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What this Community is for in c/homecomputing@piefed.social
[–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago

I think you're describing ways to find good online services and avoid shady online services. It's a separate topic from what I was talking about, which is retaining control over your own computing by avoiding unnecessary dependency on a company after you've already received the product. For example, an app that does its processing and data storage on a remote server, when it's perfectly possible to build an app that could handle it all locally.

For the example of paid subscription, a good example of what I'm advising against is those new cars that require you to subscribe just to use some of the features of the car that you've already bought. And they can disable them if you stop paying.

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    Did you know that you can setup the default layout to "galery mode" for picture community on Piefed ? in c/piefed_meta@piefed.social
    Global powers see Wikipedia as fundamental target for manipulation— The Times says Wikipedia was "hacked" and calls it an "important victory" for Jeffrey Epstein in c/technology@lemmy.world
    [–] 26 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Using Kiwix you can keep older versions of Wikipedia locally on your computer, so if the online version reaches an unusable state, you can still view the articles as they used to be. Of course, it won't have information about anything that happened after that point, but it could still be useful for some purposes.

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    Do you think PeerTube is a mature platform for new creators? in c/peertube@lemmy.wtf
    [–] 6 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    There needs to be a Fediverse platform just for viewing and commenting on videos without being a video publisher yourself. Then we'd see a lot more traffic coming to PeerTube channels. It also needs to provide a good mechanism for discovering channels you're not already aware of.

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    What this Community is for in c/homecomputing@piefed.social
    [–] [S] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Thanks for commenting. I checked my comment, and it seems I did just write "Internet connection" - just a mistake from rewriting the comment and not leaving it in a coherent state. Sorry about that.

    I use the Internet daily as well. I'd just like to avoid being locked-in to some remote service.

    For someone to participate in this subreddit, they only need to want to rely more on hardware/software that they control instead of those controlled by someone else. As for why they might want this - different people might have different reasons.

    A few possible reasons people might be interested:

    • They have an unreliable Internet connection
    • Concerns about the privacy implications of using centralised services
    • Centralised services can arbitrarily change their behaviour or interface at any time
    • "Smart" devices that require use of a networked app can often be less convenient than "dumb" alternatives
    • Centralised control over one's operating system can mean unwanted updates being forced on the user
    • Concerns about having access revoked due to financial difficulties or other issues

    But the community is open to members regardless of why they are interested.

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    • What this Community is for in c/homecomputing@piefed.social
    1
    What this Community is for (piefed.social)
     

    What do we mean by Home Computing?

    Home computing is one of the greatest inventions of the late 20th century. Emerging from a time when only large organisations had computing power, ordinary people gained the ability to run computers independently in their own homes, without needing to connect to a machine owned by somebody else.

    In the last couple of decades, however, Big Tech has been trying to reverse this, forcing people back to a centralised model with cloud computing, apps that only work when connected to the Internet, and people's personal files held in an online account that can be deactivated at any time by the platform hosting it.

    But this isn't a community for complaining about them. This is a community for discussing ways to bring computing back into our homes.

    This community isn't against using the Internet entirely, of course. Some uses of the Internet cannot be performed offline, such as sending messages to other people, or running software updates. These are perfectly reasonable. What's not reasonable is being expected to connect to someone else's server and log into an account for every little computing task.

    Good posts

    • Asking for recommendations for home computing hardware/software
    • Giving recommendations for home computing hardware/software
    • Asking for help setting up home computing hardware/software

    Bad posts

    • Articles and/or rants about the latest example of centralisation committed by big tech (we know big tech sucks, that's why we are here)
    Meet UpScrolled, the anti-censorship TikTok alternative in c/technology@beehaw.org
    You need to stop using Brave in c/opensource@lemmy.ml
    Why did you move from Windows to Linux? in c/linux@lemmy.ml
    [–] 3 points 11 months ago*

    Because I want to control my own computer. I had to pay for the device, so I should be treated as the owner, yet Microsoft and Apple act like they own people's computers, and build software that treats the computer as property of those corporations.

