I definitely agree that more constructive discourse needs to take place instead of some needless fights that happen way too often.

About Brave and the view some lemmy users express about it, I feel some of the distrust is valid while the way many express it is with no other regards to the good there might be or without any technical knowledge behind words being shared around. Exactly how you mentioned Google being awful at privacy but great at security.

Thank you for taking the time to write all this.

First of all, you do touch up on some good topics with sources and I appreciate that. However I would like to say that you may have either oversimplified or misunderstood some concepts you talk about here. Just so we’re clear, the whole topic of privacy/security is vast and knowing everything about it all is impossible so this is not an insult but a simple remark.

While I will not tackle everything you mentionned, mainly because you have your opinion, which is valid, and you do bring up good points, I will point out the last two topics you bring up.

Debian is indeed less secure than a stable release Linux distribution based on sane defaults, however they do backport security issues into their older kernel which is how older kernels are maintained. So while yes, they may still use kernel 6.1, they also may have backported 6.12 vulnerability fixes.

The last topic you end up with is the constant fact that some “groups being at odds with each other” and “privacy being at odds with security”. Groups being at odds is not all good and neither is it all bad. Just like Lemmy or federation, it brings diversity in an ecosystem that needs said diversity.

You yourself bring up project 1 and compare it to project 2 at first while they are so different that comparing the two is like saying that an orange is blue. Many people will stop there and you went a deeper and properly laid out that it wasn’t the case but you fail to do so some place else.

Like I said, all of this is a very vast topic. However, while you have “fights” and groups being at odds with each other for sometimes good or not so good reasons, it brings out one of the best things in open source sometimes. “I dont like you or the way you handle that project so I’m going to make my own fork of it and do it my way”.

Thank you for your time and I do hope your text will help some people out.

It is indeed somewhat frustrating not to be “able” to share the whole adventure for the sake of privacy but that’s just another part of the lonely journey that is personal privacy in itself.

I think what most people lack is a roadmap or a goal. From your post, you achieved you goal and that’s great. More often than not, people spend years looking at all the horror stories and all that they can put in place without sitting down and looking for a goal they themselves wish to get to.

I like this. I think it may be one of the only post I have ever seen that shows where a privacy minded folk came from and their journey to end up in a place they’re comfortable at. Way too often stories about one’s privacy journey is them being in the pit of despair (understandable) or those crazy stories of how someone who spent years researching privacy and hardening their device ended up picking windows and all their old habits from all those years ago because it was too much for them.

On that note, great job. I’m happy for you and wish you a good time on your regular (perhaps minimal) maintenance.

Can probably play Doom

Those that think they’ve seen it all and think they’re “immune” or used to it make the dangerous mistake of sometimes searching for NSFL content that are sometimes mentionned on those types of questions just to test themselves.

I’ve seen a lot, way too much for my own good, it is never a good idea to search something like that up.

Truly hope your sibling as well as yourself aren’t too scared of what it was you saw. Some of the content seen can sometime leave pretty heavy or permanent marks.

Any type of NSFL content mentionned could be a very bad thing for anyone involved.

I get that you are curious and that’s fine but it could cause more harm than you might imagine.

Every time there is a new version available for the most part.

I go to the changelog of the app or software to see what has changed, since I only use FOSS I also have a broad glance at the code. If I know that what I am updating won’t cause trouble for what I am currently doing (ie. A depency update that is used during a time I need to compile a big project), I go ahead and update.

In the case of new features I am not keen on, I usually keep the current version I have (and make any self-update impossible for said app/software), see if there is any reputable forks or fork it myself to remove said features.

I have a minimal amount of apps and software and I handpicked all of them specifically so that they follow what I want them to do. If for whatever reason they stray and become something I’d rather not use at all, I remove/purge them.

Security is also very important (to me at least). Not updating because a feature is unpleasant is fine as long as the app is fairly recent and has no way of communicating to any other apps or have any internet access.

Indeed quite something…

Also, no need to be sorry, you did nothing wrong.

In your case, you added something, it was a salad with pepper and salt during a time where you were craving something in particular.

What was crazy to me about the story I told was the poor tomato and carrots were unseasoned, bland, resting in the saddest plate I’ve yet to encounter, while the person eating it was considering what was in front of them a meal.

(Not sure why someone would downvote you for your comment by the way)

The whole thing was so surreal that I never bothered to ask about it.

