I have been using Xubuntu for about 2 years now, I love that it doesn’t get in the way of doing stuff. It just works, it is stable and I can focus on things I want to use my PC for instead of focusing on keeping it usable.

I always check if the was packaged by the developer. I tend not to trust apps packaged by someone else.

It is not considered a good alternative as a messaging app for privacy folks and because the source code is not open, it is not E2E encrypted by default (you need to start a secret chat or something to make your conversation encrypted) if I remember correctly.

I am using a deGoogled phone and also doing browser separation, I only use google in chromium, never for searching stuff. I was talking about getting an electric toothbrush and my wife googled a big brand to check the price (she does not care about privacy). About 10 minutes later ad blocking was not working for some reason and I starter getting toothbrush ads. I would say it knew somehow that we were in the same household and targeted us both.

Fully agree. I once wanted to try it. I took a look at the documentation for partitioning and realized that I needed 2 full days for a working installation and constant access to another PC to be able to read the documentation… No thanks, I don’t care about the hate, Debian/Ubuntu is up and running in 30 mins and gets out of the way…

I have a European perspective and here you need to pay per text message. Receiving is free, but the bank is charged and they put their charge on me, so they bill me for the messages, unfortunately. In the US SMS is free in most plans as I know.

I always ask if they have a curtain. Why have one, when you have nothing to hide? It blocks the view, sunlight…

Sms is not as secure as a 2FA app or the bank’s own app. SMS verfification also costs money, so it will raise your monthly fees quite much if you wish to receive a text on every transaction.

I looked into this a year ago and most sites did not offer to register a second key, so if you lose your key, you can kiss many of your accesses goodbye. I would never have the key to my digital life on a keychain… The idea is good, but it will cause huge damage if you lose your HW key. On the other hand, if you are cautious and use different PWs and a password manager with 2FA, you are quite safe.