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<title>Digital Recommendations</title>
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<p>Go <a href="../">back</a></p>
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<h2 class="titlebar">Digital Recommendations</h2>
In this post, I want to list some of my favorite programs and services, that respect your privacy and generally being free/open-source.
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<h2 class="titlebar">Operating Systems</h2>
<h3>Normal Distributions</h3>
<a href="https://debian.org/"><img src="debian.png" width="96" height="96" alt="Debian Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://debian.org/">Debian</a> is a popular distribution focused on reliability and stability.<br>
Is very beginner friendly and stable. But they sometimes modify packages to their own bias (like KeePassXC).<br><br>
New packages are explicitly delayed, to go through further testing by the debian team. This has it's own up/downsides.<br>
It offers greater stability, but bugs and security patches are being released at a slower rate.<br><br>
Experience level: <i style="background-color:green;">Beginner Friendly</i>
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<a href="https://archlinux.org/"><img src="arch.svg" width="96" height="96" alt="Arch Linux Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://archlinux.org/">Arch Linux</a> is a rolling release distro maintained by the community.<br>
It has many great and <u>unmodified</u> packages in it's repository. It also features the <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/">Arch User Repository</a><br>
hosting many more packages maintained by the community. Arch also has a great <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/">Wiki</a> that literally explains everything.<br><br>
One downside of being a rolling release distro, sometimes new packages end up "breaking" the system,<br>
on the other hand, offering the newest patches and security vulnerability fixes.<br><br>
Experience level: <i style="background-color:yellow;">Moderate</i>
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<h3>FOSS Distributions</h3>
<a href="https://parabola.nu/"><img src="parabola.svg" width="96" height="96" alt="Parabola Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://parabola.nu/">Parabola Linux</a> is a fork of <a href="https://archlinux.org">Arch Linux</a>, but making use
of the Linux-Libre kernel, stripping out non-FOSS segments of code. <br>
This also applies to it's package repository, making for fewer packages but being 100% FOSS.<br>
You may end up having issues with your Intel wireless cards xd.<br><br>
Parabola is the perfect distro for FOSS advicates and experiences users. <u>This is not a beginner distribution!</u><br>
It doesn't have a User-Repository like Arch does, but doesn't prevent users from installing AUR packages.<br><br>
Experience level: <i style="background-color: red;">Linux knowledge required</i>
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<h2 class="titlebar">Internet Browsers</h2>
<a href="https://librewolf.net/"><img src="librewolf.svg" width="96" height="96" alt="Librewolf Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://librewolf.net/">Librewolf</a> is a independent fork of Mozilla's <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/">Firefox</a> build around privacy.<br>
It features no telemetry, experiments or unnsessary distractions. It also includes uBlock origin.<br>
It builds upon the latest Firefox build for up-to-date security and features.<br><br>
Although I recommend arkenfoxes <a href="https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js">user.js</a> to harden it even more<br>
and make it even more fingerprinting resistant with methods like operating system spoofing.
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<a href="https://brave.com/"><img src="brave.png" width="96" height="96" alt="Brave Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://brave.com/">Brave</a> is the perfect choice for someone that needs a chromium based browser.<br>
Brave blocks ads and trackers by default, uses it's own private searchengine and protects you from browser fingerprinting.<br><br>
But it comes with crypto-integration which many people find annoying.
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<h2 class="titlebar">Internet Browser Extensions</h2>
<a href="https://ublockorigin.com/"><img src="ublock.png" width="96" height="96" alt="uBlock Origin Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://ublockorigin.com/">uBlock Origin</a> is a lightweight popular and effective ad blocker, supporting a wide range of browsers.<br>
It's easy to use, requiring no expertise but offering options for more experiences users.<br>
uBO also allows custom rules and filters.
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<a href="https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix"><img src="umatrix.png" width="96" height="96" alt="uMatrix Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix">uMatrix</a> is a point-and-click matrix to filter net requests.<br>
<b>This extension is definitely for advanced users!</b><br><br>
It allows the user to block individual sections to domains the website connects to.<br>
This is done to filter out unwanted domains to prevent tracking and fingerprinting.<br>
But to do so effectively, <strong>manual tweaking for every website</strong> is required.
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<h2 class="titlebar">Other Nice Programs</h2>
<a href="https://keepassxc.org/"><img src="keepassXC.png" width="96" height="96" alt="KeepassXC Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://keepassxc.org/">KeepassXC</a> is a safe way to store and manage your passwords and login-credentials<br>
It's ad, tracker and cloud free and runs locally on your system saving your passwords <br>
in a encrypted database stored on <b>your</b> computer.<br>
It also comes with a lot of useful features, such as a random password generator, login-credential autofill and much more.<br><br>
It's user interface is beginner friendly but also offers options for advanced users.<br>
The databases can be secured by a password and you have the <b>option</b> to add 2FA to it, in form of a secret file<br>
or a hardware challenge-response key (like a yubikey).
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<a href="https://vscodium.com/"><img src="vscodium.png" width="96" height="96" alt="VSCodium Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://vscodium.com/">VSCodium</a> is the telemetry/tracking free version of Microsoft's popular VSCode.<br>
Yes! Microsoft even builds telemetry and trackers into it's code editors.<br>
VSCodium is community driven and licensed under a free licence.<br><br>
One problem with VSCodium is that most extensions that would be available in VSCode are not in VSCodium,<br>
but one can enable them with a few workarounds.
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<a href="https://www.thunderbird.net/"><img src="thunderbird.svg" width="96" height="96" alt="Thunderbird Logo"></a><br>
<a href="https://www.thunderbird.net/">Thunderbird</a> is a E-Mail client developed my Mozilla.<br>
Featuring much more that just E-Mail, it also handles contatcs, calendars, RSS feeds and even has a chat section.<br>
Thunderbird supports different mail accounts (POP, IMAP, Gmail),<br>
has an integrated learning Spam filter, and offers easy organization of mails with tagging and virtual folders.<br>
One can also extend it by installing extensions.
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