Netdata and some free AI searches saved me a ton of resource usage on my desktop and server I recently installed free Netdata in a container on my homelab server to see what it would show in terms of resource usage, bottlenecks, etc. When you start out of Netdata you get a 2-week trial business subscription which includes 10 free AI credits (for analysis reporting). I let it run for 24 hours and then asked Netdata's AI to give me any key findings and recommendations. The key things it showed me pretty quickly, already blew me away. It's the old story of things are "working" but are far from optimal. Basically the issues I had were too many tasks firing off concurrently (or before others had finished) causing major bottlenecks (disk backlogs) on my different drives. I have three different backups, S.M.A.R.T. drive tasks running, Timeshift, RAID array scrubs, etc going. I took the report from Netdata and fed it in as-is to Google Gemini (Perplexity has been leading me down very long rabbit holes the last few months) and asked what now. To cut a long story short, Gemini took me through various tests and recommendations around spacing all the tasks out far better, advising which should be daily, weekly, or monthly. It also suggested tweaking settings for the drives as well as the rsync jobs. For example when exporting to an external USB drive, it showed how to slow the rsync transfer down so that the drive was not choking, and neither was the server CPU. It also gave a nice summary table of how all the tasks were now spaced out over days and weeks. I then decided to install Netdata on my desktop PC, and am glad I did. It boots quicker, and terminal screens open instantly (especially the Atuin history), etc. Again the issue being identified by Netdata was massive disk backlogs. It turns out my main /home data disk is 5.8 years old and has a 161ms response, where it should be 10x quicker. I need to replace this drive soon, but the optimisations suggested by Gemini, have now eased out a lot of the strain I was putting on this drive. My Manjaro desktop configuration is a good 8 or 9 years old with tons of crud. I used to use VirtualBox for VMs but switched to KVM a while back, yet the old VirtualBox vboxnet0 network and kernel hooks were still in my system. I have a beautiful Conky window on my desktop, but I did not realise the amount of resources it was using through massive inefficiencies including firing off sudo smartctl every3 secs to check drive temperatures (polling the drive controller 28,800 times a day), if/then statements that each fire off the same query three times, using outdated network calls, etc. So Gemini helped optimise that dramatically by collapsing the queries and using memory caching instead, and reducing many checks to 30 secs or longer where the data does not change quickly. There was also rsync jobs that were made less intense, so that CPU was smoothed out more. Some old snapd stuff was also identified that was loading into memory, although I no longer used it, so that all got cleared out as well. I was using SAMBA shares with a Windows VM running in KVM, and it advised to ditch the SAMBA shares and rather use the faster Virtio-FS folder sharing, as well as the VirtIO network mode in KVM. As Gemini pointed out initially, some events were coming together on my homelab server to create a perfect storm. My desktop PC is now booting up again in seconds, network acquisition is quicker, and with less intensive polling, my browsers are also more responsive. I'm actually scaling back on my Grafana, Prometheus, Telegraf, InfluxDB stack on my server too. Netdata collects tons of data every second and seeing it is running, I'd rather try to optimise around that, seeing the information I get is a lot more useful. Netdat requires basically no configuration, unlike how Grafana, InfluxDB, Telegraf, and Prometheus must all work tother. There are some things that Grafana must still do, like pulling my Home Assistant stats through into graphs. The free Netdata tier only gives you 5 nodes in their cloud service, but you can view more locally if you host it yourself. Obviously after the trial period, I will also lose the AI credits. Netdata is open source on the client agent (data collection) and "available" for the client dashboard. The cloud side, and the AI, is proprietary. I'll see how it goes on the free tier after 2 weeks, and what sort of reporting I can still export. But the benefit so far has made a dramatic difference, and will likely also ensure my hard drives have a longer and beneficial life. Netdata running in a docker container on my homelab server is consuming 2.1% CPU and 327 MB of RAM. Disk space is now at 1.3 GB, so I'll need to keep an eye on that. There are retention sizes that can be set for each tier of data that is being stored (per second, per minute, and per hour tiers). A tip on installing for Arch based systems. Netdata's script had all sorts of network permission issues on my PC. In the end I just did a plain pacman AUR package install and everything worked. See

GitHub

GitHub - netdata/netdata: The fastest path to AI-powered full stack observability, even for lean teams.

