Yeah I've been using Fennec for ages and it works great.
I guess Matrix would be your best option then. I use Schildichat as client, which is a fork of Element with some extras.
But if you can't get a plan, why not get a prepaid burner SIM? You can buy a prepaid card for minimal amount and you generally keep the number at least for a year, and you put in 5~10 euro each year you can keep it active endlessly.
A lot of things require a phone number. Here, the goverment needs you to have one, but also most workplaces and even the DHL. Getting a cheap trow-away sim isn't a bad option. Especially since pre-paid SIMs aren't connected to your name like those on a plan are.
Because the threat isn't getting your number stolen, it's about the content of your messages. While the goverment cóuld ask your phone number, they likely already have it unless you got a prepaid trow away that you keep replacing regularily. And even then it cóuld be traced when used anywhere. What they can't get, is your messages. At least not decrypted unless you give it to them yourself. And those are way more interesting. But it's not even about the goverment per se, it's for everything from data hungry companies to your old crazy ex.
Telegram sends everything plain text and stores that on their servers. One man-in-the-middle and we got everything you've said.
WhatsApp says they have E2EE but is propietary and non-checkable, and from Meta who has a rep for finding ways to secretly and unlawfully grab data. Even if you (foolishly) trust them, they do grab metadata from your messages.
Signal isn't about it being FOSS, but about privacy. FOSS just means it's checkable, which is good for security and privacy. They have E2EE not only on message content but also on metdata (unlike most alternatives who only do message contents), do external audits, and are part of a non-profit (which means showing how money is received and spend).
How do you all find a balance that works for you? Or do you just change things constantly?
Honestly, for me it's a hobby to see how far I can take it while also having all the ease of modern life, and my partner supports that but doesn't follow it all himself. It takes some time researching and setting stuff up, but after that you cán have most modern ease and fancy things. As it's a hobby for me, I never felt burned out by it.
That being said, if it's not your hobby I can totally understand it feels like a rabbithole and becomes a bit much. Just remember that everything you do is better than nothing. If it's getting too much, take a halt, and take satisfaction in what you did already do instead of worrying about all that you didn't. Every step taken is one, they all count.
There is always more you cán do. Everything is hackable, if not technically then by social hacking. Nothing is 100% safe. In the end, there is always a risk somewhere. If that risk is likely, is a different question. So just look at what is worth it for you, how far yóu want to take it. Understand that understanding the risks doesn't mean you have to block it. It just means you can do a proper assessment about if something needs to be done about it or not. Sometimes, it's ok to say the risk is acceptable. It depends on your situation really.
I think it's good.
I also don't mind that it's more popularity than relevance nowadays, at least not for places like Lemmy. More popular means likely, more people want to see it (as most people like this more than other things). Which means in a way, it's more relevant to the audience (as in, closed to what the audience wants to see). Especially on a federated space, an alternative can easily be made about the same topic if two groups of people feel strongly different about what is good content and what not.
When you only see the upvotes, you don't see how many people didn't like it. A seemingly very liked post might have even more people dislike it, and so on average be a disliked post. But you never know and may think that that is what the community wants to see. It just too one-sided.
When likes and disliked even out, popularity is more transparent. Since you can see both up- and downvotes, you can see how many people liked and disliked it. It may be because they disagree, because they think the post is stupid, or because it's spam. But in the end it doesn't matter much. They didn't like the post.
Having both gives you a good average, and since you can see from how many up- and downvotes the number comes (so you can also see the difference between popular posts with divided people, or post that are just not popular at all getting a few votes) I really see nothing wrong with it.
I feel like disabling downvotes only benefits those who like to spam, those who think anyone who doesn't agree with them and loves them is horrible, and those who want twist to narrative to be able to say "see, I have so much likes so I'm right! They all agree with me!" while hiding the amount of people disagreeing.
Different people like and dislike stuff. If people like your posts, you'll get more upvotes. If people dislike it, you get more downvotes. And that's ok. People disliking something you typed on the internet isn't the end of the world, nor is people liking what you typed some ultimate achievement. A downvote on the internet isn't really that big of a deal while it's useful for getting the full picture.
I tried doing this with Japanese. It was.... not a success.
For one, the Japanese version isn't translated greatly, and while there are some mods that rewrite some stuff to sound more native it's far from perfect as they can't change spoken dialogue that much.
Then, many words are just the English ones in katakana. Now technically that's fine. But when the whole game is full of words like "furosuto baito supaidaa" (written in katakana ofc) it just doesn't sound too well, nor does it teach you a lot of new words per se. I guess it at least gives you a feeling how katakana is used to write foreign (loan)words.
But then, I walked into the in Whiterun and heard the bard sing Ragnar the Red in Japanese. The lyrics to some sentences are twice as long in Japanese, smashed into the same melody, causing it to sound like a synthesizer going over the sounds quicker than humans ever would.
I just gave up. I can play the game for the most part without understanding anything, so I thought it would be a good practice as not understanding something wouldn't get me stuck per se. But in the end, it wasn't very handy.
I don't think there is a lemmy.nl. But if you're looking for a Dutch server, you can try feddit.nl
since I always get confused and expect the Korean lyrics for translated songs.
Hahaha yeah I have this the other way around, where I'm so used to the Japanese version that I get confused when I run into the original 🤣.
I don't think there are many humourful bugs removed by the unofficial patches. It's really more about broken scripts and meshes, which can quite obstruct gameplay. I haven't been missing any of the funny silliness in Oblivion, it's as silly as ever. And the amount of gameplay breaking bugs fixed is enourmous. I'd suggest you check the patch history if you're unsure about using it.
I've added some links! Tried to go for something iconic/representable on my fav list and tried to choose one with MV if possible. Koda Kumi got 2, an iconic one and the specific one mentioned. I skipped AKB48 since I don't listen to that so I can't really choose something iconic and representable for their style as well and I don't want to do them dirty.
Springsteen isn't Japanese at all, but I added a link for the sake of it.
Also added 2 more artists, because why not.
I'm using FireFox on PC and Fennec on mobile. I refuse to use Chromium-based browsers because I refuse to coöperate with Google pushing to monopolise the making of internet standards. And to be honest, I haven't had a single real issue yet from not using it.
I use Brave Search for searching because it has it's on crawler, has pretty good results, and despite it saying it's introducing adds, I haven't seen any yet. I only don't like that for images, it just opens Google or Bing with the querry forwarded, but at least they are clear about that they do that.
Browser and search engine choice is only a tiny part of browsing securely and privatly tho.