I’m increasingly ready to give Linux another chance. The constant paid storage nagging by the big corporations which he mentions in his video is the same thing that is increasingly getting on my nerves too. I will never pay Google any money, and I really don’t want to switch to Windows 11 once Windows 10 support ends later this year.
So yeah, the time has come to make some changes. Wanted to leave this here because someone with 110 million followers advertising Linux is not to be taken lightly.
I am really surprised that he did not start his own Linux distro
I didn’t know he was so I looked him up. I am still fascinated by the phenomenon of people watching other people play games. When I was a kid, and my cousin (also into computer games) was visiting, we could not wait for the other person to finish so we could take a turn (we had one PC, early 1990s). Watching someone else play was something you just had to wait out, not a source of enjoyment.
For me, being a completely different generation, watching is often more enjoyable. In my teen years this kind of content was only starting out (in CZ/SK region at least) and it is a significant part of my memories from those years.
Watching enabled me to enjoy games that I couldn’t play because of system requirements or the lack of people to play with. In that regard, single-player games tend to be the most attractive to me, although these days I’m barely interested in anything.
A fun fact is that while he was a pioneer of the genre, he was also one of the first to abandon it whilst using the channel to promote “good” behaviors like reading and now using FOSS technology. I don’t follow these youtubers at all nowadays but you’ll have a hard time to find one that promotes reading to such a large fanbase
If you use Linux 100%, I don’t understand really where you struggle to leave Google aside. What do you use from Google then? Or do you mean Android? That’s not true Linux.
Google services, like Gmail, calendar (including calendars shared with family members), Chat, Photos (including shared albums and partner sharing), shared address books (so my wife and I don’t have to add friends’ and teachers’ phone numbers into both of our accounts), shared storage space, Family library for apps purchased from Play Store…
Many of my other online accounts are tied into Google. Yes, I could fix them, but it would be a lot of work. (I’ve been using Gmail since the early 2000s, more than 20 years.)
I have a lot of stuff stored in Google Drive and Google Photos.
I find Google Maps to be superior to any competing offering. The same goes for Google Calendar.
I don’t like the Google ideals, but they have built excellent productivity tools. All of this and probably more make it difficult to move away.
I started watching people play with my younger brother. He was really into Gianna Sisters when we were kids, and I was just rubbish at any such games, but I rooted for him. Definitely more entertaining than watching a bunch of wealthy strangers drive fast in a car, or kick a ball across a field.
I use a self hosted Nextcloud instance for shared calenders, contacts and files. Calendars and adressbooks synced via caldav and carddav on files we have access via webdav.
It isn’t necessary to host the instance on your own there are ready hosted services as well. They cost some money, but no privacy.
Playstore is an Android thing, which I don’t use. But I think there are not much alternatives if you need payed apps on Android.
For free applications there is at first F-Droid but as well aurora store. But these of course makes more sense if one is using a de-googeled phone, with LinageOS or GrapheneOS or whatever else.
If you want true Linux on your phone there is Sailfish, UBports and Mobian.
While I think the Custom ROMs are easy usable for non tech users. Sailfish and Co. are more for that ones who are willing to tinker a bit more and are in love with GNU Linux.
On every alternative there is for sure a loss of comfort. I wouldn’t give any recommendation for any of them, because usecases are very different. And just because for me and my girlfriend Sailfish is fitting very well, that doesn’t mean others would be happy with it.
@Tim If you do some hiking on some lonely spots, you will change your mind regarding google maps. Openstreetmap is most of the times superior to Google maps. Not only because you can have the maps completely offline, but they are more detailed there. At least here in Europe.
An app called Mapy.com (formerly Mapy.cz) is a great app to use in Europe at least, and outside Czech republic it uses OSM data. The interface is pretty good , maps are easy to read and it also has hillshade and isolines. It’s offline usable, but nowadays only one country for free users.
That being said the usability is heavily dependent on OSM coverage in your area, but for hiking at least it’s amazing. Urban areas (reviews of places and photos at least) are far better with Google maps 99% of the time I think.
Video games by themselves are not that interesting to me, which is why I don’t play normal “let’s play” videos. But there are several gaming-related Youtubers whose video essays about games are absolutely fantastic.
I highly recommend e.g. Jacob Geller’s channel. He’s easily in my top three favorite video essayists. His videos are centered mostly around video games and they’re nothing short of amazing, bordering on philosophical treatises. Other favorites, more or less gaming-related, include eurothug4000, Super Eyepatch Wolf and hbomberguy.
And talking about FOSS, a while back I stumbled upon a video about a mod someone made for Doom II. It’s an intricate riddle of a map which references the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Someone made that mod without any hope of ever getting paid for it! I will never play that mod myself, but this video fully explores it and this too comes highly recommended:
Yes, sure. I could insist (without any success, mind you) that my whole family switch email and calendar, and that they no longer use the mobile and web banking (the bank uses its own authenticator app, which you get from the Apple AppStore or from the Google PlayStore) or switch banks. I could tell them they cannot use the public transport company’s app (and pay more for public transport, as there are discounts for tickets in the app); to use a web browser for each chat app, school communication app. And the list goes on. “There’s an app for that”, but mostly only if you go with Google. And not everything is available via a web interface.
As I said, I just described what I do. Not more not less. I’m living not on the dark side of the moon, I’m doing online banking. I’m using public transport as well. There are ways around, but often they are - just like I have written - not as comfortable and sometimes they cost more money. But that is my personal decision and everybody has to make that decision on its own. And whatever decision you made, as long as you are happy with it, everything is fine.
So I absolutely understand your position and the last that I would ever do is to tell people what they have to do or not. I hate proselytisation. It doesn’t matter if it come to religion or lifestyle or whatever.
I’m sorry, I think my post came out harsher / more bitter than I intended. I’m aware of the data collection Google and friends (competitors) do, and I even pay Google money, because their storage is reliable and affordable (my backups are done using borg, so are compressed and encrypted locally, and only then uploaded). They’ve built this golden cage, that’s sooooo comfortable.
You can be as harsh as you want to, I still love you for AgX
Joke aside, even so I don’t know you in person, I think you are a very friendly and polite guy. So no, I did not found your post harsh, it was more that I feared that my post was misunderstood.