    I don't like tinkering just to get stuff working, so I use more user-friendly Linux distributions, and it's been very smooth.

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    69
    Referring to Fediverse services as "Alternatives" is bad marketing Discussion & Question Fediverse Ideas & Essay (piefed.social)
     

    When trying to convince people to move to Fediverse services, people will often refer to them as "alternatives", calling Mastodon a Twitter-alternative, PeerTube a YouTube-alternative, etc. But I don't think this is the most effective approach.

    This is a problem I noticed before I even heard of the Fediverse, because FOSS advocates do the same thing.

    The issue is that to the average person, THING-alternative just means that if you already have THING, you don't need it. Or even worse, people will assume it's an inferior imitator. Most people aren't looking for "alternatives". When they adopt new social media it's in response to trends.

    Look at mainstream social media for example. When TikTok appeared as a new video platform, it didn't call itself a "YouTube alternative".

    So, at a minimum, I would advise not referring to services as "alternatives" but simply "cool new services/apps" and exalting their best features from a user perspective.

    I have other thoughts on how to advertise the Fediverse, but I don't want to make this post too long.

    48
    How to find offline alternatives to software-as-a-service and apps with unnecessary internet connections? (piefed.social)
     

    Are there any websites or communities dedicated to finding offline alternatives to software that is unnecessarily-Internet based?

    I can think of two use cases:

    • Software-as-a-service for something that could easily be a downloadable program to run locally
    • "Smart" devices that require you to connect to the Internet, and serve you ads

    There are websites for finding FOSS alternatives to proprietary apps, EU alternatives to American services, etc. but I don't see a website for local-app alternatives to online services.

    29
    Are Threadiverse Platforms (Lemmy, PieFed, etc.) convenient for making official forums? Discussion & Question Threadiverse Fediverse (piefed.social)
     

    What I'm imagining is that someone running a project (like a game studio for example) creates an instance of PieFed or Lemmy or whatever, disables sign-ups, creates community(-ies) for their project(s), and lets people post there.

    It would not only allow people to interact without having to create new accounts, but could also help spread awareness of their project.

    So I wonder (a) is this possible (b) are the any downsides I'm not aware of.

    21
    Federated Multiplayer Gaming? Fediverse Ideas & Essay (piefed.social)
     

    While I don't currently play online multiplayer games, I have been following the "Stop Killing Games" campaign, and of course noticed that the main reason that publishers can render games unplayable is centralization.

    Games didn't always use centralized servers - they used to be run by players, but simply reverting to that model wouldn't provide the functionality players expect. They want to be able to play with people they don't already know - anyone who's online at the same time.

    So it seems like a good use case for federation, do you agree? Each instance could be a "playerbase" and allow games to find players and servers to bring together.

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    Account Portability and Cryptographic Signing Fediverse Ideas & Essay (piefed.social)
     

    I was thinking about account portability. While I haven't had to migrate instances myself, it does seem like it would be highly inconvenient. How do you let people know it's the same account?

    The traditional way is to leave a notice on the old account, but what if that's not possible (e.g. the old instance shut down suddenly). It would be better to have a way to automatically let people (and instances) know that the new account is the same user as the old one - so that subscribers stay subscribed, and there is no confusion.

    With optional cryptographic signing for account identity, this issue could be ameliorated. The user could keep the private key, and share the public key with Fediverse instances.

    What do you think?

    Please note: I'm not talking about replacing any existing functionality, only adding to it.

    38
    Seems like there is a problem between PieFed and the Voyager App Solved (piefed.social)
     

    I was looking at Voyager on my phone and saw communities I hadn't subscribed to in my home feed, and upvotes on posts I hadn't voted on (or even seen before). When I tried to remove the upvotes, a message said "problem voting, please try again".

    Thankfully, when I view PieFed through Firefox, these problems don't exist, so it must be the app. Not overly surprising since it was initially developed for Lemmy, I believe.

    Not sure what changed to cause this problem or whether the change was in Voyager or PieFed.

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