The fastest path to AI-powered full stack observability, even for lean teams. - netdata/netdata

#technology #optimisation #dashboards

Google's Project Genie lets you conjure entire interactive worlds and step into them “While I'd love to give this a try myself, it's only currently open to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the United States. Just in case you weren't aware, that's Google's top-tier plan that costs $250/month. So, as you can imagine, access to this feature will be a bit limited for now.” It does look pretty good from the video in the linked article. The thing though, with this type of functionality and realism, is you're not going to be able to run this on your home server. It costs money to host services like these, so for the foreseeable future this will likely be a paid service of some sort (unless your virtual world can have lots of advertising billboards in it!). But nice to see it is already technically possible. See

Android Police

Google lets you conjure entire interactive worlds and step into them

Project Genie has landed

#technology #virtualworlds

Microsoft handed encryption keys for customer data to the government “The FBI went to Microsoft last year with a warrant, asking them to hand over keys to unlock encrypted data stored on three laptops as part of an investigation into potential fraud involving the COVID unemployment assistance program in Guam — and Microsoft complied.” Two issues are of concern here: 1. Microsoft does indeed have their own encryption keys to your data. Unlike some companies that do not have encryptions keys at all e.g. Proton, and they will only hand over available metadata (such as IP address, connection times, etc) that they have access to when receiving a valid warrant. Microsoft can be legally compelled as it is now known they have keys to decrypt customer data in their cloud. 2. The legal warrant is only going to be a requirement for accessing US citizen or US corporate data. It is not needed for accessing global citizen data or data stored outside the USA, thanks to the CLOUD and PATRIOT Acts. The same will apply for governments with questionable human rights records (or privacy protection) who may also issue legal warrants to access private data from Microsoft. I can only imagine both the issues above are part of what is driving the EU to have their own cloud services based in the EU where only they control the encryption keys. See

The Verge

Microsoft handed the government encryption keys for customer data

Microsoft complied with a warrant to hand over BitLocker recovery keys to the FBI, and privacy advocates are worried.

#technology #privacy #cloud

Suunto’s New Route Planner Is Free and Awesome "Something you don't see every day: a sports tech company actually giving away premium features for free. Suunto's route-planning tool lets you create and download GPX files without even creating an account. No paywall, no trial period—just open the page and start planning routes. And the tool itself works great." This is a great tool for planning hikes, cycling, trail running, running, mountaineering, and similar activities. It could also work well for 4x4 trails as it does seem to have all the minor tracks and trails routable, along with ascent and descent numbers. Another nice touch is being able to toggle on/off heat maps of routes most used. I tested it on a route I know well over Table Mountain in Cape Town, it did choose the best elevation route, not the shortest route. See

Lifehacker

Suunto’s New Route Planner Is Free and Awesome

Suunto's route planning tool lets you create and download GPX files without even creating an account.

or the route planning site at

Suunto Routeplanner

Suunto Routeplanner - Plan Your Outdoor Adventures

Plan and create routes for outdoor activities with Suunto Routeplanner. Upload GPX, FIT, KML files, create custom routes and share with your friend...

#technology #navigation #mapping #routes

Stop scrolling through Google's AI junk: Startpage's "classic" search engine is better "So I chose Startpage, a privacy-focused search engine that gets its results from Google, Bing, and a range of other sources, but doesn't have any of the tracking. With little of the added junk that I neither want nor need, it seemed like it could be the ideal middle ground, bringing the best bits of Google wrapped in a more classic search experience. I loaded it up on my laptop and phone to find out." Having a quick look at it though, it does look quite a bit like the open source SearXNG search engine. It's a similar look and feel, with a nice clean look. Sadly the map search using Mapquest was a disaster (I searched for restaurants in Cape Town and was shown restaurants in the USA). But I think that issue is with Mapquest, as choosing the Google Maps option then worked fine (but defeated the object of the exercise). Still, it is another option to try. They are headquartered in The Netherlands so are EU based under the GDPR. They do state: "Every search performed on Startpage is processed through our proprietary personal data protection technology" so it is not open source software. See

