Its working OK for me.

No problems over the recent weeks for the family.

https://mullvad.net/en/check

You can check which DNS server you are using by expanding the DNS box in our Connection check.

If you expand the “NO DNS LEAKS” for the server info.

The API section next to the FAQ gives more info.

you have to register with your phone number.

But you dont have to give your phone number out to friends or peopole you meet.

Some family members use Molly-Foss and have no issues.

I use signal-foss from the Twin helix repo, A fork of Signal with proprietary Google binary blobs removed…

https://www.twinhelix.com/apps/signal-foss/

Signal from the F-droid - The guardian project repo, is just signal.

I read that the issue was with signal using google firebase, and that it was easier for the fascist piglets to track your messages through notifications.

I have found that you can actually delete a contact via molly but cannot do it via signal.

With signal you can only block a contact, which for me, is a privacy issues.

If I meet a random person, say on holiday, and we swap details, I want to delete them, not block them, where they remain in my block list forever.

I swap between Signal-FOSS and Molly if I want to delete a contact.

It doesnt effect me.

I haven’t used google search since windows 95.

I switch between Qwant, Startpage, Ecosia, ghosterysearch, mojeek and searxng.deliberate.world

The nearest I get to ai manipulation is when I use Gumtree.

ai is absolutely shit

an example:

I have been looking for a phone to install linux.

I settled on the Oneplus Nord N10 5G

so I searched Gumtree.

Nord N10 5G: is changed to: road nw10 5g, WTF

oneplus Nord N10 5G: is changed to: oneplus nord 110 5g, WTF

Gumtree boosts customer engagement by a third with Phrasee AI.

customer engagement, they got to be fucking joking.

https://lovelymobile.news/gumtree-boosts-customer-engagement-by-a-third-with-phrasee-ai

it seems like they want me to type mobile phone in the search box, and spend 10 hours looking at every fucking phone for sale in the entire UK, until i find the one i want.

proper customer engagement, I wont play that game.

so Gumtree can fuck off

Thank you

I will check it out again if and when I need to do a clean out.

I do create a lot of duplicates as I move and transfer files between 3 laptops.

Hey Dessalines

I never got on with rmlint. It never felt safe to me.

I found fclones to be much better and safer.

Plus there is a GUI version for those not using the terminal

Gui Version https://github.com/pkolaczk/fclones-gui

CLI version https://github.com/pkolaczk/fclones

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Usage

fclones offers separate commands for finding and removing files. This way, you can inspect the list of found files before applying any modifications to the file system.

group – identifies groups of identical files and prints them to the standard output

remove – removes redundant files earlier identified by group

link – replaces redundant files with links (default: hard links)

dedupe – does not remove any files, but deduplicates file data by using native copy-on-write capabilities of the file system (reflink)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

I did actually test this by creating a directory with duplicates.

test_dupes 186 files

scanned directory for duplicates and created dupes.txt

fclones group . >>dupes.txt

dupes.txt

remove duplicates to another directory

/home/user/Desktop/dupes

fclones move target_dir <dupes.txt

fclones move /home/user/Desktop/dupes <dupes.txt

test_dupes now has 173 files

Hey PragmaticIdealist

I dont like him because he seems to intentionally pick controversial subjects just to get clicks.

I mean. how controversial can you get by using the headline “LineageOS is apparently not private?” and then go about trying to prove your point by not referring to Lineage.

I can only assume that loads of non techy people would be put off by his claims.

Lineage does not send any information to google nor connect to google. However the apps you choose to install could connect to google. Especially if you use closed source apps.

if you stick to open source apps via Neostore, droid-ify and F-droid basic you should be fine.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is safe to disable Captive portal if it is already enabled on your phone.

I have disabled it on my aunts and uncles phones, they dont use lineage or any AOSP roms.

My aunt likes the idea of free wi-fi when shes out. she has a list of all the in-store wifi, in my local shopping centre, already stored on her phone, this means that she automatically connects to whatever wifi she is nearest to.

Lineage phones have captive portal disabled by default.

Looks like you are half way there.

