Just in case, I wrote a little more in details about my impression, what I like and don’t like, on my blog (ignore the beginning of the post if you’re only interested in Filen itself) ;)

that’s how I understand it.

Data is encrypted during transfer and also on their cloud, using a key only you have access to.

in France, we have this saying ‘Nécesité fait loi’ which means you make do with what you have and to the best of your abilities. Also, my little finger is telling me quite a few EU countries would not mind a more authoritarian country entering the Council, a country that would then be used to tell France and Germany (and who knows, the warmly welcomed-back UK, one of these days) to go funk themselves. But I may be wrong.

You mean China? They are not part of NATO. Note that the election of Trump have almost made it crystal clear the USA does not care much about NATO anymore (they seem to only care about Ukraine’s underground which is not yet part of the EU (what a happy coincidence). So Turkish armed force ranking may very well already be a non-question just that we, NATO-members, have not been officially told so yet… In Which case China and Russia, and Turkey?, would be very happy.

Using them. Quite decent if a little bare bone. I wish for their notes app to be leaner to use but beside that it does exactly <hat it tells. Also, I quite like that, unlike so many clouds, I don’t have to move all my files and folders to a ‘filen’ folder, it can sync as many folders as one needs, even on external drives.

If you can, wait for their Black Friday deals, prices are fine but they’re even better then. They also offer more options for lifetime plans if you’re more interested than in monthly sub.

When creating you’re account, try to get an affiliate link before creating the account, as you will get double the free storage to begin with (20, instead of 10GB) and if you later decide to sub to/purchase a plan you have to keep that extra storage as a bonus. In case you need one, here is my affiliate link so you or anyone else using it can get the extra 10GB—and, nope, I won’t get anything out of it anymore, as I already did get all I was promised (up to 3x10GB more free storage), and yep, I did keep them l when I upgraded to one of their lifetime plan ;)

Turkey has asked to join the EU already. It was denied last time but something tells me next time they may be very welcome instead.
(hint: Turkey has the second biggest army in NATO right after the USA and has the most active/quickly growing weapon/armament industry in Europe too)

I won’t cry for Musk, quite the contrary… But I also don’t know how important the EU as a market is for Tesla?

Sadly, part of the reality right now is, that there is no perfect swap-in replacement for what Starlink is being used for,

100% agree on that but, like you said, I wanted to see a more… encouraging way of saying it. This sounds a bit too much like an already failed effort. Yesterday morning, I was reading the latest US demands on Ukraine (imho, we should all closely read them in order to understand what the USA has now turned into and what kind of treatment we can expect from them in the (near) future) and I think we really should not let Ukraine down at the time they have to face Putin’s Russia and now also have to face the new bully on the block, Trump’s USA—which won’t be kind with them the moment they realize they may not get all what they asked from Ukraine (and hopefully they won’t get it). Like, not kind at all.

“relatively fast” is not what I wanted to read. It should be done as fast as possible. If in order to keep its ability to communicate efficiently Ukraine is forced to accept the latest delirious US demands, it’s the entire EU that will lose. Big time.

I don’t like the law to make an example out of anyone, I would rather see the law being effective and equally applied to all.

Also, these kind of regulations are precisely one of the things Trump and his billionaire bosses are trying to get rid of.

That’s another question, imho. Worth discussing, for sure. But I would say the rules of the vote were known before the vote. If one doesn’t agree with them, that’s obviously fine but they should have questioned them (and then their choice of not voting) before the vote, not question a result that is following the rules of that vote.

It’s really sad to see the UK get grouped like this.

It’s not sad, it’s how a democracy is supposed to be working imho. A majority of the UK voted for the Brexit, which means that the UK as a whole voted for it and then acted accordingly. Sure, you were many to oppose it. Still the vote was made and no matter how stupid it was, that was the result for the entire country. A bit like many here in France were against re-electing Macron as our President (note that I don’t say I was for nor against him being re-elected) but since he has been re-elected by a majority of the voters he his the President of the entire French Republic and of all of us, he is not the President of just the ones that voted for him ;)

I was part of the 48.1% who voted remain. How does the UK feel about Brexit now? Myself, and everyone I know is unhappy that it happened.

