Because it works, has okay configurations out of the box, and I just don’t really care enough about the points mentioned in this article to make the switch. I only use it for cases where I don’t expect privacy like government websites. As soon as you open an account there they got all your info anyway.

I use Brave as a secondary browser mostly for government websites because sometimes my firefox privacy settings breaks them and since many of them are poorly designed a technical issue over your account may result in hours on the phone to resolve.

“Strong opinions loosely held”

Implying you should have the courage to fight for what you believe is right but not hold onto them once you’re proven wrong.

I learned this as a company culture thing from one of my previous employers and not sure if there’s another source for it. I did not like that employer very much in the end but this quote has been stuck with me since and I live by it.

fedora 38

pixel 6 pro in order to use graphene os

Unfortunately the sad reality is most people are more than happy to trade privacy and freedom for convenience and safety. As long as people don’t change there will always be bad actors trying to exploit that weakness, whether that’s a company or a government. I’m pessimistic about the masses but I want to help keeping the communities of people who care alive.

Good question. If my goal is to get them off these platforms then quitting cold turkey myself wouldn’t work as I found out when I quitted the fb website. For me, that has been mostly inconsequential, but messenger on the other hand is a harder nut to crack due to all the group chats. My best hope is probably to convince some of them to migrate over time, while lose contact with the rest when I move to a different city.

Well, in real life I probably do appear to be an autistic security nut to some. I don’t blame people from thinking this way because I came from that place too. You just don’t realize how important infosec is until you do.

I did actually manage to quit FB the website for the past two years and it was largely inconsequential, but if I quit Messenger right now I’d probably loose a good chunk of my contacts. I’m not ready to take that step yet.

I agree with most what you said here. I’d also add I personally believe I’m not in the place to tell my friends to switch platforms without them actually understanding for themselves why infosec is important. I’m trying to do some of the education but it’s a slow process. Maybe when I move to a different city and lose contact most of them the transition would be automatic. In the meantime I’ll need to continue using these services and try to keep my exposure to a minimum.

loool seems like our biggest agreement so far is that we’re engaging in civil discussion… although other folks watching think otherwise

I made the first step a couple years ago which was quitting FB the website, but I still have one foot in the swamp that is messenger. I’m still working on getting my parents onto signal, so far haven’t succeeded yet. Some people can quit cold turkey like what you did, but others like me take time.

I don’t think using sarcasm as means to express disagreement, and provide examples so that the other party could better understand your viewpoint should be seen as escalating conflict. The other gentleman’s statement although is something I disagree with, but still well with the boundaries of civil discussion, so I’m not seeing a need to report anything.

Well everyone that I have on messenger are people I met in real life, messenger is just my equivalent of text, I’d love them to all migrate to signal, but that’s easier said than done.

ahhh yes, just remove myself from my social circle, why didn’t I think of that?

Agreed. By the same definition fb has been dying for almost a decade, but I’m still forced to use the messenger app since all my friends are on there.