I actually did that for a while (on my PC at least). Major pain in the ass unfortunately.
Of course it’s good to block that crap, but usability takes too much of a nose dive. I do live in the EU though, so when it comes to data protection things have gotten a lot better in the last years.
Install Firefox (also works on mobile!), add uBlock Origin (also available on mobile!), done.
Dude, you can’t trust any Lemmy instance at all. It doesn’t even matter that the code is open source, the instance owner could just compile their own version that sends them every password in plaintext. There is zero guarantee that your password is safe.
Anyone who reuses passwords has been pwned a dozen times already. Just check your own logins here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
If you reuse passwords online you have a problem, it’s simple as that. Even big companies had breaches that leaked user data, no company is safe. For example one of my old passwords got stolen from Adobe. One from Unreal Engine. And my old logins are currently shared in 2,844 separate data breaches. Not using a password manager with a random password per service nowadays is madness.
But as OP said, they already failed several times. That’s like telling someone who nearly drowned in the shallow end of a pool to go jump into the ocean.
See here:
So what would be a good distro to look into for a novice and where should I look for a tutorial?
For me it feels like they do want to learn, but aren’t comfortable yet as a day to day user. They want to use Linux, but struggle with commands and how to use it. Having a stable and easy to use system you can use each day without trouble would probably be a better start than telling them to fiddle with Arch. Give them an easy distro and when they want to learn more they can use the crappy old laptop and try to install Arch on there (while leaving their daily driver alone).
I think I learned the most when using Ubuntu for school, 90% of it was easy and straight forward. 10% of it was hell, like back in the day getting HDMI or audio to work. But because the 90% were there I just dug in and spent a dozen hours to troubleshoot the rest.
I tried that after already having about 2 years experience with Ubuntu desktop and an Ubuntu server (but still mostly a Windows user). I’m also a software developer.
And I failed to install Arch on a laptop the last time I tried it out. Ubuntu ran flawlessly, trying to go step by step through the Arch installation I hit a random error (at a step that was very straight forward and easy in the documentation) and got stuck. Messed around with it and at some point gave up.
I mean that’s years ago, it probably works a lot better nowadays and especially on more modern hardware, but even so for someone new to Linux I’d never tell them to go with a do-it-yourself install. Slap Ubuntu on that bad boy, let them install a few packages, do a handful of terminal commands and they’ll get much farther. Instead of giving up three hours in because a random command (that they still don’t understand) is broken.
Sorry, but that’s literally every online service. For example if you buy a new virtual server it takes like 5 minutes till a Chinese IP starts to try root passwords.
If someone actually wanted to harm Lemmy they’d just DDOS the biggest instances for a month (which would be easy, it’s mostly single servers after all) or attack it with so much spam and large images that storage would break.
Nothing is safe.
Use a password manager and a unique random password for each service you sign up with. It’s the only way to protect your accounts.
The solution has been the same for the last 20 years: Use a password manager, do not reuse passwords. That’s it, you’re done.
Even if the Lemmy instance admin steals your password (which would be easy!) they can’t do anything with it.
It was even worse. Reddit didn’t make their own app, they bought a third party app (Alien Blue) and made it worse.
But nobody cared about chat, polls, bought avatars or whatever, I was happy using RIF and rather didn’t have those things. Reddit wants you to have and use those things so you spend extra money in their shop. One more reason to get rid of third party apps.
Thank you!
Meta will only go full on E/E/E on the fediverse, even by “accident” (like adding new features and breaking the standard). Better choke them off right from the start and build small organic communities instead.
It’s pretty damn simple actually. Let’s say we fully federate with Threads, what will happen?
Threads gets a massive amount of users, they already have 20 million sign-ups on the first day! Their user base will be gigantic
We’ll get a big influx of content (if Meta does the federation properly), huge communities will pop up on Threads and you’ll join those communities. It’s unlikely that Threads users will join communities hosted on smaller instances, why join a community with 1k users if Meta has one with 200k?
Now Meta controls 99% of the users AND content. They can switch off federation at any moment. Maybe they cover it with “we have a new cool feature, but it breaks federation, sorry!” in that moment all our Lemmy instances lose most of their users and content. And you lose all your communities you joined
Lemmy users will migrate to threads, because they want their content back, the fediverse dies (except for a few hundred to thousand hold-over nerds who won’t give up)
Fuck Meta.
That’s really not the point. If the instance you post on is defederated from Threads and you create a valuable post (for example a lengthy review of some hardware) then Meta can’t just copy your post and put it on their platform. It would be stealing/a copyright violation.
If Meta gets your content then they can (ab)use it. Put ads on it, charge to see it, mask it as their own content, whatever. So wanting to defederate from Meta is absolutely valid and if Meta steals your post you could force them to take it down.
Meta just reading the content to train AI… not much you can do there. But putting your post up on their platform to serve to their users is a wholly different beast. Even when federated they would have to show your username@yourinstance.com and can’t just say they created it.
I was pro tabs when I started out with software development. It just made sense, right? You press the key once, you get a single symbol, you have your indention, neat. And there is the argument that everyone can adjust their tab sizes, want it to be 2 spaces? 4? 6? Whatever? Awesome!
Then you write actual code and this perception changes. Tabs make a mess, developers often align both code and comments to make sense. That alignment only works at x-spaces and utterly breaks if you change tab width.
An example in C# with LINQ (just semi-random stuff):
var test = customers.Where(c => c.Deleted == false
&& c.Enabled
&& c.HasProducts()
&& blockedCustomers.Contains(c.Id) == false);
This kind of indention only works with spaces, not with tabs. And no, mixing tabs and spaces doesn’t work (like some users claim, that you can indent with tabs and then do alignment with spaces… nope, if you change tab with then your space alignment breaks).
Honestly, I don’t care either way, I just use what my company uses and adapt. But till now it has always been spaces (even though I was team tabs in university) and now I actually prefer spaces as it just makes sense. It’s consistent, it’s easy, it works everywhere.
Btw. the Lemmy code editor is shit, trying to align this was trial and error for a minute :-/
I’m so confused about the new line syntax. Why can’t I just do a single new line and keep typing? Why does the previous line have to end with a double space?
It’s weird, what is the benefit there?