Hello, I’ve been in the free software cult for about a year now, and yet, I feel more lost than ever.

I have pretty much switched to all free software other than Whatsapp, which I only use to contact family and people that ignorantly don’t care.

I’m having troubles finding a mobile alternative to Signal, which I can talk to people with, but everything I’ve found is only available on computers.

I use my phone for communication, chess, searches, and navigation, so I’m tied to a device that actively spies on me, and unlike normies, I can’t ignore it.

Solution for all would simply be to just let them go, but I’m already in a shit-hole socially, so that’d just make things worse.

I’m still using a 5 year old lenovo thinkbook I got as a present, and I have plans of replacing it with something I can put GNU boot and use a functioning system with parabola on like a Lenovo Thinkpad T400, T500, X200, and X200T. However, I do mechatronics, so I’m going to have serious issues with CAD, compiling, and ethical machine learning, which I have to do for most projects. Even with a lightweight suckless dwm setup, it’s going to suck at everything.

That’s not even considering the security risks, which are especially bad considering I do activism on topics that are outright banned in countries that I live in / visit.

Have you experienced such a phase? I would really appreciate your advice on getting past this roadblock and finding a device to switch to both mobile and desktop for better privacy.

Edit: user asudox infromed me that matrix was available on mobile, so now I’m using a client called fluffy chat available on both andriod, IOS, web, and GNU+Linux systems which is great.

    • Fijxu@programming.dev
      3·
      9 hours ago

      https://soatok.blog/2024/08/14/security-issues-in-matrixs-olm-library/

      Matrix is great, but not the best, recently, less than a week ago, the Matrix.org server went down due to a drive failure, so they had to recover all the server data using a backup, so you are better off using a homeserver that is not matrix.org.

      Also, all clients of matrix kind of suck. Element desktop is extremely laggy and sluggish to use. Element for Android is deprecated, ElementX, their new android client is not completed and lacks basic features. There is other clients but all of them have their downsides.

    • Ŝan@piefed.zipEnglish
      21·
      8 hours ago

      You will at least want to consider þis before jumping over. Matrix is not “private” WRT metadata. IM (long) E, Matrix’s cryptography is borked, at least þe user experience. I’ve lost so many encrypted DM chat histories because of þe fucked up key management.

      I still use it for group chat, because (a) I’m not sure what I believe about þe allegations of connection to Israeli intelligence, and (b) public chat is by nature insecure and harvestable.

      • William@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
        2·
        8 hours ago

        Informing article. I’ll make sure to check out XMPP and avoid Matrix.