Wasn’t on a diet. Thankfully, they ate more during lunch and didn’t have any health issues due to eating weirdly but those “meals” were something else…

Don’t ask me why. Even I was speechless.

I knew someone who would eat a tomato for dinner with a few slices of carrots. Nothing baked, just a plain uncut tomato and slices of carrots.

I’m talking a functionnal human being, knowing the concept of cooking and the ability to walk to their kitchen with such a “dish” as they would call it. Not vegetarian either. They did like meat and whatnot. Saddest “meal” I’ve ever had the horror to lay my eyes upon.

I haven’t tested many microphones since I quickly settled on the current one I have, the Blue Snowball. Like I saod previously, it’s cheap and does well for everything I need. It comes with a small stand making it easy to transport and quickly set up. Only downside for what it is would be the shape. A round ball isn’t very practical while packing up.

I cannot help further on the model of the microphone. If you go to a shop on-site they may let you test some of them. If they do, chances are you can also see how much noise around you gets picked up. You could also look at some reviews and buy online by some big marketplace like Amazon where you’re sure to be able to return the product if you’re unhappy, without having to spend extra for returning it. By experience, you won’t get in any trouble if you buy and return a few of them right after.

In the case of your laptop and microphone together while being on the go, a “small” microphone and somewhat cheap would indeed be best like I said previously. If you’re outside, I wouldn’t bring some equipment that attracks too much attention to you for sure.

As for in-ear earbuds, the only good options I’m aware of do not offer any microphones. The cheapest and only ones that I can think of are the old (now retired) apple standard earbuds. However the mic isn’t that “good” per say and I doubt many places still have a stock of them.

It is a solution. I prefer to know exactly how my software is doing things and prefer to set every settings myself. While that isn’t something I recommend most do due to time constraint, I also forgot that those tools are implemented in a lot of big applications making use of video/audio calls. If it suits your needs and find no issue using them, go for it. It will indeed help tremendously. The tips to dampen the noise in the room you are in still applies. Noise cancelling tools like so need to distort the audio the more ambiant sounds there are and the volume they’re at. The louder an environment is, the more your audio will be distorted and the worst the quality will get. Nowadays, we are at a point where it shouldn’t matter too much because of how well those tools processes the audio so it should be fine. Just keep it in mind.

In the end that wasn’t all that useful but I hope you’ll manage to have good calls with an audio that fits your needs and liking.

While browsing a few years back, I found myself buying the Blue Snowball. While many headsets now include good microphones, I chose this one because it was (and still is) cheap and of good enough quality for regular use.

As for the input settings, that might be tough if you have no experience with it. Depending on your laptop’s OS and the wide range of software it might be tough.

Before any audio settings in place, test out your audio with:

• a microphone,
• a physical filter (some uses socks, its not recommended but it’s just to give you an idea of what it is),
• a room with as much noise reduction as possible (thick curtains/room with a good amount of furniture/sound absorbant panels, all of those can help).

Chances are, the noise will still be too much and you will want some artificial changes from softwares afterwards, but the more you dampen the noise, the less tweaks you will have to do in the software making it easier while also not ruining the audio too much with software filters.

If you’re willing to tell me what OS you will use with that laptop I can try and see what could potentially work on there without just telling you xyz software and giving you random values you have no informations on. Sometimes, simple OS audio configurations can do as much as some advertised software.

As blackstrat said, a commentator headset-microphone might be the thing you need if you ever have the money to spend on it. I could give you a good recommendation if you need one but the headset without anything else costs around $3k US iirc. That’s without the needed cable and DAC. Think around $5k US for the whole thing. It is really impressive because no matter how much shouting or loud noise there is right next to you, you cannot hear it if you want to filter it out by decreasing the noise gate.

Do you need to have such a high end headset-microphone? Probably not. A good microphone, adjusted audio input settings and mixing should be well enough. However, if you do feel like you really need a luxurious microphone then tell me and I’ll find the referrence for it in a bit.

You could always try on another machine if you can to see if the latency is due to the laptop or the keyboard itself.

Also, changing keyboard, especially if you’ve been using a certain keyboard type and you change to another, can really mess uo the eay you type until you get used to it.

Lastly, bluetooth is a whole mess so it very well could be that. If you value what you bought and like you said, someone close to you is a tinkerer, converting a bluetooth device to a wired can be a nice project if they haven’t done so before (and it prevents throwing out a working device with a small defect).