I believe he's just a suspicious carrot, but what do I know, I'm just a random Lemmy commenter.

I don't agree with the datacenter lobby and I firmly believe that the EU is more than capable of screwing up both things at the same time.

I recommend https://conversejs.org/ or https://github.com/processone/fluux-messenger which are both running on tried-and-tested platforms (XMPP).

You and your friend should..

• create and exchange a set of Age public keys
• use them to encrypt a simple text file
• bzip the encrypted file
• convert the binary archive to base64
• embed the base64 using Pixelknot into a photo downloaded from unsplash that contains a distinct object you both agreed on (eg a windmill)
• upload the file to imgur

Now you both can privately chat with each other by monitoring imgur's latest uploads, downloading every image that contains a windmill, read the base64 string, convert it to its binary bzip form, unpack the encrypted file and decrypt it.

I have been hosting multiple SearXNG instances, the newest one (https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/be-your-own-privacy-respecting-google-bing-brave/) being a private instance for my own community channel, and it has been relatively smooth sailing.

Some niche engines, like e.g. Mojeek seem to be notoriously slow, but that might also depend very much on the VPS that your requests are coming from.

If, however, big engines like Bing or Google are blocking/throttling you, it might be due to your IP/subnet reputation and it might be worth switching your host.

Alternatively, you could overengineer a setup in which you round-robin route your SearXNG request through a number of simultaneously running Wireguard tunnels from a VPN provider to obscure your traffic.

However, if my experience, most VPN providers suffer extremely from Cloudflare and ReCaptcha blocks, hence ymmv.

Your numbers don't check out, please provide sources. The Linux Kernel has around 40 million lines, the OpenBSD kernel around 7. You might have mistakenly counted OpenBSD/NetBSD as a whole system (the base installation), instead of solely the kernel.

They contributed code that they needed, that is not giving back. I am speaking about actual long-term maintenance and/or money, which isn't mentioned anywhere.

See, the problem with these code contributions is that they are just that: One time effort. In most cases, this code will be handed over to the core maintainers, who will then have to deal with it for the rest of the project's lifecycle. There are many documented instances in which FOSS projects are actually suffering because of contributions like this, as they are struggling to maintain the added features long term.

But all the people downvoting this care about is that a public money drain like the military writes some code and throws it into the faces of FOSS developers, even completely disregarding whether these improvements are actually relevant for the everyday user of the software. And again, by contributing I am referring to actually funding the project with significant amounts. We are speaking of a public entity that spends multiple millions on a single fighter jet.

s/rich/dumb/g

This device is not worth the illusionary pricetag of $1423 (converted). Whoever buys this has more pressing issues than their privacy.

Hol'up, your granny can't be bothered to use crypto but she runs a custom ROM and somehow the financial app that will for sure use Google Play Integrity checks is supposed to work on that? And compared to that sending cash and precious metals is too cumbersome?

You and your grandma certainly have some interesting threat vectors defined for yourselves.

If it has a decent camera, use it as a dedicated webcam. If the camera is just okay, convert it to a car dash-cam or a home security camera with integrated UPS, storage, and even fallback connectivity via mobile networks. Use it as a dedicated gaming device, or a music player for non-IoT speakers. Convert it to an LTE modem and make it a fallback for your home internet. Run a Monero node on it. Or a Briar mailbox. Host a personal website on it and make it available via DynDNS. Make use of the phone’s sensors, e.g. the light sensor or the microphone for home automation. Connect it to speakers and use it as a Bitcoin price monitor that plays “You Suffer” by Napalm Death every time BTC passes a certain threshold. Or just use it as a digital photo frame on your desk.

Even though your comment is absolute nonsense under the given post, I fundamentally support your call in general.