Honestly, I don’t even remember it being that funny. I haven’t gave it a second thought since its release. The power of social media marketing, I guess.

If you’ve never seen Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, I’d encourage you instead to take a look at Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz, both really good movies.

That is stage 1.

This is stage 2.

Yeah, YT is the last holdout for me. It’s literally the only Google service I willingly sign up for. I’ve tried Piped/Invidious, but they don’t match YTs quality.

Hello, the UK and the NHS. Well over a decade of budget cuts, mixed with corporate political “donations” (to both majour parties), is leading to this end. Some parts are already privatised.

It’s one of the better options.

For a start, even if you run it stock, it’s somewhat on par with the iPhone (depending who you ask). You’re trusting one company with your data, Google. You’re not trusting Google AND Samsung, or Google AND Huawai. It’s just Google. Plus Google does offer good security, so your data/device is pretty secure. In comparison to Samsungs Knox… while better than a lot of other Android security stuff, is kinda bad.

Though, the real privacy win for the Pixel, is it DOES allow you to modify it. You can remove Google’s version of Android, and change to Calyx or Graphine OS. Both of which are fantastic options, that allow you to really lock things down.

This isn’t surprising. China is a powerful foreign enemy. We shouldn’t be surprised that they’re spying on us. They have been for decades. Just the same as we (I hope) are spying on them.

A TV will do, for a child. He doesn’t NEED anything fancy. Will it be a great experience? Absolutely not. Others here have already gone over the issues. That being said, if cash flow is an issue (relatable), it’ll be fine. Console gamers have been doing it for literal decades. I also used to do it, back when I was a kid, when we had an old 480i TV. Your kid should be grateful that he can play his games. People can spend too much time worrying about not getting the best experience (especially when giving advice to others), when it’s often not needed.

Honestly, I’m not surprised. Not just because of their lack of privacy (them knowing your bookmarks), but also legally. Some countries are trying to crack down on piracy, and other illegal material, asking companies (like Google) to do this.

Bottom line, don’t use Chrome, and Google Sync.

IGG is a cracking group with a mixed reputation. Early on they distributed malware, which continues to give them a negative reputation. Though, I haven’t heard of anything bad about them, in some time… some repackers also use their cracks, with no issues. I think they were the first that cracked the latest Armoured Core, for example.

Tutanota and Proton are often recommended services. I personally prefer Tutanota, and their encryption. Though, Proton has a nice suite of services, that is worth looking into. Namely their VPN and Drive..

Even finding Lemmy was not easy. Just doing a search brought up Lemmy from Motörhead. Talented guy, but not really what I wanted. It took me awhile before I even found an instance, and that was only because of a YT video. Most folks will just use the first page of their chosen search engine, and then give up.

Then signing up to… pretty much anything federated is a confusing experience for new users. Trying to wrap your head around instances, communities, and so on. “Why does there have to be an XYZ community at Example instance, when there already is one on ABC Instance? Can’t they just merge? What’s the point? What if I want to be a part of example instance, but want to subscribe to communities on the ABC instance?“

When signup is done, but you then enabled 2FA. You input the string on your app, click apply. Then when you try to log back in, you find you’re logged out, and don’t know why. It’s because Lemmy is one of the few services to use SHA256, and not SHA1. So it doesn’t work with something like Bitwarden. I had to find a GitHub post to find out why this was happening. Not a good first impression.

Then when you subscribe to communities they’re either lacking in content, or reposting, sometimes from another instance.

There seems to be issues with posting media, and the whole integration with other ActivityPub seems to need some work.

Overall I think all this is growing pains. I wouldn’t say the service is ready, but I don’t think it’ll be ready, until it onboards new users. However I don’t think many new users (non-technical users especially) will stay, due to the issues above.

Should note that their GitHub says:

We update Molly every two weeks to include the latest features and bug fixes from Signal. The exceptions are security issues, which are patched as soon as fixes become available.

I’m not sure on their track record, but if their claims are true, this could be a fine, secure client.