How-To Geek

Stop scrolling through Google's AI junk: This "classic" search engine is better

Tired of scrolling past Google's ads and "AI Overviews" just to find a simple link, you aren't alone.

or their website at

www.startpage.com

Startpage - Private Search Engine. No Tracking. No Search History.

Search and browse the internet without being tracked or targeted. Startpage is the world's most private search engine. Use Startpage to protect you...

#technology #search #privacy

Meet Roomy: An Open-Source Discord Alternative for the Decentralised Web “Roomy is an open-source Discord alternative built on the AT Protocol (ATProto), the same protocol that powers Bluesky, with ActivityPub (the protocol behind Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, and others) planned for the near future. Currently in alpha, it sits somewhere between Matrix and Discord in terms of its practical position in the broader chat ecosystem.” It is built on open protocols (no lock-in) and right now you can sign into the web interface using an existing Bluesky login, to be followed soon by any ActivityPub based ID (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, etc). Interestingly, it will be bridging many diverse and decentralised networks. From what I understand of it, posts that each person makes to this service, physically go to their own registered servers (decentralised) with Roomy providing the merged view. It seems there are quite a few features still to be implemented such as Fediverse login, moderation regarding removing of users from a room, encryption, self-hosting of Roomy, desktop/mobile apps, and more. Right now Bluesky users can use their login to test it out. See

It's FOSS

Meet Roomy: An Open-Source Discord Alternative for the Decentralized Web

Looking for a Discord alternative? Roomy is an open-source, decentralized platform built for communities that value privacy and control.

and Roomy at

Roomy

A way to be on the web!

#technology #opensource #socialnetworks #decentralised

French government announces move from US based video conferencing to open source Visio Visio is based on the open source project La Suite Meet powered by LiveKit. It seems that the government will be opting to use the French hosted version, instead of hosting it in-house themselves. It is time though that countries started taking their digital sovereignty more seriously and evaluated their over reliance on foreign country cloud services. Generally moving to someone else's cloud service, means not only your data is locked in there, but there is a tendency for the users to lose their own in-house IT skills, and for funds to just move offshore. See

GitHub

GitHub - suitenumerique/meet: Open source video conferencing app powered by LiveKit.

Open source video conferencing app powered by LiveKit. - suitenumerique/meet

#technology #opensource #digitalsovereignty #France

TikTokers are heading to UpScrolled following US takeover “TikTok’s takeover in the US has prompted users to join an alternative social platform called UpScrolled. The app, which is available on Android and iOS, currently holds the 12th spot in Apple’s App Store, and it’s struggling to keep up with an influx of new traffic.” Yes, it's not the first alternative to TikTok as we've seen RedNote and also Loops (a decentralised Fediverse alternative) as well as others. UpScrolled is still a centralised hosting service hosted in Dublin, Ireland, and owned by an Australian company using private funding. So, it is a step better than US ownership and hosting like nearly all the major centralised social media platforms are. TikTok's secret sauce is its algorithm though, but the downside of that algorithm is that it can be manipulated, which like with Facebook, has the power to change minds and influence users. With UpScrolled, and Loops, you don't get this sort of manipulative algorithm. This may also result in less addictive doom-scrolling. Do we have enough social media platforms yet? Well clearly not, as many new ones are starting up and only time will tell how they survive into the future. There is currently no advertising on UpScrolled, but they are probably going to have ads in future for the platform to be sustainable. They do state though: “But they’ll be designed and managed by us. No Google Ads. No third-party tracking. No targeting based on personal data.” On privacy, they state: “UpScrolled will never share your data with third parties for marketing, profiling, or commercial gain. We only disclose user data as required by Australian law — such as in response to a valid court order or lawful request — and always in accordance with our privacy policy.” It is available on Android and iOS right now, and their future plans include desktop versions. See

The Verge

TikTokers are heading to UpScrolled following US takeover

Are you heading to UpScrolled?

or their website at

UpScrolled

UpScrolled — your voice amplified!

