I’m also trying to read more books instead of constantly checking the web. I used to read Wikipedia pages about topics I’m interested in, or watch some of my favorite shows on video platforms but now I try to carry a book with myself and read it. I used to read a lot but now I find less time in my schedule, mostly because of the internet. It’s time to log off more and read some good books I have in my reading list.
Oh, I’ll treat RSS feeds the same as books.
The ActivityPub plugin for WordPress keeps improving. Exciting updates and great features.
If you’re reading this through your RSS feed reader, you’re my good friend. After all ups and downs and mood changes, I could say you should have deleted this blog from your feed but if you didn’t, I want to know you more. Please message me.
I still have a lot of mixed feelings about this. Writing feels good but sharing and caring about this blog, or any other online presence, is hard for me. It makes me feel overexposed, makes me feel vulnerable, or even pointless. But I decided to continue writing and sharing, for my own mental health and benefit.
While this web site was down, I took the opportunity to do more digital detoxing. Deleted more and more online accounts, making the number under a hundred, and did some steps to achieve more security and privacy.
I did a mistake of publishing this blog on a personal domain for a while, and I regretted that decision, making my domain public opened doors to spam emails and attracted unwanted attention, and this conflicted with the need to keep the domain and email private. So I moved the private email to another domain, and the change is in process.
I also did some organizing to separate my online identities with ones I share publicly, and did my best to have the best possible approach towards it, respecting my privacy and security.
I tried to explore new things. Eating new food, trying new fashion, using technologies I haven’t tried, playing some board games, and enjoying awesome music. Simone, as generous as always, gifted me his music and I’ve been enjoying them on my last two road trips.
I also been watching two new series lately, bringing back family movie/series nights just like how it was 20 years ago. I still get the same feeling, and it’s very joyful.
It’s spring and we have been enjoying greengage for the last month. They are one of my favorite fruits, and I had a lot of them lately, more than I should have. Definitely worth it though. I waste a lot of money on stupid things but this one I’m not ashamed and I don’t regret it.
Work has been good. I’m learning a lot and my co-workers are super nice. I respect them a lot and they respect me. It’s still a new experience for me and I’m thankful for the opportunity I have. It has its ups and downs but it’s all for my own good, I believe.
I’ve been blogging here for over five years, and now I find myself somewhat tired of it. It used to be fun and helped me take my mind off things, but now I feel like it’s becoming a burden.
It’s the last place I’m online, the last place I regularly update, and the only place I share my ideas. However, I have a strange feeling about it—a sense of disappointment and discouragement.
I feel like I have nothing valuable to share with others anymore. It seems pointless to share my political views, ideological beliefs, and understanding of the world. Apart from free software, I don’t think there’s anything anyone would find useful to read here. I’m empty of new ideas, tired of sharing them, and too busy to curate any meaningful writing.
I’ve thought hard about deleting this blog. I did it some time ago, but I later regretted my decision and brought it back. Now, I’m considering purging everything again. I’m even thinking about removing the DNS records so that there would be no web page, not even an error page. However, I know I’ll miss it. I find something interesting to share, and I regret that I don’t have a place to put it. I’ll have something to say, and I’ll feel sorry that I purged the only place I could say it freely.
I know it’s my safe haven, and I mostly write for myself rather than for readers. I don’t try to attract people; my goal is to express my thoughts and feelings freely. I’ve thought about deleting this blog, it’s been on my mind for a long time, and I find it too difficult. Mostly because I feel a sense of security and belonging here. I feel there’s somewhere I can talk when there’s nowhere else. I think I can be useful, I can teach something and learn more from others.
I’ve found friends through this blog and I intend to find more. I’ve learned a lot from them and I enjoy their messages now and then. So I’ll keep it alive for another day. Tomorrow, I hope to decide to keep it for one more.
I’ve experienced this a lot. Sometimes the most complicated problems we face in life, ones that mostly we created for ourselves, have the simplest solutions to fix. Sometimes we just don’t see it. Sometimes it’s so obvious we just can’t believe the problem we thought was so big, is just a small little inconvenience we can fix with littlest effort.
I was thinking about this huge problem I had in my digital life for some time and talking to a friend about it and it then hit me. Do this small effortless fix and everything will get back to normal. No need to bother myself or anyone else. This actually happened a lot and some of them were so trivial that I don’t even believe if the actual problem was that ridiculous.
Sometimes we just got to take a deep breath and just not to think about it.
I value my privacy and I do whatever I can to protect it. One of the tools I use to protect it is uBlock Origin. I haven’t noticed this until today, partly because I usually don’t follow news, and somehow I wasn’t shocked at all. Google is forcing users to stop using uBlock Origin and other privacy tools.
Apparently, Google is phasing out Manifest V2 in favor of Manifest v3 on its web browser, Chrome, and as a result, extensions using Manifest V2 stop working. Google is excusing this action by claiming the Manifest V3 enhances security and privacy of the users, which we know is false since Google’s tracking of users and violation of their privacy is what makes them money, and benefit is the only ting that drives them forward.
Chrome, and its parent project Chromium, are Google’s arms to impose its control and force on the web. They are what Google uses to force its “standards” on to web and control how users are able to browse it. Sadly, they have been successful so far, as Chrome (and Chromium-based browsers) are leading in usage share reports.
