Cookies do not directly communicate your IP address, they’re just bits of data about your visit. Logging out of LinkedIn and closing your browser should clear them, unless they’re persistent cookies.

Using a VPN to create a new Spotify account maskes your actual IP address. Meaning spotify wont know your home IP address. But, if Spotify uses cookies from your previous sessions or if you log in with the same credentials, it may still serve targeted ads based on your previous activity.

So while cookies don’t transmit your IP address, they still influence the ads you see based on your browsing history and/or account information. For enhanced privacy, it’s usually recommended to set cookies to be wiped when you close the browser. I have a handful of sites I like to keep cookies for, but everything else is gone after each session.

Ya, RPM Fusion is handled by a 3rd party I’m pretty sure. But I was thinking more along the lines of what software is available though.

I’d have to think RPM Fusion is comparable to the AUR, no? I’ve never used Arch btw, but I do know Fedora pretty well.

The fact she see’s this as a marketing opportunity is repulsive. Truly makes me loath those with power in the US government. Even Arizona seeing as this lady believes this BS would be well received there.

For anyone new to the Linux world, I can’t recommend Learn Linux TV enough. He has a video walking through this exact process, here’s an Invidious and YouTube link for it.

As far as dual booting goes, issues can arise after updates. I recall this happening a few months back due to a Windows update. So just be aware of this possibly happening down the road. I need Windows for work at times too, but I strictly use a VM. I’ve hated Microsoft since Windows 8, their amount of user tracking is bonkers and a big part of why I just use a VM. This is just food for thought though.

JMP Chat works in the US even though they’re based in Canada. I highly recommend the service, it’s absolutely fantastic!

Definitely checkout JMP Chat, they’re actually based in Canada and offer super affordable alternative phone numbers. Using their Cheogram app even lets you incorporate it fully into your phone, so when you call, it’ll ask which number you’d like to use for the call. Calling has limited minutes each month, but the overage charges are very reasonable. It comes with unlimited texting as well. They encrypt everything on their end and it’s fully open source!

The add-on’s are solid. They have an elaborate curated list, plus you can access any of the mobile extentions by just searching for em.

Obsidian isn’t FOSS, but two fantastic replacements are Standard Notes and Notesnook.

A great paint option I don’t see listed is KolourPaint, plus Kdenlive for video editing. For audio editing, Tenacity is the better choice over Audacity. It’s an Audacity fork made after some questionable privacy policy changes.

CryptPad is an awesome Google Doc’s replacement, but Libre Office is actively working on their version too.

For your security section, adding some encryption software would be smart. Both VeraCrypt and Cryptomator are amazing. Also, Bitwarden/Vaultwarden are solid password manager alts for KeePassXC, with Vaultwarden being self hosted.

Here’s a great site for all sorts of Lemmy clients.

As far as Linux laptops go, System 76’s Darter Pro is also a solid choice. Tuxedo is probably System 76’s biggest competition, as they offer very comparable laptops. Their InfinityBook Pro is a great computer. Frameworks, Slimbook, and Star Labs are all also worth a mention.

Definitely recommend replacing Fennec with IronFox on mobile, it’s a fork of Mull, so it’ll be a solid privacy upgrade!

I ended that last chunck of text with /s. But at the same time, it wouldn’t suprise me at all if this was the case.

A virtual machine is the move, I’ve had a great experience with virt-manager. Strongly recommend debloating the windows VM if Microsoft is getting on your nerves. Here’s my go to software: https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat

Worksorks on both windows 10 & 11. It’ll allow you to remove telemetry, tracking, and even software Microsoft prevents you from uninstalling. I just can’t get it to remove Edge. But MentalOutlaw has a fantastic walk through of the process on his YT channel if you want some guidance with the debloating process.

Baby

I have an old Fedora book which still has a Fedora 15 disk in it! Helped me realize on old PC’s to burn the ISO onto a DVD for installation instead of finding a work around for not having a USB boot option in the BIOS.

NextDNS is the move, the clients are open sourced and they encrypt everything. Plus their free option covers all my devices, no problem. Highly recommended!

Playing with DeepSeek-R1 in LM Studio helps to show why this is the case. Reading it’s “thought” process is intriguing and helps to show where possible errors occurred in the provided answers. Now, if DeepSeek could take the Perplexity feature of providing links to the sourced information, it’d be damn near perfect!

You’re server’s #3 when it comes to monthly active users too!

When you sort by monthly active users, this is what you get:

What really jumps out to me is the fact .ml’s active users equals the total users. Not too sure what to make of it. I’d assume the mod’s delete nonactive accounts after a set amount of time or it’s just relatively small based on total users but everyone’s visiting at least once a month.

I just learned the dev of Phoenix forked Mull! It’s called IronFox (https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox) and has a F-Droid repo. I’m pumped on this, thanks a bunch for highlighting all this and to the original commenter for providing the link to Phoenix!

Well, since SearXNG aggregates results from more than 70 search engines and not solely Google, it’s a safe bet they’ll be fine regardless of Googles moves. However, sourcing results from Google may be impacted, but they still have many other options built in aside from Google. Whoogle being a proxy only for Google makes it reliant on Google, so their upstream changes will be very noticeable. This being the case, I’d say switching to SearXNG is going to be the best move as it has redundancy built in making it not dependent on any one engine.