In that case it is a ToS violation, not piracy. You aren’t paying anything, nor does google lose any money since they have been already paid. We would have to stretch the definition of piracy to include other ToS violations since it is not a financial lose.

Let’s extend the scenario. If YouTube ToS required you to click every ad to use their service, would it be piracy if someone doesnt follow those instructions? I think it would be a ToS violation, but what damages could Google even seek?

I hear people sometimes mention that “Google needs to pay somehow to keep YouTube running.” I have no sympathy for Google since they conspired to intentionally push out other video hosting platforms to create monopoly on the market. It is their own fault that videos aren’t more spread out among providers.

How would you even pirate YouTube anyways?

I recommend Mull. It is security/privacy hardened Firefox and built by using Fennec as a base. Always use Fennec over Firefox because it removes telemetry, proprietary code, and strongly protects against browser fingerprinting. Comes with support for most (if not all) desktop Firefox extensions. I highly recommend using uBlock Origin, ask anyone and they’ll tell you it is the best content blocker available.

Another good browser is Cromite. It is security hardened Chromium with built-in ad/content blocking, decent fingerprinting protection, and strong site isolation. It doesn’t have support for extensions because upstream Chromium on Android doesn’t either and it is hugely complex to port.

Did you enter into a contract saying you must watch ads to use the service? Is ad blocking against ToS? I don’t think either are true, and a “click to consent” isn’t legally binding. Either way, I will never not block ads as it is important from a privacy and cyber security perspective.

Nyarch honestly looks like a joke distro and most of its features are not worth IMO.

I used Tumbleweed for a long time as a daily driver and then as my admin workstation. Worked really well, GUI admin panels are nice, and I didnt find anything too difficult.

Uncanny valley with those faces.

No

The weakest link of any secured system is the user. I know that will never change, especially as computers/software become more complicated over time. But I don’t understand why many people argue that “since the user is the weakest link, we don’t need more secure systems, we need better users.” We need both.

X.Org server has been largely abandoned by maintainers and developers.

Here are some links:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/x_server_lead_maintainer_declares
https://www.phoronix.com/news/XServer-Abandonware
https://www.osnews.com/story/132507/its-time-to-admit-it-the-x-org-server-is-abandonware/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement

I would agree but it still heavily relies/requires X11 for many of the core components and apps. Wayland support on the horizon. For now though I wouldn’t recommend anyone use any DE that doesnt support Wayland, since X.Org is has been unmaintained for many years, it is a bloated protocol, and is insecure by design. This is because it was designed 40+ years ago in a time before security was a big concern to developers.

I recommend GNOME from a purely security perspective. Currently, “GNOME is the only desktop that secures privileged wayland protocols like screencopy.” It also has a nice permission system for (dis)allowing microphone, camera, and location access. I wish the developers were more open to encouraging customization of the certain GUI elements, like KDE. KDE Plasma does not protect against screen capture, though it is on their radar.

Canonical, the owners of Ubuntu, love to steal open source projects. They’ll help a project with development power, then force the contributors to sign a CLA (for an example see the fork of LXD called Incus). Canonical also uses and forces proprietary systems onto the user’s, e.g. Snap uses the proprietary and hardcoded Canonical repository, which Ubuntu now defaults to using Snap for installing packages.

Side note, if it wasnt for Snap using a proprietary backend and also depending on AppArmor (generally regarded as a weaker MAC than SELinux), I would prefer Snap over Flatpak. It creates a better sandbox (aka the actually Security of the software), avoids sandbox escapes, blacklists against broad permissions (e.g. $HOME access), and Snap packages generally have stricter permissions (which determines the real-world security of Snap). Sandboxing is very important for Desktop (and server) security. Android is does the best job of this, but it would be nice if projects like Sydbox, Crablock, or Bubblejail were adopted and built-in to the package manager.

But even without any of the previously mentioned problems, I just think Fedora is a better OS. Fedora comes preconfigured with SELinux policies to confine system services they are quicker to adopt new technologies. Fedora is also a semi-rolling distro, meaning packages are quicker to get updated than on Ubuntu. Fedora stays FOSS, where as Ubuntu becomes more locked down. Also, the package Brace made by the developer of DivestOS is great for quickly hardening a Fedora system.

Where? Have a link?

Until a port to Wayland is made, I would avoid using this DE. X.Org is unmaintained legacy software. Maybe Sway would work as a replacement?

For games, use Steam and Lutris Flatpaks. Should make it pretty simple.

Just get doasedit. I remember finding scripts that achieve similar functionality as sudoedit.

True

I just use my sibling’s first name most of the time.

Kate works for my workload, but I mostly do small coding projects. Stuff in Bash and Python. VSCodium is probably better for most people. I like the simplicity of Kate.