Best explanation of what KERNEL is, it's like car engine and all electronics around it. It's all hidden under the hood, but makes the whole thing run.
Cars have been around for long enough that even non techy people understand at least the crudest basics and this helps them understand computer things when used as analogy.
Currently, I wouldn't want to go to USA even if you pay me. I literally put USA on same shit list as countries with prevalent terrorism and dictatorship that I'd never visit. Like Russia. Imagine being a western country and on that shit list...
These hearings are totally stupid waste of time. You don't ask corporations "How do you feel?". You do your own investigations and you tell them what bullshit they need to stop doing.
I just hate the fact you need to buy Google Pixel phone to use it. But I guess they needed the most standardized hardware that doesn't have 24 variants on each release...
The main issue with phones are fucking banks. Their bullshit insisting on phones having to have locked bootloader is so fucking annoying. I used phone with LineageOS but it was nightmare to work with my bank and they all do this shit to "protect the user". Yeah right.
Yes, I do use Android phone, but I used ADB AppControl and just deleted and disabled all the Google shit on it (easier on Samsung since they have their own services which I prefer over Google if I have to). I also run DNS level filtering using Hagezi Ultimate list which filters so much shit. Not ideal still, but it works.
Well, everyone needs a trigger. For me it was a friend who suddenly deleted his Facebook account ages ago. Which made me thinking, why am I even on here (Facebook)... It's when it started for me. Then Google did some shit that got leaked how they are manipulating things and all the creepy monitoring that came to light and that's when I started slowly phasing it all out.
First to go was Google Search. It wasn't even good, we just all used it. Move to DuckDuckGo was so easy because DDG was jjst so much better and without bullshit personalized searches that fucked everything up. Next big one was GMail that took the most work and effort since I had to move all accounts to new ProtonMail address. But now that it's done, it was worth the effort. Next to follow was actually moving away from Android phone to iPhone despite hating Apple before because they were just stupid company. Solely just to get away from whole Google thing. That transition made me ditch centralized service dependency. iPhone was just a vessel that powered all the 3rd party services, be it multimedia, cloud storage, emails, messaging, all of it is 3rd party (none was from Google or Apple) and none of it is interconnected in any way. I've since returned to Android phone (Samsung where I use their services over Google's if required) but following same principles. Really only Google thing I even use is GooglePlay store that you need for apps and its account that's required.
I've even gone as far that my Location Services has been just entirely disabled for few years now. I only turn it on when using navigation which is rare. Oh and I filter all my devices with DNS level filtering using Hagezi Ultimate filter list which is the most aggressive of them all. Considering I don't even get any false positives or issues with it tells me all the tracking and spying crap doesn't even affect me as whole and is just quietly filtered in the background.
I've minimized my online footprint to absolute minimum now and one might thik my life is difficult having to deal with so much privacy things, but it really isn't. Transition took time and effort, but now that I have system in place it's zero effort. It just works and moving between platforms has never been easier since I don't depend on any. I can move from Android phone to iPhone in like 1-2 hours and I'd instantly migrate it all in that time since I just need to install those 3rd party apps and services and login to them. Hell, I can run any of those 3rd party services across Windows, Linux, Android and iPhone all at once since they support all of them. It's really so cool and gives me so much freedom to just choose anything at any time with minimal effort.
I just use it without account and subscribe to my favorite channels using external RSS feed reader. This way I still keep track of my fav content and doing it entirely outside of Google. If they track me as guest, I really don't care that much.
Well, you target where most people with GMail are... I've ditched GMail (and all other Google services) some decade ago and have been on ProtonMail and alike alternatives since. I'll never go back.
There is no fucking way in hell I'll ever a) watch ads b) pay for Youtube Premium. They created this monopoly with no alternative option and now we're suppose to just get fucked while they get even more obscenely rich beyond all tasteful levels. Yeah, I don't think so. And given how I ditched everything Google, if it ever comes to it, I'll ditch Youtube too. It's basically the only thing I still even use from Google because there's just no alternative.
Trump is a gold spoon fed moron who's entirely disconnected from reality. That mofo talked about groceries like it's an afternoon club or some shit. He probably never ever even stepped into a supermarket and bought a fucking loaf of bread and something else himself. It's why he fucking has no idea how healthcare even works in America, when he had COVID they just pumped shit into him to keep his zombie body alive and he didn't even twitch even the slightest for how much that would cost. Meanwhile rest of people avoid calling an ambulance because that will cost so much it can bankrupt them. Tell me how that isn't absolutely fucked.
I live in Slovenia (Europe) and while our healthcare system isn't perfect either, not once I worried that my medical condition would set me back financially for 5 or 10 years. It just doesn't cross our minds, like at all ever. You just get in touch with doctors and they sort it out based on severity. If it's something non critical you might wait few weeks or months if it's something trivial or cosmetic, but if it's something urgent they'll send you to ER immediately and do most complex procedures asap. So it's not just "you need to wait for months because it's "free" healthcare". It is prioritized and it's perfectly understandable and logical.
Best explanation of what KERNEL is, it's like car engine and all electronics around it. It's all hidden under the hood, but makes the whole thing run.
Cars have been around for long enough that even non techy people understand at least the crudest basics and this helps them understand computer things when used as analogy.