Discover, connect, and share freely on a social media with transparent algorithms — no shadow bans, no silent suppression.

#technology #socialnetworks #alternativeto #TikTok

Sony returns to vinyl with two new Bluetooth wireless decks “Sony is jumping back into the vinyl game for the first time since 2019 with the introduction of two new Bluetooth-enabled turntables. The PS-LX3BT and the PS-LX5BT make the analogue experience much more accessible by baking in modern wireless audio technology. Both models also include a built-in phono equaliser that you can switch between phono and line-level output.” This feels so like a 1970s advert, except then we did not have Bluetooth. It's good to see it has analogue audio cables to connect to older receivers. But wow $500 is not a 1970s price! Makes me wonder what my genuine 1970s turntable is worth today. Vinyl of course is more than just about the sound. You own the vinyl, without monthly subscriptions, and it does not get arbitrarily deleted by someone either. See

How-To Geek

Sony returns to vinyl with two new Bluetooth wireless decks

Sony is back and hitting the nostalgia hard.

#technology #retro #music

Satellite is helping the internet to slip beyond authoritarian control “A recent Reuters report on Iran’s escalating battle with Starlink highlights why that playbook is starting to fray. Tehran has spent years perfecting censorship and surveillance, yet it now finds itself struggling to contain a satellite-based internet service designed explicitly to bypass terrestrial controls.” I suppose it is more correct to say foreign satellite services, as a service based inside one's own country can still be switched off by decree. Many telecoms licenses are granted with certain conditions attached, so quite often these telecoms providers are duty bound to shut down or otherwise censor services (including age verification, blocking undesirable sites, etc). And this most certainly includes First World countries as well. Our freedoms are mostly taken for granted, but actually they are attached to threads that can be pulled for various reasons. But it is true that satellite connectivity has been a new frontier as it becomes more commercial. It not only grants connectivity to those who were denied (including for reasons of living in remote areas) but it also is a commercial opportunity for those countries providing it, and yes, even for reasons of spying as well. But technology is evolving and with phones also now being able to connect to satellite services, the world is pretty well much being lit up. We just have to bear in mind that there may be plenty of advantages, but we've also seen from Facebook's early forays into some countries, that technology can have all sorts of unintended consequences as well. Satellite is only one of many advances though, as we are also seeing the rise in use of peer-to-peer communication, I2P networks, Tor browser traffic being obscured, etc. Satellite's big advantage is that it communicates over a very broad area, so attempts to block it are usually very localised only. I hope that more connectivity will encourage States to rather uplift their people instead of trying to oppress them. Whether we like it not, the era is changing, just like landlines, video rentals, dial-up modems, pagers, and many other technologies that found themselves superseded. This is not about the speed of downloads, but more the breaking of the shackles of control and suppression. On a lighter note, we've actually had the means for over 100 years for one home to chat or message another home 10,000 kms away. I was text messaging someone in Europe not so long ago, using a direct link that passes through no gateway, no undersea cable, at all. Amateur Radio is still around, and going quite strong in the digital era. In fact, we should know that satellites are themselves just radio repeater high sites. It is all still radio! The difference with satellites is the cost of the end user device is a lot cheaper now. See

TechCentral

The internet is slipping beyond authoritarian control

Satellite broadband promises to weaken authoritarian regimes’ ability to shut down the internet and silence dissent.

