Arkenfox is simply a set of configuration you can (and should) apply yourself onto a clean Firefox installation.

A fork means taking the source code and modifying it directly, not providing an alternative configuration file.

Arkenfox is not a fork FYI

Hosting data yourself wouldn’t be required, but it would become an option.

You’d have the option of leaving your identity on your home server, or a separate domain/website, or host your data and identity but use another instance to federate.

Though, designing UX for this will be an interesting challenge.

I think Whoogle does that?

use Tor Browser.

If your concern is fingerprinting, that is undeniably the best there is out of the box.

If you want Tor Browser without having to use the Tor Network, Mullvad is basically just that; Tor Browser without the Network.

If anything, installing GrapheneOS on a Pixel probably reduces the risk of something happening to your phone, that’s kind of the point with having an Android distribution that maximizes security and privacy.

And because the installer is so simple that you just connect your phone, open a browser and hit three buttons, it’s really unlikely that you’ll accidentally brick your phone trying to install it.

yes but active usage doesnt mean it was not used?

If their criteria was “at least 1 person uses it at all, sometimes” then it would not have been removed 🤔

likely no maintenance effort at all.

The maintenance comes less from the code and more from making sure that every single menu added or changed in any way continues to behave correctly in three different sizes with themes and everything.

It’s hidden away behind a flag now because it hasn’t been actively used for years on end.

Not the other way around.

It is essentially just extra maintenance of a feature in Firefox that (statistically) not many people use

As such, it’s marked as “unsupported” to make clear that if any issues arise, Mozilla won’t help you with those issues.

SimpleX is quite a promising project, uses Double Ratchet End-to-End-Encryption (from Signal), and has a very interesting protocol and model to provide quite strong metadata protection, especially in regards to whom you talk to and groups you’re in.

If your threat model requires exceptionally strong Metadata protection, SimpleX is probably going to be your go-to

Though, for a more lenient threat model, where still good, but less laser-focused metadata protection is enough, Signal will probably do just fine.

Personally I use Signal, but I also have a SimpleX Profile, an XMPP Account and Matrix. (preferred in that order)

The “NO AI” clause is conditional, though.

As mentioned in their FAQ, they will reverse that rule when it is “viable in terms of data privacy and ethicality”

unless the rampant ethical and data privacy issues around datasets are resolved via regulation.

Whilst they aren’t VC-Backed, their servers already had to do nearly 10 upgrades, their “AI Detection” is backed by another, third-party AI, and it’s not transparent what said service is.

And to top it off, it’s a closed ecosystem. You upload your art there, and either Cara dies one day and your following is gone, or they change their policies, leadership or anything else, at which point everyone will have to move again

it’s yet another case where the Fediverse and other Federated networks address the core issue that lead to this disaster - content ownership - better than systems like these do. I’m not hopeful for Cara.

Yes, they self-implemented that.

So unlike Heliboard, you don’t need to import Google’s Swypelibs.

Its great, same as their standalone Speech-To-Text Application.

Just FYI, Heliboard (continuation of OpenBoard) has all of the above. Just note that you’ll need to import Google’s Swype library once to use Swipe-To-Type.

Syncthing does have an Android app, but I’ve never looked into doing anything syncthing-related on iOS because I simply don’t have any iOS devices :/

I’ve resorted to just syncing my fault folder using Syncthing externally, surprisingly convenient

NPUs existed before recall and have other uses apart from that.

If you wanna go nuts on the data, probably Obsidian.md with the built-in Daily Note plugin and the Dataview plugin, which allows you to do all kinds of crazy operations on the data in your vault as if it was a database.

If you wanna go less nuts, obsidian still has tagging, linking notes, daily notes, and all kinds of other stuff built-in and is extensible by things like the Calendar plugin from the community.

And everything is stored as plain Markdown with the occasional hint of JSON (for some plugins) so you’re not locked into using Obsidian until the end of time. Your data is yours.

(I realise this sounds like an ad but I’ve just been using Obsidian for years now and I enjoy it)

Just FYI, SearX is dead. Long live SearXNG

Codeberg, woo!