-website. Federated code forges have the potential to bring easier decentralization to an ironically centralized land.

    Keyword here being easier. Because even though Git is already decentralized by design and some think git-send-email is plenty for collaboration (e.g. many Linux maintainers, sourcehut users), it turns out way more people prefer doing their work in pretty web UIs.

    But just like lemmy and mastodon aren’t great at showing their users content from the other platform because it’s not a priority, I don’t see why forgejo would prioritize letting lemmy users interact with projects.



  • What apps you install depends on your needs and preferences. It might help others if you include those in any future requests for suggestions.

    I suggest not worrying too much about “removing your dependence on closed ecosystems” immediately. Just do as you did before, changing apps as you find better alternatives—only, this time, considering the advantages of FOSS. Simply by giving F-droid apps a chance before opening (I assume) the Play Store, you’re already doing better than the vast majority of people.

    Regarding discoverability and security, I believe participation in the community helps:

    • The Venn diagram of “FOSS app users” and “software enthusiasts” is closer to a circle. People like talking about useful, good software they like. Word of mouth recommendations is how I got into this stuff.
    • You’ll be more likely to hear urgent actionable news (e.g. X app developer sold to bad company, here’s the fork that will carry the torch onwards).

    And so that this comment isn’t completely useless… Mozilla are currently working on a mobile version of Thunderbird for Android, built on top of K9 mail. Been using the beta and liking it so far. If you want a FOSS e-mail app, keep an eye on that one.

    P.S. I much prefer the dark side, and don’t forget the cookies!