Well everyone, we've almost done it, another year in the books. And well...it's certainly been a year, hasn't it? The environment has seen better days to be sure, politics in general is messy to say the least, and oh yes, who could forget our lovely global pandemic? But despite all of that, there are still things to celebrate. The state of tech for the privacy-conscious is doing surprisingly well, and so I thought I'd make a short video to highlight some of my favorite open-source and open-web tech tools.
Ubuntu Linux is, for me, both an end and a beginning. I've used Linux on-and-off since the late-90s, starting with Redhat Linux 6, but it was always a short and torrid affair, with both parties drifting apart as these things often do. That was until Ubuntu Linux 19.10. With that release, I finally found a Linux distro that I could easily make my daily-driver, and that's been the case now for the last few years. The latest release of Ubuntu, version 20.10 has been just as pleasant, and the future continues to look bright for Ubuntu.
And so, with the end of my search for a Linux distribution I could be happy with, I also began down a new road with a much more privacy-respecting operating system than Windows.
Firefox is a bit of a different story than my Linux experience. I was an avid user of Firefox since the earliest days when it was still using the Phoenix branding. It was my everyday browser for years, up until Google released Chrome, and like many others, I switched over to the fast, new upstart browser. However, over the years Google has transformed from the loveable startup looking to index the web, and into a data-privacy dystopian nightmare.
Fortunately, all the while, team Mozilla had continued fighting the good fight, and over the last few years Firefox has shed much of its architectural dead-weight and has once again been reborn into a modern browsing experience. I support using Firefox for many reasons nowadays, not the least of which is to ensure that Google doesn't have a stranglehold over the direction of web rendering.
Escaping the maw of Google on the browser was a simple matter of installing Firefox (or as was the case with Ubuntu Linux, simply clicking the Firefox app icon). But what about cloud storage? Or online doc editing? Or video chat? Or...well, you see where I'm going with this. Say what you want about Google, but they make a lot of great web products.
That's why I was so excited to find Nextcloud. Initially, I installed it simply because I was trying to understand how to run a self-hosted web service, but it has quickly transformed into my everything private-cloud. Considering it takes less than 15 minutes to install via Snap package, and has included features and extensible apps to replace a majority of the non-private cloud services I use, it wasn't a surprise that Nextcloud quickly went from a neat test to an indispensible tool.
Do you believe it's important to keep your most personal conversations private? If you answered yes to that...and I really think you should...then please stop sending messages over text and WhatsApp. Signal is a wonderful open-source project that uses true encryption to keep your messages safe. The mobile Android app is a really pleasant experience, and it even syncs messages to your desktop, including Linux. Do yourself a favor, and give it a try in 2021 if you haven't already!
Last, but certainly not least, is PeerTube. This is a project that is near-and-dear to my heart, because it powers and makes possible the TILvids community. As with so many other entries on this list, Google has aggressively wormed their way into so many aspects of our digital lives, and online video is no exception, thanks to YouTube. It really is a terrible platform though, harvesting private user data to monetize around with ads, and driving creators to build endless top-10 lists and influencer vlogs, all in an attempt to move up the charts.
PeerTube is different. By decentralizing the power structure of online video, anyone can start their own video community. This stops users from having their data harvested and being constantly bombarded with ads, and also allows creators to focus on creating content that their community will love, rather than endless streams of mindless drivel. I can't underscore enough how excited I am to watch the future of PeerTube unfold, and look forward to incorporating these new ideas into the TILvids community.
So that's my list of my personal favorite privacy tech, as we head into 2021. What do you think? Did I miss something you love? Is there anything I should be looking into this year? Leave some thoughts down below, I'm always excited to hear about new developments in the data-privacy world!
================
CREDITS
Plains by Billow Observatory is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
https://soundcloud.com/billow-observatory/plains
Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Icons made by srip from www.flaticon.com
