I figured this may lead to an interesting discussion in the comments.

How has your use of Technology changed in the past year? I’ll start.

  • Due to the rise of streaming services and Sony/discovery removing content from libraries, I downloaded all my iTunes purchases onto a 2TB SSD (which I’ll soon need to get another).

  • Like many, I’ve stopped using Reddit outside of Google search.

  • I’ve reduced my subscriptions to just two. (Apple One and Google One)

  • I’ve purchased DVDs/Blu rays of my favorite uncensored shows (Family Guy and American Dad) and ripped them and watch them through Cloud storage (Google Drive via Infuse for Apple platforms, and Kodi for Windows)(I’ve also purchased MakeMKV just because it is so damn useful)

  • I’ve used Google App Scripts to bypass some Gmail limitations to make filters that I otherwise couldn’t. For instance, in Outlook.com, you can block email addresses and domains before you have ever gotten an email from them. In Gmail, you can’t. The best you can do is create a filter that deletes them. In my case, I’ve created a Google App Script that runs every hour and looks for (@.mil) domain emails and marks them as spam. (I am in college, and I fucking hate that they give my email to recruiters.)

  • DrillingStricken@programming.devEnglish
    181·
    6 months ago

    Ditched Windows for Linux, man, feelin’ free like a bird. No more Microsoft bullshit, nah. And instead of Google Search, I’m rollin’ with SearXNG. It’s like Google but decentralized, no data sellin’, straight up respectin’ my privacy. Open source all day, every day, that’s my way now.

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I’ve done mostly the same thing! Good to know I’m not alone in doing that stuff this year

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.mlEnglish
    14·
    6 months ago

    I’ve started archiving my media much more vigorously. Due to the corpos enshitifying so much, the amount of media I have ripped and preserved on my own NAS has exploded.

    I started torrenting again for the first time since college.

    I gave up reddit and use Lemmy and Fediverse exclusively, except for the occasional tech issue I have and then search old reddits for advice/solutions.

    I watch YT exclusively through GrayJay, NewPipe, and FreeTube now.

    I’ve become much more active converting people to Linux. So far I convinced two friends to buy Steam Decks, one friend to buy a Framework laptop and put Fedora on it, converted my parents to Linux Mint, and may have two more people switching to Linux on their main computers in the coming year.

    I’ve also been pushing more FOSS software and hardware to family and friends, trying to convince them to care more about right to repair, FOSS and the like.

    This year I am planning to build a new NAS that will be a self-hosted defeater for streaming and get my close friends and family onboard. Hopefully they will slowly give up their subscriptions.

    We’ll see how it all goes, but I’m very optimistic about FOSS tech in the coming months and years, so much great stuff happening!

    • BoisZoi@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I definitely feel the enshittification of such platforms will/has led to some great software, updates, and alternative front ends. It sucks seeing platforms decay, however, I love seeing the fightback from users who aren’t going to tolerate bullshit from any company.

  • Iceblade@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    6 months ago

    • Stopped using reddit & facebook

    • started using the fediverse

    • Got my own domain and set up an email via proton

    • vanced->revanced->greyjay

      • Iceblade@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        6 months ago

        It’s pretty good actually. No ads and you can access videos from a lot of platforms in the one app (including premium ones if you have a subscription to them). It also makes it easier to follow a single creator across platforms. Also, lets you download videos for offline access, allows casting, PiP and a bunch of other stuff.

        My only real complaint is that the recommendations aren’t very good yet, so I end up going back to YT/revanced to discover new stuff, and there currently isn’t any way to use sponsorblock with it.

        Still, considering it’s in alpha, great stuff.

  • mertn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    6 months ago

    Dumped reddit, Google, streaming, android apps and Facebook. Replaced with proton, Plex, Lemmy. Grapheneos, kagi and mastodon.

  • jcrabapple@infosec.pubEnglish
    9·
    6 months ago

    I completely gave up on Google Search and started using Kagi which has changed the way I find things on the Internet.

    Switched from Chrome to Firefox.