A good VPN is also a good choice

Keep at it.

deepest apologies

thank you for the link

In my undergraduate mind I thought that the markdown language was an open source project

Hey illusionist

Thank you

I did try the three backticks but they remained in the post

I will try again

nope!

I was using ’ ’ ’ not three `

thank you

Excellent write up

Thank you

Hey PragmaticIdealist

The video guy is talking bollocks: plus he has about 50 crypto links to pay the wanker.

Honestly, I have install lineage since 2018 and installed CyanogenMod way before that.

He talks about “Removing bloatware Google packages” from Lineage, there are no bloatware google packages in lineage.

I have just plugged my oneplus 5T with lineage installed into my laptop, and typed this into my terminal: to give me a list of all the packages installed on my phone.

adb shell pm list packages -s >oneplus5-installed.txt

I have 213 packages installed. THERE ARE NO GOOGLE PACKAGES installed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Captive Portal is simple to disable using adb. Its not scary.

I have 5 family phones with lineage installed

I have just checked Captive Portal on all 5

db shell settings get global captive_portal_mode

all 5 phones the output is:

null

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

you can change your dns rather than rely on your carriers DNS. I use Mullvad DNS

https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

The eu has public dns servers:

https://european-alternatives.eu/category/public-dns

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

not much info on itel-p55-5g on xda

https://xdaforums.com/t/i-want-a-vbmeta-img-and-boot-img-for-itel-p55-5g.4737042/

if you want to find out about Lineage, use their forums or use the https://xdaforums.com/ as above and have a good look around to see what people say.

Hey irotsoma

I do feel your dilemma

I would drive for an hour to buy anything from a small store rather than buying from amazon and increasing their profits. Obviously one person has no impact upon their obscene profits.

Amazon is the curse for small business and all its employees, drivers, sellers and customers.

good reseacrh here:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

The authors conclude that getting the best price on Amazon requires that you “first spend considerable time searching through pages of results and then utilize, at a minimum, spreadsheet algebraic capabilities to determine the product’s full price…[and] somehow de-bias from the psychological effects of anchoring, and labels such as ‘limited time deal’ and ‘Best Seller,’ as well as many other subtle psychological influences.”

Amazon says it’s entitled to use the consumer welfare cheat-code to get out of antitrust enforcement because it has so many bargains. But to get those bargains, you have to pay such minutely detailed attention – literally spreadsheeting your options and hand-coding mathematical formulas to compare them – that you’ll almost certainly fail. The price of failure is incredibly high – a 25-29% overcharge on every purchase.

The Amazon Paradox has dropped, and it drills into another way that Amazon overcharges most of us by as much as 29% on nearly every purchase, disqualifying it from invoking that consumer welfare cheat code. The new paper is “Amazon’s Pricing Paradox,” from law professors Rory Van Loo and Nikita Aggarwal, for The Harvard Journal of Law and Technology:

The authors concede that while Amazon does have some great bargains, it goes to enormous lengths to make it nearly impossible to get those bargains. Drawing from the literature on behavioral economics, the authors make the reasonable (and experimentally verified) assumption that shoppers generally assume that the top results in an Amazon search are the best results, and click on those.

But Amazon’s search-ordering is enshittified: it shifts value from sellers and shoppers (you!) to the company. A combination of self-preferencing (upranking Amazon’s own knock-offs), pay-for-placement (Amazon ads), other forms of payola (whether a merchant is paying for Prime), and “junk ads” (that don’t match your search) turn Amazon’s search-ordering into a rigged casino game.

From 2023:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/22/23885242/amazon-prime-tv-movies-streaming-ads-subscription-date

There are some nice rust replacement tools.

https://dev.to/heraldofsolace/replace-your-existing-unix-utilities-with-these-modern-alternatives-2bfo

https://github.com/rust-unofficial/awesome-rust

Though I do not use BAT, I do like and use these ones;

Kibi: bandwhich: disktest: Cracken: lapce: monolith: srm-rust

That is some mad music.

Its inspired me to drop 5 grams of cubensis penis envy tonight and go walking in my local forest.

I completely forgot about endeavourOS.

I used to have it on my gaming rig. Pretty desktop.

just remembered arco-linux too, but I think thats been discontinued.

