Hey Lemmy!

We’ve released gofoss.net, a beginner’s guide to free and open source software, privacy and sustainable tech.

The site is available in English, French and German. We hope that it can help some of you to:

  • safely browse the Internet
  • encrypt your conversations
  • protect your data
  • switch to Linux
  • free your phone from Google & Apple
  • join the Fediverse & use alternative cloud providers
  • self-host your stuff

The source code is available on GitLab. Happy to chat, let us know what you think!

For more information, please come find us at gofoss.net :)

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PS: We are 100% non-profit: no ads, no tracking, no sponsored or paywalled content.

  • alex@lemmy.ml
    4·
    3 years ago

    Awesome site! I think it will be very useful for beginners to go through at their own pace and help them understand what each suggestion will won’t do.

    • gofoss.net@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      3 years ago

      thanks! the idea is indeed to make the subject accessible even to non-techies. It’s a challenge, and we can still do better ;)

  • Adda@lemmy.ml
    4·
    3 years ago

    I just skimmed through the content and read a bit. The website looks super neat and useful. Furthermore, the design is beautifully made and the flow of actions feels natural. Amazing work, as far as I can say so far. Excuse me, I am going to sift through some of your recommendations to see what services and SW you have there.

  • Shamar@lemmy.ml
    2·
    3 years ago

    Nice initiative, but I’d suggest to

    • remove Signal as it’s centralized and the server source code is not constantly updated (and likely different from the one published at any given time)
    • replace Firefox (that is Google’s geek friedly subsidiary) with LibreWolf (for PC) and Iceraven (for Android) available in FFUpdater in F-Droid
      • Jesse@lemmy.ml
        1·
        3 years ago

        Yeah there are so many of these they are starting to get a little redundant. I understand why privacyguides was created over privacytools. Let the best website win!

        • gofoss.net@lemmy.mlOP
          3·
          3 years ago

          tbh, we don’t see this as a competition. Those guys (and gals) were there WAY before us, and they know their stuff. And there are many more people covering similar topics, too. We’re humble enough to know that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Our feeling is that the subject is complex and fast-paced. With more reliable sources, people have better chances to find whats working best for them.

          • Jesse@lemmy.ml
            2·
            3 years ago

            Yeah I’ve been digging into the guides and they’re really user friendly. Loving the site so far compared to the others.

          • beansniffer@lemmy.ml
            2·
            3 years ago

            More sources is always better to increase the reach of these technologies. We need to flood the internet with projects like this to make privacy more mainstream.

  • Yujiri@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 years ago

    This is a great effort! There’s just one thing that I think you really should correct/clarify, In the chapter on firefox:

    The browser is free and open source, highly customisable, blocks cookies & trackers

    Firefox doesn’t “block cookies”. The default settings block “cross-site tracking cookies” and “cross-site cookies in private windows”, while the “Strict” setting blocks “Cross-site cookies in all windows”. Cookies themselves are not a privacy concern (and blocking them would break a huge proportion of websites)

  • poVoq@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 years ago

    It nice that they specifically mention why XMPP isn’t included, but they could also have included a specific client (like they basically do with Matrix) and evaluate that. Conversations for example does do e2ee by default when possible.

    A client and server combination like Snikket or Movim could have also been evaluated.

    • gofoss.net@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      3 years ago

      You’re right. We’ve pondered this for quite some time, and if you check older commits you’ll even see that we included Conversations at some point. We really like XMPP (and are also a bit nostalgic). In the end, we however decided to favour messengers which provide encryption out of the box, irrespective which client is used, and give XMPP an “honorable mention”. If there is enough interest, or if people contribute, we can still cover the topic in future releases

      • poVoq@lemmy.ml
        2·
        3 years ago

        I think evaluating Snikket could be a good option in the future as it really is a complete package similar to Matrix. It also has e2ee enabled by default when you are communicating between Snikket users.

        Movim also has e2ee now and is a complete package with its PWA capable web-client, but OMEMO isn’t enabled by default for now.