#technology #censorship #satellites

Digg Relaunches From the Grave With Some ‘AI Enhancements’ “If you find yourself nostalgic for an earlier era of the internet, you may welcome the news that after spending the last decade or so being passed between owners like a Christmas present no one wants, Digg—the site that was Reddit before Reddit—has been relaunched, with its new incarnation now in open beta. Now, original co-founder Kevin Rose is back to try again; along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, he re-acquired the site last year.“ Yes, we seem to have way too many sites and options nowadays. We've already seen the spin-off from Reddit to decentralised alternatives such as Raddle, Ramble, Beehaw, and many more. But this is a nostalgic throwback to the good old Digg days, a bit like when Reddit started out itself. One can only now hope that MySpace would have come back in a similar fashion, and usurped Facebook. But we can still hope... See

Gizmodo

Digg Relaunches From the Grave With Some 'AI Enhancements'

For all the people who've abandoned or been kicked off Reddit, your Bluesky moment has arrived.

and the Digg site at

Digg

Digg - People. Places. Things.

Digg was where humans on the internet decided what was cool before bots took over that job. Today, it's where you find your people. The ones chasin...

#technology #socialnetworks #digg

How American Big Tech guards the profits it extracts around the world “So far, the investigative project, known as “Big Tech’s Invisible Hand,” has mapped nearly 3,000 “influence actions” by the tech industry. This reporting has revealed, among other things, the elaborate web of intermediaries and lobbying used to influence Latin American regulators, how Google obtained leverage over the news media, and how proponents of building more data centres made a series of dubious claims about their benefits.” A very interesting read, and it is true there is huge money involved, and that Big Tech does reach right into every home and business, unlike the ways that Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, or Big Oil ever did. Big Tech often gets to influence what we read and see, and whether our posts ever get seen or not. The other Bigs relied on propaganda and PR, but all at arm's length. I saw Big Tech at work in their early days with lunches etc but once they were rebuffed by tech experts inside organisation, we saw them bypass those levels and go straight for the jugular in terms of the end decision-makers (those who are not tech savvy). So yes, it is extremely worrying, actually. Big Tech ultimately wants lock-in with their products and to be able to increase profits (maximising shareholder value). They don't want to take over, or run the world. But they have no qualms about the damage they cause whilst pursuing profits. The other problem is it is nearly impossible for newer startups to usurp them, because if they can't compete, they will buy them out. It is something to be aware of, but unlike voting (or not) for politicians, somehow billions of users would have to act in unison to ignore Big Tech and use alternatives. That is just not going to happen either. Legislation? Well, politicians are receiving lunches and being “educated” by Big Tech. It's a vicious circle. See

How American Big Tech guards the profits it extracts around the world – The Markup

A consortium of journalists is revealing how the industry influences governments in Latin America and globally.

#technology #BigTech

Threema Encrypted Messenger Service Sold to Private Equity Again “Your encrypted messages sit on infrastructure controlled by a German private equity firm whose previous acquisitions include Cloud7 premium dog beds and The Tofoo Company.” Right now there is no immediate problem or risk identified, but the situation is that a company which now owns Threema has no real knowledge or focus on how it works, and they could change the terms and conditions that protect privacy, in the future. So this is just something to note for now. The article does touch on some of Threema's previous security audit issues, and notes that no new independent audits have verified the fixes. If you are concerned, then Signal, Session, SimpleX, and a few others are good alternatives. I don't find many friends using Threema or Session, but Signal and SimpleX are pretty busy for me. See

Sam Bent

Threema Sold to Private Equity Again

Your encrypted messages sit on infrastructure controlled by a German private equity firm whose previous acquisitions include Cloud7 premium dog bed...

