Notices by switching.social (switchingsocial)

Reminder why switching.social does NOT recommend using Brave:

-Brave is a for-profit ad sales and cryptocurrency promotion company, funded by venture capital firms. Its primary purpose is to make money, not protect privacy.

-Top of the list of Brave's VC owners is Founders Fund, which is Peter Thiel's company ( https://web.archive.org/web/20190831163230/https://basicattentiontoken.org/ )

-Peter Thiel is also the head of Palantir, which makes its money by spying on the general public ( https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/ )

#Brave #PeterThiel #Palantir

Skype is owned by Microsoft and all its calls pass through MS servers. No one knows what MS does with the data it gathers.

Jami is a free open alternative with no servers at all, calls connect directly between users. It's very easy to use, and a good privacy-friendly replacement for Skype.

Their website is at:

https://jami.net

You can follow Jami on the Fediverse at:

@Jami

The app is available for all major platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux.

#DeleteSkype

#GIMP is a free open source alternative to Photoshop. It's probably the leading free graphics software, with new releases for over 22 years so far ?

It's intended for photographers, illustrators, designers etc and lets you manipulate photos and create graphics.

It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux from the official site:

https://www.gimp.org

You can also follow GIMP on here:

@GIMP

#AlternativesAtoZ #GIMP #Photography #Graphics #PhotoShop #FLOSS #FOSS #OpenSource

#F-Droid is an open source ethical alternative to Google Play, and can be installed on most Android devices.

Unlike commercial app stores, apps on F-Droid are free, open source and privacy-friendly.

You can find out more at:

https://f-droid.org/

If you have any questions, you can follow their official account on here at:

@fdroidorg

#AlternativesAtoZ #Fdroid #DeleteGoogle #AppStores

#CreativeCommonsMusic can be legally shared non-commercially because it's published under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.

Some CC music sites:

https://jamendo.com - like iTunes but for CC music

http://magnatune.com - human-curated CC music label

http://ccmixter.org - CC remix community

https://libre.fm - like last.fm but for CC music

(thank you @strypey for links!)

CC music is also perfect for @funkwhale ?

#CreativeCommons #Music

The @GetTogetherComm project is making an open source federated alternative to MeetUp.com.

You can already use their first instance (https://gettogether.community) but they need help with building the federation side of things, so that instances can link together and with the rest of the Fediverse.

If you're a coder and interested in helping, you may want to take a look at this post:

https://fosstodon.org/@GetTogetherComm/101059017163892510

#OpenSource #FLOSS #FOSS

Write Freely, the open source federated version of write.as, has just got its first release:

https://github.com/writeas/writefreely/releases/tag/v0.1.0

The official Write Freely site is here:

https://writefreely.org/

Write Freely federates with ActivityPub so you can follow its blogs from the fediverse.

There should be an official launch announcement soon by the official blog at @writefreely

To avoid confusion, yes, there have been two new Mastodon apps for iOS launched recently:

Toot! ( @tootapp )
https://itunes.apple.com/app/toot/id1229021451

Mast ( @JPEG )
https://itunes.apple.com/app/mast/id1437429129

Twitter -> #Mastodon and #Pleroma

Facebook -> Friendica (https://friendi.ca)

DropBox/Google Drive -> @nextcloud

YouTube -> #PeerTube ( @Chocobozzz )

Instagram -> @pixelfed and @anfora

GrooveShark -> @funkwhale

MeetUp -> @GetTogetherComm

Medium -> #Plume ( @BaptisteGelez ), @write_as and @dev

Reddit -> @prismo and Anancus ( @tuxether )

Google Calendar -> @calendar_social

Feedly -> @read_as

500px -> @peerpx

Friendica, the federated open source alternative to Facebook, has just released its 2018.09 update:

https://friendi.ca/2018/09/23/friendica-2018-09-released/

The 2018.12 update (due by the end of the year) will apparently include #ActivityPub support :blobcheer: :blobaww: :blobgrin:

You can try Friendica out right now on instances such as https://squeet.me, https://libranet.de, https://nerdica.net and others:
https://dir.friendica.social/servers

You can also follow the Friendica blog at @news

#DeleteFacebook

There's an amazing number of #ActivityPub #alternatives now available or under development:

Twitter -> @Mastodon and #Pleroma

Instagram -> @pixelfed and @anfora

YouTube -> #PeerTube ( @Chocobozzz )

Soundcloud -> @funkwhale

MeetUp -> @GetTogetherComm

Medium -> #Plume ( @BaptisteGelez )

Reddit -> @prismo and Anancus ( @tuxether )

LinkedIn -> @cloutstream

Google Calendar -> @calendar_social

Anything missing from the list? What else is needed?

#Federation #Fediverse

It's #FollowFriday again, time for some #Alternatives ?

@ring Ring: The decentralised open source alternative to Skype

@Tusky Tusky: Popular Mastodon phone app by @ConnyDuck

@elementary Elementary: Easy-to-use open source operating system based on Ubuntu Linux

@Framasoft Framasoft: The leading French promoter of free software (en français)

@GIMP GIMP: Open source alternative to Photoshop

#FFed

Previous #FF posts:
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/100406572166748332

#Ring, the excellent open source decentralised alternative to #Skype, has been recently updated.

You can get it for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux:

https://ring.cx/en/download

It's in all the app stores including Apple, Google Play and F-droid. (NOTE: Make sure you have the right "Ring", there's also another company's similarly-named but totally unconnected home security app.)

You can also follow Ring's developers on Mastodon:

@hle
@pierreduchemin
@AmarOk

#DeleteSkype #DeleteMicrosoft

TIL if you want to subscribe to a #Mastodon account via #RSS or #Atom, just add .rss or .atom to the end of their profile page's address.

For example:

Profile page:
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial

RSS feed:
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial.rss

Atom feed:
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial.atom

#News #Feeds #NewsFeeds #FeedReaders #NewsAggregation #Aggregation #ReallySimpleSyndication

There's an #ActivityPub federated calendar/events site in development called Calendar.social at @calendar_social

It's still very early days, but if you're interested or want to help out, have a look:

https://social.polonkai.eu/@calendar_social

https://gitea.polonkai.eu/gergely/calendar-social

The developer is @gergely

#FOSS #Calendar #Events #Federation #Fediverse #OpenSource

.@mhall119 is developing an ethical alternative to #MeetUp called #GetTogether.

There's already a flagship site up and running:

https://gettogether.community/

The dev is working on #ActivityPub support and is requesting feedback on what more needs to be done:

https://github.com/GetTogetherComm/GetTogether/issues/60

If you're interested in helping federate GetTogether, join the discussion at the link above.

#Alternatives

We already know that automated content filters don't work. They put absolute power over content in the hands of a system that is opaque and broken.

A couple of days ago YouTube took down all of the Blender Foundation's videos from the Blender Foundation's channel due to a copyright claim by... the Blender Foundation.

The BF is an official YT partner, but days later they still cannot get a straight answer from YT about what is going on:

https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/1007952844329189377

https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/1008677459640881152

If you use #GoogleDrive, you are also allowing Google to do whatever they want with your files: they can read them, copy them, give them to anyone else, make derivative works, even publish them online without your permission (see attached screenshot). #DropBox is similar.

In other words, private files uploaded to Google Drive are no longer private.

You might want to try #privacy aware #NextCloud instead, which actually lets you control who gets to see/use your stuff:

https://switching.social/ethical-alternatives-to-dropbox-google-drive-and-google-docs/