It took a bit of moving data, extensions, and other details over, but I’ve now made the switch to Firefox as my default browser. Sweeping Chrome into the dustbin.
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Chris Aldrich
I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media. View all posts by Chris Aldrich
@chrisaldrich Do you have a substitute for Google Hangouts, or no need for one?
@chrisaldrich Firefox is better because it is open source.
@chrisaldrich great choice!
Congrats! I use Vivaldi browser, but Firefox is also a good choice. The most important thing is getting rid of Google Chrome.
@chrisaldrich Nice!
Why? Just curious…
Primarily it’s an issue with excessive surveillance capitalism, but their corporate ethics have made a U-turn. The recent Timnit Gebru situation has put things into sharp relief. Their era of “don’t be evil” has passed.
If that weren’t enough, I’m also feeling like my value to them now greatly exceeds the value they’re providing back to me.
Syndicated copies:
I float between browsers, but the only one rock solid and allows me to Chromecast in is Chrome so until some other browser maker steps up, Chrome is my main browser. While I was reading your tweet Firefox spontaneously crashed, just to add emphasis.
@chrisaldrich 🙌🏻
@jeremycherfas There are only a few people I still actively use Hangouts with, and even most of them have moved to Slack or something else. I may keep a version on my phone for those who ping me there; at least I’ll get the notifications. I ought to spend some time and look into some of the Hangouts alternatives though. Do you have any recommendations?
@chrisaldrich Not any more. Adium stopped working for me and so did Yak, or whatever that one was called.
Congrats on making that switch @chrisaldrich ! Seen you write a lot about note-taking / web bookmarking: would be curious on your thoughts on Mozilla’s product (Pocket). I’m holding off atm as it seems to have a more surveillance capitalism vibe than the rest of Mozilla’s offerings.
@w4rner I’ve used Pocket for ages and appreciate it’s UI. I actually trust it a bit more now that Mozilla owns it. On the surveillance capitalism spectrum its at the lowest end in comparison to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and others. All the data I put into it comes back to my own website using this general workflow: Using IFTTT to syndicate (PESOS) content from social services to WordPress using Micropub. If you’re looking for something similar that’s self-hostable, you might consider Wallabag.
Primarily it’s an issue with excessive surveillance capitalism, but their corporate ethics have made a U-turn. The recent Timnit Gebru situation has put things into sharp relief. Their era of “don’t be evil” has passed.
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(boffosocko.com/2020/12/28/557…)
boffosocko.com/2020/12/27/557…
@chrisaldrich agreed, Mozilla gives me more confidence: I’ll give it a go. Again, my micro.blog site is my homebase (versus your WordPress) so not sure I could do a similar PESOS thing.
@w4rner Micro.blog has Micropub functionality built in as part of its core service. This should allow you to use many (any?) of the Micropub clients out there including that IFTTT recipe I linked to to pull data in from pretty much any site that’s got an RSS/Atom feed including Pocket.
To use something like Quill you’d input your domain name w4rner.micro.blog (and log into micro.blog if you’re not already), do that IndieAuth dance I mentioned and which mb supports, and you’re logged into the client. Then you can use it as an app to post notes, articles, and other things to your site. (Most apps will only let you post content types that your website supports, so while I may see “itineraries” as an option in Quill for my WordPress website, your micro.blog site may not (shouldn’t) since that’s not a feature that mb provides.)
@chrisaldrich Signed into micro.blog and posted using Quill (example). Micro.blog Wouldn’t let me do custom slug (Dropbox screenshot as M.B don’t allow photos in reply). Will try replicating your Pocket ex. tomorrow.
@w4rner Some platforms may not support all the features, and it would seem that m.b. doesn’t do so for custom slugs. I suspect that @manton and @aaronpk might be able to collaborate to have unsupported features not appear in the UI. Photo replies may be possible, they just need a way to properly upload the content to the endpoint and m.b. may not allow that yet.
@chrisaldrich Not sure whether you’re saying: a). I should adapt your example from WordPress to Micro.blog. In which case: the url would be generic which seems strange, and I’m not clear what the action token would be. Or b). do you just simply mean that micro.blog is setup to import my Pocket RSS feed, like I do with Letterboxd, because that method doesn’t actually get it onto blog.w4rner.com, only micro.blog/w4rner. P.S. hope that link to your example counted as an external webmention, only 736 to go FTW 😀
@w4rner Yes, you’d be adapting my WP recipe for use with your paid m.b. account. I suspect the generic URL would be remedied by the unique token. You might be able to generate an app token in your account settings that should work. If it doesn’t then ping Manton when you get a chance to see if he can make a recommendation.
The goal is to own and display your data from a website that you control, so just piping in your RSS feed into the micro.blog timeline isn’t the answer, since there’s no way to get it back out. Because you can’t control the code running on Micro.blog, you may have some kinks to work out to get things to display exactly the way you want them to, but I suspect Manton could help you there, espcially if it’s the sort of feature that others are bound to want.