Ho sfanculato Mozilla e Firefox 4 anni fa. Prima muoiono entrambi, meglio è.

transalation for you inglish:

I ditched Mozilla and Firefox four years ago. The sooner they both die, the better.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/09/firefox-adding-copilot-chatbot-features

Try Librewolf, doesnt have ai

As you are a noob, avoid arch.

It maybe great for your self esteem telling people you are an arch user, but vanilla arch is not a simple distro. it takes a lot of work.

So, unless you have a lot of linux and terminal experience try something else.

If you want to play with an arch based distro there is manjaro.

I have manjaro installed on my old Lenovo T450 for years and it works great.

Alternatively give linux mint XFCE a try. I usually install this for people who are new users of linux.

or I have MX-linux installed on the Mrs laptop. she has the lenovo T470.

install guides:

https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html

https://itsfoss.com/install-manjaro-linux/

https://www.debugpoint.com/install-mx-linux/

if you want to try vanilla arch

https://itsfoss.com/install-arch-linux/

I dont use either of those.

I only use my credit card to buy online. I would rather trust my bank than some third party USA shite company.

Credit cards, unlike debit cards, offer more protections than shitty paypal.

specifically here on Airstrip One, there are no protections if you buy with paypal, whereas there are strict protections if you use your credit card.

Buyers using a credit card might get a refund via chargeback from their credit-card company. However, in the UK, where such a purchaser is entitled to specific statutory protections (that the credit card company is a second party to the purchase and is therefore equally liable in law if the other party defaults or goes into liquidation) under Section 75 Consumer Credit Act 1974, the purchaser loses this legal protection if the card payment is processed via PayPal.

Who on this earth needs amazon? amazon, the company that represents all that is wrong with the internet, with its ads, tracking, sellers fees, ai driven sales, etc etc, enshitification and abusive conduct.

I have heard from many people, friends and family, that have tried to get a refund via paypal, only to be rejected with no recourse. wankers!

whereas a quick phone call to the bank and you get a refund immediately.

Thanks Possibly linux

Isn’t crackable before the heat death of the universe

so its a long way off then LOL

There is an option in the developer options to enable a fake location app.

https://github.com/lilstiffy/MockGps

Ideally you would want to remove your carrier sim. your carrier will know you are in a different country (roaming), and use a good VPN

I use mullvad VPN and that spoofs my GPS and location.

I use Lineage on my current phone with no google apps and dont use a fake location app.

If you are using a default, we love google phone, I am not sure if disabling the gps and location stops google and its apps from having access to your location data.

I dont trust them to honour the pressing of a button to disable anything, when location and advertising is so important to them, and their other surveillance friends

Thanks Ragebutt

Comprehensive answers

That what I like

Thank you

my motorola example:

fastboot oem get_unlock_data

3A35219112984799#5A593232444743424E46006D6F746F726F6C0000#869D8063DBECC893461CCDA39BC5560898D31E77E0EA41ED679205BA559DC4A1#663D5E2D000000000000000000000000

could this be cracked with Hashcat?

you upload this to motorola

They then send you this to unlock your bootloader

Here is the unique code to unlock the bootloader of your Motorola phone.

Unlock Code: YGS5FHGWSJDQKBTSWXBS

fastboot oem unlock YGS5FHGWSJDQKBTSWXBS

fastboot oem unlock YGS5FHGWSJDQKBTSWXBS

(bootloader) Bootloader is unlocked!

OKAY [ 13.949s]

Finished. Total time: 13.949s

I have wondered if Hashcat could crack the hash sand give the Unlock Code.

When you consider how long a WPA2 hash is and it s still very possible to crack WPA2 as long. 3-4 hours to run through an 8 char uppercase keyspace on an old sky router.

WPA021709ba709b92c3eb7b662036b02e843c6c5940096fb664cc2edaeb526c686c64ca37bb6be93179b0ce86e0f4e393d742fca6854ace6791f29a7d0c0ec15340860103007502010a00000000000000000001f09960e32863aa57ba250769b6e12d959a5a1f1cc8939d6bed4401a16092fa72000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001630140100000fac040100000fac040100000fac02000000

but a 20 char Unlock Code would be impossible on my gaming rig.

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