The morning I heard the results I had to check with friends over the channel if all our media had all been hacked by russian-hackers because I could not believe such a thing had indeed happened. That was so, well…

fucking idiots.

I could not have said it better ;)

would be curious to get your feedback after you start using it :)

but the majority of European languages are fully or partially derivate from Latin

Just a remark: how many Europeans do speak enough Latin to be able to understand a motto versus how many do speak enough English to be able to understand a motto?

A few years ago I used Qobuz, it was nice. And French ;)

I wonder how the UK feel about Brexit now that we’ve all entered that you-can-all-go-funk-yourself age (soon to be called a post-NATO era, I suppose) the USA just inaugurated with their new orange king (Kong)?

It’s a serious question. Like I also wonder how the EU would feel about welcoming back the UK?

As a EU citizen, even though they acted like huge dicks (to keep it polite) and knowing they often are an utter pain in the ass to work and to live with, I would support them coming back in the Union. But that’s just me and, unlike that Trump guy and its cheese-headed buffoon, I don’t think I should rule a country like if I owned it, let alone 27 countries. And then, more than a few countries in the EU may not be that excited at the idea of the UK coming back, with their constant demands… because they themselves have made it real easy to not be happy about them being back.

I suppose signing military deals (and hopefully closer collaboration, training and other stuff armies do) would be the obvious thing to do, right now.

PS: I also do wonder how the assholes that led them into this shitty situation are doing?

I quit GitHub the day Microsoft bought it. I’m not a dev and I was barely using it but still I did not like that change. Now, I’m using codeberg.org which is more then enough for my needs.

I havent switched operating system yet due to fear of losing my data.

If you value any data, you should already have backups (plural), right? So, if you decide to switch OS you don’t need to worry about your data since you have backups (plural). Hint: if you don’t do backups already, start now with or without OS switch.

If i delete google play services, will my phone not work correctly?

Depends what you do with it. What OS you use. My spouse is using /e/OS and she has access to all the apps she needs, but I reckon you probably don’t use the same app as we do (we’re both 50+) ;)

I have been replacing my apps with open source apps, is that helpful?

Depends. It’s probably a good idea but if you use open source apps to access and use non-privacy respecting services, well, they won’t help much.

What vpn should i use? I have malewarebytes.

One you trust. I use Mullvad and Proton. Both are paid for.

Either someone randomly downvoted (ok, bye). Or someone thinks downvoting me is punishing me in some way for daring say something they don’t agree with (no idea how that could be punishing me, but hey). Or someone is too lazy to explain their reasoning. In any case, I don’t think it’s worth much consideration.

And, yep, as far as I’m concerned I consider this an OK approach. Not faultless, but usable ;)

Not much

• Full disk encryption on my computers.
• Password manager, for strong & unique passwords everywhere
• Linux as my OS
• Firewall.
• Backups: local (encrypted) and remote (encrypted).
• Computers are all wired to the network, no WiFi.
• Also, I use my phone as a… phone and for little else.
  I mean, there is a 2FA app and the few mandatory apps I must have access to (finance, and banking) and that is it. No social, no games, no nothing. Not even email is configured on that trash piece of corporate spyware. I sincerely consider it a threat to our privacy so I don’t trust it beside what I have no option to trust it with. I also suppose that this device, even though I deactivated the setting, is constantly listening to what we say nearby. So, when I don’t need it, I store it in a thick box to reduce whatever it may be recording.
• I use as little digital tools as I can. I went back to analog (ie, for my agenda and I hardly see any reason to go back to digital). I take all my notes longhand too, and it’s been more than a year I have not read an ebook as I went back to analog there too. Why? No spying, no tracking of what I read and what I write. And no sudden ‘termination’ of services or ‘removal’ of a book from my device for any reason.