  • u_u@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    6 months ago

    I’ve done and tinkered with many things in 2023 like most of us here (migrated to lemmy, degoogle, unsubscribed to streaming services, linux, etc). Some things that are less known that I think worth to mention are:

    • Using shift+right click to open the full context menu in Windows 11
    • Finally set an Address bar shortcut for searching reddit content with Google. No more typing “site:reddit.com…”
    • Anilist with TachiyomiJ2K(mobile)+Taiga(desktop)+Mal-Sync(browser extension) for maximum anime/manga tracking automation!
    • My only shame in 2023: Creating a Facebook account (anonymous account) for the messenger and local hobby groups. All I can say is Facebook seemed to intentionally obfuscate its setting/option menus because they’re all scattered in different pages and just a plain mess. f u zuck
  • Swarfega@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    6 months ago

    Moved to Proton mail from GMail. At the same time I purchased a new domain and got SimpleLogin to create new aliases for all my sites and services. The only site that knows my real address is Proton itself and SimpleLogin.

    I also ditched Chrome for Firefox. I honestly prefer Chrome but hate how controlling Google is with Chrome. I also switched to Duckduckgo. I’ve never actually felt less tracked in a long time as a result. Actually eye opening. I used Incognito so often for Google searches to not be tracked. Now I can search freely without then seeing ads or content related to that search elsewhere.

  • wolo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    7·
    6 months ago

    Got rid of all of my centralized social media accounts apart from YouTube, moved from Proton to Migadu on my own domain (unlimited aliases! when signing up for a service I can just make up a new username and it gets organized into a folder in my inbox!), and moved my homelab and laptop to NixOS

  • hulemy@ani.socialEnglish
    6·
    6 months ago
    • Started using Mastodon and Lemmy
      • Deleted Reddit account
    • Changed a lot of my apps to FOSS alternatives using NeoStore
    • Got a text-based launcher (Lunar Launcher)
    • Started contributing to community projects
    • Set up a JellyFin server

    Probably some more but I forgot. My case fans are really loud though when I keep my pc on at night to keep running the JF server for my users. Perhaps I should have bought a P600S case with the dampening foam. Looking into buying a Pi 4 this year to run services on instead of my main rig.

    Really am enjoying using FOSS software, even though it can be a little limiting in some ways. AAAAXY is a really fun game btw!

  • hawgietonight@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    6 months ago

    I finally got myself a pihole up and running. Yeah and the regular stuff… ditched reddit, got protonmail and trying to move my kids to using popos.

    • blazeknave@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      What’s your setup with your kids? Just got my son a used hp laptop bc I learned the hard way he needed java Minecraft (not available on iPad) to connect to the server I built for him. Used a friend’s employee f&f discount for Win11 seat.

      Now that it’s here, I kinda want to hook him up with some of my strategy, management, sim, etc games from Steam.

      No idea how people do this. He’s in grade school.

      • hawgietonight@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Well, my older one was on raspberry os for a while, because she just needed a web for school stuff, but I couldn’t get movie streaming working, and she was starting with video projects the SD wasn’t enough so I ended up getting her a laptop without pre-installed os and set it up with Fedora, and to date no serious problems.

        The younger one has my old Ryzen 1700 PC, and tried Fedora first and couldn’t get his games (Roblox or Fortnite) to work, but did get Steam to work… So without much investigation I just tried another distro based off Debian, and gave a try to popos. Same thing. Reading about it, it’s deliberate these developers don’t want their games working on Linux.

        So I’ve temporarily swapped his ssd with a windows 10 setup until I can get him to give up these games. I guess age will do it :(

  • Hammerheart@programming.devEnglish
    6·
    6 months ago

    I started learning to program in February, which reinvigorated my love of computers. I discovered awesome new software like syncthing, and just recently started daily driving linix (debian 12) and its been great. Just little things like customizing my wall paper which i havent done for years. 2023 was a great year for me and tech.

    Oh and i switched from chrome to Firefox, looks like that’s been a common theme for the year!

  • d3Xt3r@lemmy.nzEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    • Switched from GNOME to KDE

    • Switched to immutable distros (my own fork of Bazzite)

    • Started using the Nix package manager

    • Started using containers (Distrobox, Docker).

    • Started using mobox to play Windows games on my Android phone

    • Switched from Hacker’s Keyboard to Unexpected Keyboard

  • FiveMacs@lemmy.caEnglish
    61·
    6 months ago

    I’ve stopped trusting anything online due to AI being a cancer on the internet and it’s only going to get worse.