If you have money to spend, look for a Microsoft Surface. It’s amazing how good they work with Linux, despite being a Microsoft device designed to run Windows.
Their build quality is really good, too.
Somewhere between Linux woes, gaming, open source, 3D printing, recreational coding, and occasional ranting.
🇬🇧 / 🇩🇪
If you have money to spend, look for a Microsoft Surface. It’s amazing how good they work with Linux, despite being a Microsoft device designed to run Windows.
Their build quality is really good, too.
Thanks! I just prefer simple UIs.
(Screenshots resized due to not wasting too much space.
Here’s a small one of how a website would look like.
Here’s a larger one of how my new tab page looks like (including multiple tabs to show how the tab bar looks like).
// Enable userChrome.css
user_pref('toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets', true);
// Warnings
user_pref('browser.aboutConfig.showWarning', false);
// Style
user_pref('browser.tabs.inTitlebar', 0);
user_pref('browser.theme.content-theme', 1);
user_pref('browser.theme.toolbar-theme', 1);
// Extensions
user_pref('extensions.activeThemeID', '[email protected]');
user_pref('extensions.pocket.enabled', false);
user_pref('extensions.screenshots.disabled', true);
user_pref('extensions.getAddons.showPane', false);
user_pref('extensions.htmlaboutaddons.recommendations.enabled', false);
// Zoom
user_pref('toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues', '.5,.3,1,1.2,1.3,1.5');
user_pref('devtools.toolbox.zoomValue', '1.4');
user_pref('browser.zoom.siteSpecific', false);
// Privacy
//
// Basically do not leak URLs, IPs, etc. to external services
user_pref('browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.safebrowsing.phishing.enabled', false);
user_pref('security.OCSP.enabled', 0);
user_pref('browser.contentblocking.category', 'custom');
user_pref('app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.urlbar.trending.featureGate', false);
// DoH explicitly off
user_pref('network.trr.mode', 5);
user_pref('network.trr.default_provider_uri', '');
// Cookies
user_pref('network.cookie.cookieBehavior', 2);
// AdBlock
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsoredTopSites', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.topsites', false);
// Remove weird URLS
user_pref('toolkit.shopping.ohttpConfigURL', '');
user_pref('toolkit.shopping.ohttpRelayURL', '');
user_pref('browser.partnerlink.attributionURL', '');
user_pref('browser.privatebrowsing.vpnpromourl', '');
// Do not track
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.emailtracking.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.socialtracking.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.cryptomining.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.fingerprinting.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.donottrackheader.enabled', true);
// Beahvior
user_pref('general.smoothScroll', false);
user_pref('signon.autofillForms', true);
user_pref('signon.firefoxRelay.feature', 'disabled');
user_pref('browser.download.manager.addToRecentDocs', false);
user_pref('security.tls.version.min', 1);
user_pref('browser.profiles.enabled', false);
// UI features
//
// https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/main/user.js
user_pref('browser.discovery.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr.addons', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr.features', false);
user_pref('browser.preferences.moreFromMozilla', false);
user_pref('browser.tabs.tabmanager.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.aboutConfig.showWarning', false);
user_pref('browser.aboutwelcome.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.uidensity', 0);
user_pref('browser.urlbar.trimURLs', false);
user_pref('browser.urlbar.showSearchTerms.enabled', false);
// Telemetry
//
// https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/main/user.js
user_pref('datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled', false);
user_pref('datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.unified', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.server', 'data:,');
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.shutdownPingSender.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.coverage.opt-out', true);
user_pref('toolkit.coverage.opt-out', true);
user_pref('toolkit.coverage.endpoint.base', '');
user_pref('browser.ping-centre.telemetry', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.telemetry', false);
user_pref('breakpad.reportURL', '');
user_pref('browser.tabs.crashReporting.sendReport', false);
user_pref('browser.crashReports.unsubmittedCheck.autoSubmit2', false);
user_pref('app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled', false);
user_pref('app.normandy.enabled', false);
user_pref('app.normandy.api_url', '');
// Disable AI bullshit
//
user_pref('browser.ml.enable', false);
