Greetings! Recently, i have ditched Windows for Linux. Why? Well, This all started with a Windows Update. I was working on a Discord bot, until my PC decided to restart without my consent. What was it? A Windows Update. I was like: “no big deal, ill just wait”. Well, it was over 100+ updates. After all the updates completed, i saw the Windows 11 setup screen. Keep in mind that I was on WIndows 10 before the updates. Now at that point i really got angry. Like, I hate Windows 11. So then i went and completed the setup, and got met with ALL THE BLOATWARE REINSTALLED. So ofcourse, since i did NOT wanna use Windows 11, i backed up my data, and switched to the Secure and Free operating System, Linux. I went with arch, since i have used Ubuntu before, and it’s terrible. And since i didn’t wanna use any fancy Desktop Enviroments, such as GNOME, KDE, HyprLand, XFCE. I went with dwm. It looks very mininal and customizable.
Now that brings me to the question, What apps should i get rid of?
I know i did the same post like a few weeks ago, but for the sake of Privacy, i know Some apps contain Telemetry, and some Don’t. But still.
Discord would be the obvious answer, but I understand why you might want to use it, my recommendation is using a client that disables some of the tracking like Vesktop. Spotify is also a major privacy concern, it can be replaced by Spotube (and to a lesser degree by Audiotube) which removes most tracking and is three and convenient. Also I’m not sure if I would keep using chromium, especially with manifest V3
If you can live without Discord, then Matrix or Revolt could be of interest.
Or XMPP or IRC or Mumble …all of which have clients that will consume less resources on your machine
Discord, definitely!! It might be hard to ditch but it’s worth trying. I was never a big fan of it so it was kinda easy yet I still miss being able to contact some people on there. But the more people continue using it, the harder it will be to change things.
Spotify and Chromium, I agree on both as well. Try the options mentioned above concerning Spotify. And yeah, Music streaming is a hard one… I have a dedicated mobile device for Music streaming platforms of this kind if I feel the itch as well as a modded ipod for on the go. Besides that using Bandcamp on a seperate user profile on a Pixel with Graphene OS, no Google stuff installed however and it works pretty great. Highly recommend getting into a habit of buying Music (digital/physical) and listening stuff you actually own on desktop. Simple cmus or sth will do the job.
Maybe Librewolf or other Firefox fork for Browser.
Edit: typo. Edit 2: I’d keep a chromium-based Browser of some sort, you might need it sometime for something. Just use different Browsers for different things.
A bit off topic here, but can I ask which digital store you’d recommend for buying music pls ? I know some of them only give back like 3% of the price to the artist. I wouldnt mind paying extra if it serves the artist. I’m interested in metal music of all kinds, if that’s relevant.
Bandcamp. You always have the opportunity to pay as much as you wish as long as the minimum amount is covered, some even offer free Downloads. It might be a question of time however how long Bandcamp will stay this way as it was bought a while back. It’s also a good place to get releases that you might not be able to find locally, for instance some lables in other regions.
It might be difficult to find some smaller Bands however, as it takes a while and a bit of sucess until Bands make the jump from just playing live to uploading Music to Streaming Services. I’d recommend looking for Labels first and dig through other people’s collections on Bandcamp.
I guess in Metal circles attending Concerts and Festivals are still very much the way to go, as many people still appreciate not only Live events but also buying Vinyls or Merch even to support Bands or as Memorabilia. Many Festivals focus on the local Music scene, you can often support them by buying Merch as well, and they are great for networking as (at least in Europe) many organization teams are in contact with each other. You should also keep your eyes open for Vinyl stores, it’s a great way to get in contact with other metalheads or discovering new Music.
I hope that helps :)
Edit: You probably know most of what I said anyway so I hope it doesnt come across in a weird way, I just wanted to express my take on it. Maybe consider getting a high-quality Record player if you feel like going down that road :)
I’m using Degoogled Chromium. Regular Chromium sucks.
You can also switch to LibreWolf for better privacy but don’t try to take all the steps at once. Slow and steady is better.
Ungoogled*
Webcord is another good client. It is more so designed for security and isolation, but supports theming and plugins. Vencord (more specifically Vesktop) is probably a more interesting client.