As a Linux user and a FOSS advocate, there are some things that I have done that could be better, but all in all, it's not that bad, is it?
This feels a bit cringe for me to write, because I think nobody actually cares about what programs, tools, applications, projects or practices you choose, use or support, at least until you make it public, and people can comment on it.
So, this is mostly a critique from me for myself as things that I personally see as issues, but will probably not do much about them anyway. I am perfectly aware of whatever reasons there are to avoid X or Y, or to switch to A or B, I just don’t bother, at least at the moment! So, let’s begin.
📧 Desktop email clients? nope
This is not that big of a deal, but it is something I feel like I could do more but I’m lazy about it. There are some tools on my uses’ page that I rarely touch, for a variety of reasons.
Neomutt, for example, I don’t use often because there are barely any plain text emails to check, and it does not update emails automatically. There are of course ways to turn html to plain text but a lot of the time it just looks ugly.
Thunderbird is much better but for the laziest of reasons I haven’t logged in to all my accounts, just one, and haven’t bothered with the rest yet. Once I do, it might be it for me, honestly, but right now I’m using web clients whenever I need and calling it a day. I have failed you all.
At least Disroot’s web client is FOSS.
📱 A non-degoogled phone
I used to have a phone without any kind of Google services, I honestly barely had any problems for a very long time, but once I switch phones, I just kind of didn’t mind installing it for the sake of convenience. I still have a custom ROM with a very light set of Gapps, and of course I install a bunch of my apps from F-Droid and Obtainium, but I still feel dirty.
🤡 Being a normie social media user
Using Discord and WhatsApp implies this already, but I want to make it clearer, I still use Facebook, Instagram and Reddit. I simply do, I keep up with friends, react to non-foss, non-tech, non-gaming related memes and even watch vertical videos. I don’t post anything there anymore, but yeah, I still use them sometimes.
I remember even being kind of smug about it in early days when I joined Mastodon and the smaller web, and deleted Instagram and Reddit (I never got rid of Facebook), but eventually I created new accounts for what was gone, so, yep, at least I no longer have them installed on my phone.
🪟 Still having a Windows partition
I use Windows at work, but that’s to be expected, however, I also have it on my laptop! I actually rarely use it anymore, except for a couple of programs. I think I’m finally at a point where I can get rid of it very soon though, but I haven’t had the time to actually do it.
👨💻 Not enough TUI or CLI programs
I don’t feel too bad about this one, I still use the terminal a lot, especially for neovim and navigating through my system directories and the like. However, there are many things I have set up that I just don’t really use. Starting with what I already mentioned, neomutt, I simply don’t use it enough. Sometimes many days go by where I use it often, especially to reply to email people send me (doesn’t happen often) and the like, but still.
Another tool I haven’t used in a while is Newsboat, an RSS client that works great! But I find myself choosing the web client for FreshRSS over it, especially now that they finally added proper sorting by date and other neat features.
For unarchiving zip and tar files I just do it with a GUI, and not even a platform-agnostic one that looks fine on dwm, I use file-roller, and it’s the ugliest looking program, since it disrespects my GTK theme and, and I haven’t bothered to do anything about it.
🛍 Subscriptions and purchases on non-free platforms
I am currently subscribed to YouTube Premium, Spotify and Max, I make regular purchases on AliExpress and Steam as well. To various degrees, these platforms probably track and store all kinds of data about its users for surveillance and advertising purposes, Steam is probably the best generally but still not the ideal, but well, here we are, I’m a part of the machine, and it’s hard to leave it.
⛓ Choosing proprietary platforms
Yes, if you check my monthly summaries, you will see some common apps that are obviously not great to use, but alas.
I use WhatsApp because it’s the most popular chat app in my country, I love Signal and if you use it and want to chat, I’m totally up for it! But almost nobody I know in real life uses it.
Discord is genuinely good, if convoluted, but I truly enjoy some of the communities I have found there, and I don’t think Matrix or any other alternative comes close to it.
I have a few games on GOG, but the few times I play computer games, I usually prefer to get them from Steam, I know of Lutris, and I already use Heroic launcher for my Epic and GOG games, they’re great, but still lacks some of the social features that Steam has.
Google Maps, Paypal, Banking apps, Nintendo Switch, AliExpress, my gym’s app, among others.
Final thoughts
What is expected from a FOSS enthusiast? A Linux user? A privacy minded individual? Surely not the things I’ve confessed here. But well, I’m not perfect, I have been better in some respects, but life and laziness just got in the way, somewhat.
Maybe when I started this blog I used and discovered more terminal tools all the time, or I tried to stick to FOSS communities in FOSS platforms and get rid of the rest, and I didn’t even have credit card information to give away to online services, but well, a lot of that went down the drain now.
Honestly though, I’m somewhat happy where I’m at, I’ve made a lot of concessions, there’re some things I want to get rid of, but sometimes the choice is only between two bad options, just look at Mozilla ruining things for everybody once again.
Still, I think I can still strive to be more conscious about my decisions and not give in to the dire world of today.