#technology #privacy #messengers

DarkMX is a decentralised comms app that utilises Tor and I2P to have an anonymous, reliable, and censorship-resistant presence on the internet * You can chat * You can share files * You can search other people's files * You can keep a contact list and send private messages to your friends * You can create your own custom .onion site, available to anyone with a Tor Browser Like many services which use Tor or I2P network, users tend to remain anonymous, and pretty well much everything goes, so this is not a child-friendly network. The focus on this particular network though is more around all sorts of file sharing, with zero moderation, so you want to be careful about what you actually download. But despite that, the app works with a built-in Tor client. If you want to use the I2P network, like I do, then you will need to install your own I2P or i2pd client app to run your I2P router node. I2P can be more private and resilient than even the Tor network. Just note that the app needs to connect to your I2P router for a good 30 minutes to discover peers and get communication going. Thereafter, it will be a lot quicker. The screenshot shows also where you can find the diagnostics for both networks. If I2P is accessible, the Tor connection is paused. The app also plays a role as a server of files to any Tor browser. So if you want to share files, music, or whatever (legally of course) then you can turn on Web Access, and separate you files into different groups if you wish to keep some separate, and then copy the link to share. Have a look at: From I2P network http://mv3qjsjk4cw3oywhsgkjqumn2cdlom6y5z7cuq6f6g4vhlhrynga.b32.i2p/DarkMX/site/index.txt From any Tor browser http://svdiwvzqmpozcicznynjxc3fcv3a4znv7c7nc6ycnrtsf677652gbzid.onion/DarkMX/site/index.txt Or try HTM for a Tor browser http://svdiwvzqmpozcicznynjxc3fcv3a4znv7c7nc6ycnrtsf677652gbzid.onion/DarkMX/site/index.html You should see a web page, but the DarkMX application needs to be running on my side otherwise nothing will be visible, as there is no 24/7 server service. It is PC to PC. But it is not just files and web pages. A Channel can also be used for just chatting or discussion topics as well. It has apps for Android, Windows, and Linux. You will note that hidden services are sometimes mentioned. This is because the Tor as well as I2P networks are not indexed by Google and other clearnet (normal HTML TCP based web services). See https://darkmx.app #technology #decentralised #privacy #Tor #I2P

Healthchecks.io emails me when my automation jobs don't run We all “should” have scheduled backups running, and sometimes other automated tasks as well. In some cases you may see an error popup, but often it is just an e-mail to say the task has run. The problem is often we don't bother to check that daily e-mail properly, or we don't miss one of the e-mails out of the five that arrive daily for different tasks. This is where open source Healthchecks.io comes in. It is an online service for monitoring regularly running tasks such as cron jobs. It uses the Dead man's switch technique: the monitored system must “check in” with Healthchecks.io at regular, configurable time intervals. When Healthchecks.io detects a missed check-in, it sends out alerts. Whilst you can self-host it with unlimited functionality, it can be a concern if your own hosting goes offline. They do have a generous 20 checks plan which you can use for free though to monitor from outside your services. It is as simple as creating a check, getting the unique link for that check, and appending a command string at the end of any cron commands, or in a bash script you may be running. I'm still in the process of tweaking mine, but I'm hoping to move away from the 5 daily mails I get after cron jobs have run, and rather now only receive a mail when there is a problem to be looked at. Healthchecks.io can now classify HTTP pings from clients as start, success, or failure signals by looking for specific keywords or phrases in the HTTP request body. They've been going for 10 years now, with over 40,200 free accounts, and just under 51 million pings per day. Luckily they have paid accounts bringing in over US$18,300 monthly to sustain the business (hosting costs real money). See

XDA

Healthchecks.io emails me when my automation jobs don't run

This monitoring tool alerts you instantly when your critical automation jobs fail silently.

or their site at

Healthchecks.io

Healthchecks.io – Cron Job Monitoring

Simple and efficient cron job monitoring. Get instant alerts when your cron jobs, background workers, scheduled tasks don