Extensions such as uBlock Origin are essential for people like me, who value their online privacy and are unable to tolerate the web today. I remember not having a tracker-blocker for an hour last year when I was setting up a new browser on a new computer I was going crazy.
Well, this doesn’t currently affect me as I never use Chromium-based browsers. Even ones such as Brave who advertise themselves as privacy-respecting are no good for me as I believe no matter how good they are, they eventually are empowering Google. I use Firefox-based browsers to, as little as my part is, fight back against monopoly-empowering web browsers.
You could switch to Firefox as well. It’s backed by nonprofit Mozilla Foundation and doesn’t miss a feature you’d get on other web browser. It’s also respectful to your freedom, published under a free (as in freedom) license.
I know Mozilla have not been acting so well recently but currently it’s the only choice we have Also, what we should do is not to boycott Mozilla, but forcing them to act in favor of the community, specially when it comes to choosing between what they offer and what Google has.
Web is already going to hell but it’s not too late. We still can take it back, and we should do whatever we can to take back control, for the sake of freedom, security, and privacy.
As technology is advancing every day, specially today, in the age of so-called artificial intelligence, privacy becomes more and more important. Today, everything we do and everywhere we go is recorded somewhere. There’s a track of our daily life somewhere in the hands of someone who is not supposed to know about it.
Sadly, technology is aiding this more and more and governments and powerful organizations depend on it to put control on our actions. Whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever opinion we have, every single detail of our lives are recorded. But happily, we’re not totally powerless.
Our freedom depends on our privacy. Privacy safeguards our fundamental rights. The ability to express our thoughts and feeling is crucial for our freedom. As a Middle Easterner, I get to gain a deeper understanding of this. Middle East is a special place. It’s where tyrannical governments do whatever they can to take away people’s freedoms and the way they do it is by taking away people’s privacy. More and more surveillance everyday and putting every single person under constant watch makes governments powerful enough to take control of what people can and can’t do.
Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered in Saudi embassy in Turkey in 2018, simply because his journalism and activism wasn’t in favor of the Saudi government. Saudi isn’t losing anything over this. Nobody actually cares about this anymore. They actually got to host the World Cup in 2034. What it left as a precedent is that now more activist fear for their lives. If the government can assassinate a well-know journalist in its embassy in a foreign country, then they can make you disappear in a blink of an eye.
Privacy makes us bulletproof against these threats. I know it’s hard to disappear from the radar completely but there are steps to make it harder for the Big Brother. By using tools that enhance our privacy rights, we can effectively mitigate their attempts to impose surveillance on us.
I understand that it may be hard at our first steps but it worths the effort. We may not be able to pay cash for everything, or never carry our phones, or never give away any piece of personal information to someone, even if we try, mistakes will happen, but least is we gave it a try.
Ditching Gmail for a more privacy-focused alternatives, using web browsers and browser plugins that are designed to limit the data we share, using privacy-enhanced messengers and more importantly, encrypting whatever data we have is a start.
Doing so is not so hard. There are multiple good sources on the internet, and there are services and sites that guide people to start with taking their privacy more seriously. PrivacyGuides is one source I like.
We’re advancing. Every piece of technology we use today is somehow taking away our privacy and mining our personal information for the benefit of massive corporations and tyrannical spying governments. It’s so easy for them. Every piece of data we give these AI bots today are going to feed this surveillance machine, designed and launched to take away our freedom. There will be a day that none of us can speak freely because none of us will have enough privacy against regimes that rule us. This is of course preventable if we take serious steps towards more privacy.
We all have data we need to protect. It’s not about what kind of watch you wear, or what dog breed you think is the cutest, it’s about building a complete profile of you that will determine if you’re a threat to the ruling power. It’s not about what you post on Twitter today, it’s about what you’re going to shout in a protest against people who oppress you.
Let’s take a step forward and guarantee our freedom, and a safer place for our children.
I’ve recently been more concerned with my privacy, specially regarding my email addresses. It may be because of huge amount of spam I’ve been receiving recently but anyway I got a little more paranoid and became more concerned about this.
So I revoked my previous PGP key and created new ones for each email separately, which I would be sharing with people on demand. I also no longer answer emails with my private emails, keeping them each for a specified purpose for myself.
Now I have to handle multiple emails which may become somehow difficult but for now, I’m satisfied with my practice. I’ll try to limit my online presence even more and delete more unused accounts, as much as possible. I also should have a different approach on how I sign up everywhere so I also will use email aliasing services to prevent sites getting my actual email.
Oh, and opinions and ideas are always welcome.
Simone’s post “Outside the Wall” is inspiring. I’ve done it some time ago and I still revisit my password manager from time to time to check if there’s anything left I can delete. I first started this when I decided to limit my presence on social networks and service sites.
We should start such trend. Let’s de-bloat our online/digital life and post about it on our indie personal blogs to inspire others. We don’t need all this online presence and we need to take back our control on our digital life and freedom.
Of course, if you really need to use one of the silo accounts, I understand but we are mostly becoming addicted and slaves to these giant services and networks. Let’s take back our rights, freedom, privacy, and life. We spend so much time maintaining our presence on these networks and it needs to stop.
Let’s do this.