#NorCalTechExit

Depreciating Chrome for the Dissenter Browser. Dissenter is compatible with Chrome extensions and has some other interesting features, but none of the call home surveillance. Dissenter is built off of the open source parts of Chrome. Looks promising. I'll also use Firefox, Edge and SR Iron for work, and sometimes when debugging I'll have to use Chrome but only when I have to. Also ditching google as my search preference, using Duck Duck Go (which might be accessing google through APIs like startpage, not sure, but at least the tracking is gone). Using Protonmail instead of gmail and yahoo mail now, though those email addresses will be around for a bit till I transfer everything over. I don't use email that much anyway. Next up for depreciation is Twitter. Slowly defollowing people till I draw down to about 300 people (I'd ditch it completely but I like some of the connections I've made there that can't be replicated on other platforms). Once I hit that 300 mark I won't post there very much just use it for information gathering. Other NorCal tech platforms I will either exit or go into limited use by the end of the year for me, including Facebook. For me it will be an online address book that I'll hang onto until another replacement comes along. Plus I like reading some of your post and I'm in some interesting groups. But other than posting about my kid for a few people interested in following his progress of some cat video anything of substance will not be posted here. What the NorCal tech industry did is amazing. But they all seem to be colluding with each other to stifle debate online. Many of the people they are nerfing are people that I don't agree with and are pretty bad. But some are not. Plus as an American I understand the whole importance of protecting free speech, even speech you disagree with. There are people online whose opinions I think are horrible, but I don't recalling ever once advocating they be silenced or disappeared off the internet. Those who advocate this type of thing don't understand that they are becoming they very "Nazis" they accuse anyone of not having a progressive ideological doctrine of having. "But these are private companies" you say. The debate there is more complex. DARPA (taxpayers) got Google going, and many of these NorCal companies had interesting funding sources from Inqtel and others. But let's not talk about that I guess. Some say if you don't like it don't participate. Sounds good. But to all you budding fascist out there who like online sanitized safe spaces for your virtual signaling back and forth,, look up the Streisand Effect. You might be building up the side you attend to nerf rather than silencing them. Food for thought.

Anyway, at a future date this blog will migrate away from Blogger as well. So if interested in my post read 'em while you can.