this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Me Trying To Use The Internet (media.moule.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I'd like it if there was a 3rd web. Not normie web, not dark web, but 90's-2000 web where it felt like anything could happen and you needed some skill and willpower to get online. That way you had to earn it and so did the others, so there was a lot less marketing, propaganda and conspiracy theory on it.

I don't know what the rules or parameters would have to be to re-initiate that now.

PS just like the joining process on Lemmy filters out the lazy people without much initiative to tinker and find new places to hang out before they are cool and streamlined.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Early 2000 web was the best web. Our student flat had just moved from dial up to ASDL so download speed felt incredible. I would StumbleUpon new an fantastic websites all night long. Play Flash games for hours. Or with friends, gross ourselves out on rotten dot com. TPB and Limewire to build my music library, but always seeding above 1 of course because sharing is caring. And not forgetting the chatrooms...
When Jack from Lost said "We have to go back!!", this is what he was talking about.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You had to work for your series, movies and music. You had to know what you want to obtain it. You weren't force-fed content you never asked for. You really think there's no more good music? There is but being bombarded with the commercial sh*t makes you wary of searching more of it.

You had to work for it to get online and have stuff work, so you'd have to show determination. Which would mean you'd understand the value of access to information and communication. Now you're bombarded with contradictory information pretty much constantly without even asking, accessing info isn't the problem anymore, it becomes an effort to keep any focus or quality of information whatsoever. And that's a soft skill.

And lastly, politics and big corporations now live on the internet with us. Their target audiences are those most intellectually defenseless people. But basically the whole internet has become centered around those. Because they can't discern and are basically technologically illiterate and don't understand how easy it is to feed them terrible commercials, propaganda and misinformation.

The internet becomes overregulated because of those users, and we get bombarded with marketing and politics because of them too. It's become a shit show and all you can do is navigate and use it extremely selectively. Remember, these 'normies' are the parents of the 20-30 year Olds who once judged them for spending too much time on their PCs and phones.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So, we need a new internet community, with barriers against "normies", so that only people with tech knowledge or friends of such can get in? Pretty much sounds like we're already here. A few years ago I would've said "try the dark web" but TOR browser's pretty much made that easy. Plus bitcoin's way too volatile to spend now, and the eth rates are ridiculous. But, if you ask for shady, you get shady.

Nowadays, I recommend decentralized networks and self-hosting wherever possible. I personally can't do it due to my living conditions, but as soon as I can break free of this place I will absolutely have the best home setup I can get at a reasonable price, and I'll donate my excess compute time to BOINC.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Neato! I used boinc for a while too :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Is that the little purple gorilla guy?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People have to feel funded, safe, and comfortable to make stuff for free to share with others, right now everyone feels like they need to make the absolute most money possible.

What will make a more neutral internet is a better world. Our virtual one and our real one are pretty interlinked and one can not be poisoned without it spreading to the other.

[–] Piemanding 1 points 1 year ago

So you're saying that the more people we pay well, the more good free resources we get. What a novel idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You could just use a network like Retroshare or something like that.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 1 year ago

Step one, get rid of the money. You want to host something? Use your own computer and eat the cost. Do not run ads to "offset expenses." If they fall short you'll make them worse and they'll still disappoint you. If you manage to profit then that's what the project becomes about.

Step two, get rid of the Nazis. Your forum does not need iron-clad rules demanding nobody ever swear at anyone else. You do not need to litigate reasons someone is no longer welcome, or gets a month-long time out to consider other hobbies. You know good and goddamn well when one rando is casually sassing another for spouting off some nonsense, and when some bastard troll is seriously and correctly being told where to shove it. If you don't trust yourself to make that distinction, nine times out of ten, in a matter of seconds - do not run a forum. The trolls will woo you and take over before you know what's going on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There is...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

The internet never used to be like this. It used to be full of shitty GIFs and under construction signs. Also don't forget to sign the guest book and be impressed with the high hit counter.

Yahoo! Also ruled as a search engine.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imagining a fresh default computer with a new user just sitting down with no blockers of any kind and just wandering around is like imagining a baby sheep in a dark forest. sweat

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thus, the purest representation of hope (post from yesterday)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Ain't that the truth!

Current EDC,

Mozilla Firefox with:

  • uBlock Origin
  • SponsorBlock for Youtube...
  • Dark Reader
  • Video Background Play fix

Anyone have any other recommendations or better systems?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You could level up by adding uMatrix and plug any and all leaks of data, not just the big ones like ads and cookies. But then you're a bit into control freak territory.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Privacy badger is also a great tool, made by EFF themselves

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Way better as Privacy Badger is Trace, but sadly disattended since several years, but in the stores and still works. Currently i use JShelter

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Clickbait remover for YouTube, Now with the new YT anti adblock policy with nasty Popups, Adblock Plus works better in YT than uBO to avoid this crap. You also can watch most YT videos sandboxed in Andisearch or on desktop with SMPlayer (Right click on the player and paste YT link in "Open > URL"). If you have an Google account, you can opt out your YT subscriptions and playlist (deselect all other in the list) and export this to Odysee (online service from IMDB), which is IMHO the best alternatve to YT (better are PeerTube and other decentralized streaming services, but not if you prefer a decent amount of videos)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Wow, awesome!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I setup Adguard home on a rpi4 and run all our devices through its dns with all filters enabled ( Probably overkill tbh).

40% of our traffic is trapped. 40%!! we don’t do anything on internet beyond the usual but it’s interesting that a massive chunk of our traffic is just something tracking our movements.

If interested, our device are Google tv, couple fire sticks, iPad, MacBook and windows laptop. each one pretty much contributes to the tracking evenly and to their respective brand tracking urls, although msh.amazon urls are the highest scores.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yes! I route my cell phone's traffic through Adguard DNS and roughly HALF the phone's traffic each month is blocked as tracking activity. I knew the spying was bad, but I thought I had already installed some browser tools to cut through the thicket. Yeesh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've always heard about this but I'm so uneducated in networking I have no clue what this is called or where to start. Any tips?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Pretty straight forward really, install Adguard home on a always on Linux box (rpi is our movie box) via https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome/wiki/Getting-Started and then update all your devices as per the setup instructions from the web app when working so they use the ip address of the rpi as their dns. I was surprised how easy it was to get running tbh.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t15a0im-_4

Hi PipedBot!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=5t15a0im-_4

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you, was not expecting skit to be that well done and accurate!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ryan George is awesome, I can recommend the whole channel plus the Pitch Meetings channel where he makes fun of movies :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Funny skits to watch randomly, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

bring back stumbleupon!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And web rings!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

88x44 affiliate buttons

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

We have CloudHiker. But isn't good like StumbleUpon! Plus, is kinda repetitive, but works.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Gave up on using tor for my daily Internet use 😔 none of my school stuff worked without javascript

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Sad but relatable

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Well, why are we using those sites?