user_pref('browser.ml.chat.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.ml.chat.shortcuts', false);
user_pref('browser.ml.chat.sidebar', false);
user_pref('pdfjs.enableAltText', false);
user_pref('pdfjs.enableUpdatedAddImage', false);
and
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
/* Tabs styling */
#TabsToolbar {
background-color: #cccccc !important;
--toolbarbutton-inner-padding: 0 !important;
}
.tabbrowser-tab {
padding: 0 !important;
}
.tab-background {
margin: 0 !important;
border-radius: 0 !important;
background-color: var(--toolbar-bgcolor) !important;
box-shadow: none !important;
}
#alltabs-button {
display: none !important;
}
#tabbrowser-tabs {
min-height: unset !important;
}
/* secondary label indicators */
@font-face {
/* copy font file to same directory as this CSS file */
font-family: 'SymbolsNerdFont';
src: url('SymbolsNerdFont.ttf') format('truetype');
}
.tab-secondary-label {
display: none;
}
.tab-text::before {
font-family: SymbolsNerdFont;
padding-right: 0.25em;
}
.tabbrowser-tab[soundplaying] .tab-text::before { content: ''; }
.tabbrowser-tab[muted] .tab-text::before { content: ''; }
.tabbrowser-tab[activemedia-blocked] .tab-text::before { content: ''; }
/* unselected tabs */
.tab-background:not([selected]),
.tab-icon-image:not([selected]) {
opacity: 0.4 !important;
}
.tab-text:not([selected]) {
color: #555753 !important;
}
#tabbrowser-arrowscrollbox {
min-height: var(--tab-min-height) !important;
max-height: var(--tab-min-height) !important;
}
scrollbox[part="scrollbox"] {
gap: 2px;
}
and
/* Style about:home and about:newtab */
@-moz-document url-prefix(about:home), url-prefix(about:newtab) {
.logo-and-wordmark {
background-image: url(REPLACE_ME_WITH_YOUR_FAVORITE_IMAGE.jpg);
background-size: cover;
background-position: center;
aspect-ratio: 16/9;
border-radius: 1em;
position: relative;
width: auto;
height: auto;
max-width: 80%;
max-height: 60vh;
margin: 0 auto;
}
.logo-and-wordmark .logo {
display: none !important;
}
.logo-and-wordmark .wordmark {
position: absolute;
right: 2em;
bottom: 0.5em;
--newtab-wordmark-color: #eb8819;
}
}
So … Basically just another preconfigured Firefox with extensions?
Getting a burner phone and account and only tun it on when you want to check the messages is a good start. Do not use any of your real information.
When I left FB a decade ago they didn’t force a phone number for the messenger, thy basically just requested all possible permissions.
GTX 1080 + i7 4790K here: I run an Arch Linux Wayland setup (labwc) on my machine. So I use this for gaming, too.
I have a handful of native games running without any issues. Other games I run on Steam (installed via Flatpak to avoid the 32 bits dependency hell). Never had any REAL issues that were not coming from Nvidia not running well on Linux or Valve not getting Linux support right.
Remember, open-source has a specific meaning; merely publishing your code in public view does not make it open-source.
This strengthens my point even more.
But why would you publicly host code of closed-source software?
I’d either selfhost a Forgejo instance (which I already do) or use Codeberg (which I also do). The Cloudflare thing for selfhosting is something you need to set up on your own, though.
And another reason to not use GitHub for new projects anymore and working on migrating older projects away from it.
I am so glad that I’m using an adblocker that filters out 90% of the crap. The other 10% of the crap are killed by cookie whitelist and Javascript whitelist.
“bookworm” is now oldstable and “bullseye” is oldoldstable.
So “bullseye” got promoted from outdated to antique?
Honestly, I never really cared how I treat my batteries. Neither in my phones, or in my other mobile devices. Just plug in or put it on the wireless charging pod and forget about it. It was always other parts that failed before I noticed something related to the battery.
It’s not 2006 anymore. Batteries and battery management systems have matured – regardless of what “popular tech” magazines and video creators habitually proclaim.
Worry less – and enjoy your device more :)
So it likely is by design(?) I have my phone since release and just noticed it a few months ago.
In my 2 decades of using smartphones I had to replace the screen once (out ow my own stupidity of thinking I could balance everything from one room to another, which I could not, and my phone kissed the tiled floor).
The replacement, including a new screen, cost me €80 and took two days. It was carried out at an official partner store of my phone manufacturer. That’s perfectly fine, considering how convenient it is to have someone else do the work for me.
You don’t need to baby your batteries anymore. The is what the battery management system is for. Just plug it in whenever you feel like – for how long you want to.
It has a learning curve (like all software), yes. But I cannot confirm the crashes.