If you’re an Android, Kiwi Browser has an option to remove AMP (use direct website over AMP version)

Windows, free, not well known/talked about?

Hands down qttabbar. Adds tabbed browsing to Explorer. Absolutely no idea why this isnt built into Windows, I’ve used it for some years & hate using a Window machine without it.

More well known:

• Joplin. Markdown note taking app. Also has a portable version (I use this over the .exe version). Can be set up to sync with your other (multi OS) devices
• ShareX. Screenshot clipper. Has a learning curve but the initial pain is worth it. Greenshot is a good portable alternative
• TeraCopy. File transfer tool. Much faster & far more reliable than Explorer copy/paste
• Everything. File search utility. Use this once & you’ll absolutely hate having to endure using the built in Explorer search. Also has a portable version

I personally would be very wary of eBay as even with a paid check before buying, the seller could potentially take your money then claim on their insurance. The phone then becomes blacklisted (sim no longer works, only works abroad or on wifi). If you confront the seller they could just say a previous owner must have reported it stolen.

CeX used electronics store guarantees against this & also gives a 2 year warranty

My bank literally forces me to use their godforsaken shitty app but wherever possible I use web over app especially for corporations (eBay, Amazon, YouTube, catch up TV etc). Like you & others said, reduces exposure to data harvesting

Some years ago before online banking, buying a fairly sought after but relatively uncommon type of used hot hatch car. Back then there was a strong chance potential car buyers would have cash for the transaction. Magazine ad made out it was from a dealership/garage. Something about the phone calls got my spider sense tingling, especially when they claimed the car was elsewhere so I’d have to meet them off site. I’d already traveled so thought what the hell, I’ll look but definitely not buying from this chump outfit.

I’m a big muscular fella, just over 6 feet tall & around 19 stone of solid muscle so fairly intimidating looking & was standing leaning against my own car waiting for them to turn up. All of a sudden I hear the roar of the car, strangely with with a bunch of undesirables in it hanging out the windows. They slowed right down checking me out, thought better of it coz the driver floored the accelerator & disappeared. No doubt in my mind they were planning someone was gonna get mugged for a few grand that day. No doubt they’d done it before.

An old version of Nova from before the big data collection switch. Use it because it has a scrollable dock. I have all apps inside folders in the dock, the folders are sorted by category. I can scroll between app categories & get to any app within 2 or 3 touches.

I really want a launcher which has a scrollable dock with a user defined news feed such as NeoFeed.

Smart Launcher has user defined categories which negates the scrollable dock requirement, but the news feed is Microsoft which is as bad as Google in my eyes.

If anyone has any suggestions I’d love to know them

Try using an RSS reader like Feeder & subscribe to your preferred BBC news feed

Thats how i was taught too.

I also despair at people who have no idea what lane they should be in, for example traversing the entire roundabout in the left hand lane or whatever lane they decide will beat the traffic fastest so getting in the right hand lane to go straight on & cutting across everyone at their exit.

To be fair round my way the road planners appear to have a random approach to lanes with signs/markings saying use right hand lane for everything but left even at non-busy roundabouts so its little wonder people get confused.

I used Reddit for mindless nonsense but mostly for finding answers in niche topics. As good as Lemmy seems so far it will take a long time for the user count to be suffient enough to fill the information void. I’ll bet our time spent here will increase as user volumes increase

Some years back there was a password manager which stopped sync through cloud (probably Dropbox) & insisted it went through their own servers instead. The whiff of subscription service was in the air so I switched Keepass.

I sync Keepass between devices myself but I recommend Bitwarden to family who probably couldn’t figure out how to set sync up with Keepass if I’m not around. I stick with Keepass as I like the key file aspect & because it allows multiple documents to be added to entries (restricted on Bitwarden). The documents are available offline, such as vehicle breakdown documents etc. Could be very useful one day!

Just a few of my daydreams whilst getting kicked by The Man:

• Video editing in TV industry
• Owning a cycle/Segway hire place at some beautiful tourist spot
• Buying, improving & selling property

Lemmethinkaboutit

Wouldn’t trust any of them. Who knows where that data will end up. Especially when they suffer an inevitable breach

• Google/Apple/Samsung pay. They’ve had enough data over the years without knowing my banking habits.
• Alexa/smart speakers. Always listening device in the house? No thanks
• Smart doorbell. I don’t want to send data directly to whoever Amazon wants to share it with yet I can’t avoid being recorded whilst walking the dogs round the neighbourhood
• AI. Nervous about where this is heading

!asklemmy@lemmy.world is very active, though more question driven

• OsmAnd. Navigated me through numerous countries on holiday. Found us places to eat. So useful it persuaded me to start updating the map locally to help any fellow travelers

• Joplin notes. Use this every day without fail

• Nextcloud. Self hosted cloud that Ive come to rely on

No idea what this is but just a thought, can’t you just create a Routine that limits charging to 95% (or 99%) so that a notification is never shown?

As for unremovable apps, just disable them? I used to get irritated by unremovable apps but they hardly take up any memory on a 128gb phone.

I read comments saying google never adds bloat …yet i tend to remove/disable more google shite than anything else!

Yeah I just use a HDD. On the whole its pretty stable though through tinkering Ive managed to crash my setup a few times. Sometimes restarting the Nextcloud Docker container is enough (Portainer makes it simple), when i really break it i start from scratch. I use a simple script to automaticacally back up all my data to another drive weekly

I got sick of corporations forcing restrictions so looked into alternatives. Learned how to do it myself & haven’t looked back:

Joplin notes - use this every day synced to multiple devices Nextcloud - self hosted on a Raspberry Pi 4. Cloud storage plus syncs multiple stuff including Joplin

So many brilliant options on mobile: OsmAnd+ (nav), Antennapod (podcasts), Keepass (password manager), Obtainium (app updater). Was also enjoying Fritter/Quacker (Twitter without needing an account) until Elons recent meltdown. Also enjoying Liftoff lemmy app for Android

EDIT: hot off the press. For those interested, Quacker is back in the game. Not had chance to check Fritter yet

I’ve literally never upvoted/downvoted anything on Reddit or here, never understood the point of either. I read the thread & either engage or scroll on

…Downvote away 😀