#technology #opensource #monitoring

6 things RAID does not protect you from “Among new NAS buyers, and perhaps even older users too, RAID is one of the most misunderstood aspects of network storage. In a multi-drive setup, you have RAID in place, so you are covered in case one of the drives dies. That's the promise RAID sells, and it delivers on that very specific promise as well. The problem starts when you expect it to do more than it's supposed to. It is not a safety net for everything. The sooner we realise that, the better it will be. If you wait until the last moment or until an incident occurs, it will be too late to correct course. While RAID may be good for one thing, it just cannot protect you from many of the things that actually cause data loss in the real world. Here are some examples.” An article well worth reading before diving into buying a RAID setup, especially as a RAID setup often costs lot more money than two three drives doing rsync backups. A RAID is good for real-time redundancy. If a drive fails, the other/s carry on going without issues. You can replace that failed drive, and just rebuild the RAID. But RAID drives also all work hard as they are all constantly being written to. There is something to be said for having a second drive, and just doing a daily rsync backup to that drive. That second drive only needs to spin up once a day to receive updated or new files, and delete removed files. This not only extends that drive's life, but you can restore any mistakenly deleted files too. When your primary drive fails (anything up top around 5 or 6 years) you can actually use the backup drive as the primary drive. It just takes a bit more configuration effort to point to it (but that could be about 5 minutes of effort). I've had to do this once, so I know it is fully possible. See

XDA

6 things RAID does not protect you from

Redundancy feels like safety, until the wrong thing goes wrong

#technology #backups #RAID #selfhosting

FavBox is an open source browser extension that enhances and simplifies bookmark management without cloud storage or third-party services It extends your browser's native bookmarking features. Key features: 🔄 Syncs with your browser profile 🔒 No third‑party data sharing. No ads. No tracking. 🎨 Minimalist, clean UI 🏷️ Tag support for easy organisation 🔍 Advanced search, sorting, and filtering by tags, domains, folders, and keywords 🌁 Multiple display modes 🌗 Light and dark themes 🗑️ Detects broken and duplicate bookmarks ⌨️ Hotkeys for quick search access 🗒️ Local notes support ❤️ Free and open source Something I found very useful with this extension is it quickly showed me all the duplicate bookmarks I have as well as one's with broken links, so I could clean those up. The extension is available for Chromium based browsers right now, but there is work in progress for a Firefox version too. See

GitHub

GitHub - dd3v/favbox: 🔖 FavBox is a local-first experimental browser extension that enhances and simplifies bookmark management without cloud storage or third-party services.

🔖 FavBox is a local-first experimental browser extension that enhances and simplifies bookmark management without cloud storage or third-party s...

#technology #browsers #bookmarks #opensource

SSD thumb drives could be better than cheap USB flash drives “Instead of getting a cheap but very sluggish flash drive, consider buying a USB SSD that looks like a regular thumb drive but is way faster and only slightly more expensive.” I haven't bought a cheap flash drive for quite a while, so did not really realise these SSD thumb drives were available. But they look worthwhile considering especially if the data volumes are a bit more. They are certainly a lot more compact and mobile than carrying around whole external SSD drives. See

How-To Geek

Please stop buying standard USB flash drives in 2026

Don't buy a plain old USB flash drive, buy this instead

#technology #storage

Make Jellyfin look like Spotify and Plex: 5 clients you need to install “Are you looking for a better way to enjoy content from your Jellyfin server? There are tons of clients to choose from made by passionate volunteers, and each brings a unique experience.” What I love about these types of apps, is that it leaves your Jellyfin untouched in the background. These are all different front ends, and you can switch between them without losing history of what you've watched, faved, etc. So test away. Interestingly too, some will run from inside a browser tab too, so no need to even install, although some additional codecs and methods are supported by the dedicated desktop app. Apps covered are: * Finamp * Fladder * Feishin * Void * Wholphin See

How-To Geek

Make Jellyfin look like Spotify and Plex: 5 clients you need to install

These fan-made Jellyfin clients totally redefined my home media server

#technology #jellyfin #opensource

FireWally Is A Great Firewall App for Mac, and It's Free “Most people haven't actively managed a firewall in at least a decade, assuming they ever have. But keeping track of which applications are using the internet—and how much data they're using—is still useful at times, as is blocking apps from accessing the net entirely.” Yes free on a Mac is a feature! But despite that, it could be a useful app especially when roaming. It is for Mac only though. The linked article also has a link to the page in the app store to get the app. See

Lifehacker

This Is the Best Firewall App for Mac I

FireWally is a free Mac firewall app that lets you manage data access from the menu bar.

#technology #security