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remote procedure chris

2022: what if you had to find an alternative to twitter
2023: what if you had to find an alternative to reddit, discord, youtube, every single search engine, and microsoft windows

218 comments
Krishean Draconis

@chrisisgr8
2024: what if you had to find an alternative to the internet because the whole thing is just completely ruined

Tsutsuku (he/they)

@krishean @chrisisgr8 2025: what if you had to find an alternative to the entire planet because the whole thing is just completely ruinied

Urusan

@Tsutsuku @krishean @chrisisgr8 We've got you covered with the OpenEarth project!

Teedi P.

@urusan @Tsutsuku @krishean @chrisisgr8

Well, The Brain built Chia-Earth in the late 1990s. Thankfully Pinky was more help than hindrance this time.
Oh wait--we came for the free T-shirts and an asteroid wiped out old Earth. So here we are!

So we need to build another Chia-Earth, I guess.

Dammit--people don't buy newspapers anymore. It'll take forever to make another papier-mache planet. Never mind.

Log 🪵

@Tsutsuku @krishean @chrisisgr8 2026: Fungus party! Woo! I'm a' capture me some carbon. All. Post-Anthropocene Era. Long.

4d3fect

@Tsutsuku @krishean @chrisisgr8 As Adams noted: “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

Tsutsuku (he/they)

@4d3fect @krishean @chrisisgr8
I find it hard to believe that the Universe is "for" anything or has a reason. It just kinda is.

SinbadTheSailor

@krishean @chrisisgr8 I totally was shopping for a reference book this morning because I can't find anything with Google anymore.

Derick Rethans

@SinbadTheSailor @krishean @chrisisgr8 What has gone wrong with Google? It's been absolutely useless lately.

remote procedure chris

@derickr @SinbadTheSailor @krishean Business goals have gone wrong with google. Everything they do now is about whatever increases engagement; search doesn't have to turn up 'real' results because people will use it anyway, maybe they'll click a few pages back and see a few more ads, and maybe the content-churner sites that come up first use google's ads. Search seems to run everything through the same sort of algorithm that has youtube turning up hard right channels, incels, etc, estimating how close your query was to something they'd rather show you (something "popular" that gets a lot of engagement) instead of what you asked for. It's the same north star that guided their layoffs, the meme-tier AI shitfest at that last press conference they had, the grotesque harmony of google news with right-flavored sensationalist clickbait, etc.

The short answer for anything google does now is that if it gets a click, keeps a user on a google product for longer, or gets an extra dollar, that's why

@derickr @SinbadTheSailor @krishean Business goals have gone wrong with google. Everything they do now is about whatever increases engagement; search doesn't have to turn up 'real' results because people will use it anyway, maybe they'll click a few pages back and see a few more ads, and maybe the content-churner sites that come up first use google's ads. Search seems to run everything through the same sort of algorithm that has youtube turning up hard right channels, incels, etc, estimating how...

Alistair K

@derickr @SinbadTheSailor @krishean @chrisisgr8

SEO workers are the worst kind of information pervert I've ever heard of. Politicians' spin-doctors are nothing in comparison.

strwbrryJen

@krishean @chrisisgr8 welcome to the 1980s my friend, itll be like back to the future but ass backwards instead

Basil

@chrisisgr8 Is DuckDuckGo still fine? Also, what did Windows and Discord do?

remote procedure chris

@basil DDG hasn't been fine for me for years, though I'd say it's still the least worst of the crop. I can't use it for anything but a first page search because you haven't been able to exclude results with the minus sign for literal years, so filtering out modern seo garbage is basically impossible.

Windows is an ad-filled wreck, it's a UX mess, and its quality as an actual operating system (overall stability and resource use) has been diving hard imo. Windows 11 is worse, and they're going to stop supporting my PC in 2025 for no reason, so I don't want to be glued to it anymore.

Discord is going through its enshittification phase, dumping their old username scheme for no reason (which nobody asked for or wants), and appears to be going fast down the path of "tech company trying to create dollar value over a usable product", and given the current climate of everyone else going to shit it just kind of seems bad (plus the glassdoor reviews really point to this)

@basil DDG hasn't been fine for me for years, though I'd say it's still the least worst of the crop. I can't use it for anything but a first page search because you haven't been able to exclude results with the minus sign for literal years, so filtering out modern seo garbage is basically impossible.

Basil

@chrisisgr8 Thanks for the long response :) If not DuckDuckGo, what's "better?" /gen

remote procedure chris

@basil i have no idea, i've seen people talk about smaller/open source searchy type stuff but haven't given the time yet to trying to look into any of it

cthrn

@basil @chrisisgr8 i really like Startpage but it gets both its index and results straight from Google. but they always get my search wayyy more right than DDG, Searx, and most other alternative search engines

Codex ☯️♈☮

@basil
@chrisisgr8

I've been trying to use Metager.org and search.marginalia.nu more. I don't think either is a replacement for peak Google, but they're each pretty good in their own right.

Codex ☯️♈☮

@chrisisgr8
@basil

💯 When my Win10 computer basically forced me into Win11, I knew that MS was headed back into big evil territory (assuming they ever really left). Discord I've basically always found unusable but I was starting to feel like it held too much sway lately to be safe for long.

James Bennett

@chrisisgr8 @basil DDG isn't really choosing to remove stuff, as I understand it. They rely on Bing for the actual search engine, and Bing has chosen to remove features, so DDG loses them too.

So it's the same sort of "third-party app at the mercy of the main platform" thing as Twitter/Reddit have gone through.

Occupy Journey 🐧🇺🇲♒🌎

@basil @chrisisgr8 I use DDG in Firefox and haven't seen a problem yet. I did read something on Mastodon that they started using an AI for the app but can't confirm that since I don't use it.

Jonathan

@chrisisgr8 too real 😭

Honestly Reddit has been the hardest one for me so far, really struggling without it today

remote procedure chris

@jonoor it was definitely a good site to just open with no objective

david :apartyblobcat:

@chrisisgr8
2022: fedi
2023: kbin/lemmy (havnt signed up to either yet), revolt (no one I know uses it), invidious (because no one uses anything except youtube lmao), I use google, Linux

lina :bisexual_flag:

@chrisisgr8 idk reddit, but matrix/revolt/irc/xmpp, youtube: piped, invidious, cloudtube, full alternative: odysee/ lbry, peertube,
Search: libreX or searX, windows: linux😘❤️❤️❤️

remote procedure chris

@lina hm, thanks for posting some alternatives :3

Tea (He/Him) :spinny_cat_transmasc:

@lina @chrisisgr8 theres Raddle and Kbin as alternatives to Reddit, Lemmy is also posted alot but the person that made Lemmy is a tankie and pretty open about being a bigot
I haven't personally checked out Kbin but Raddle is okay, if a bit scuffed here in terms of UX and there, but still usable

CurrentBias

@chrisisgr8 feels like christmas, I mean late stage capitalism

Andreas

@chrisisgr8

Who still uses Microsoft windows except for meaningless corporate work?

iAmAnEngarneer

@andreasm @chrisisgr8 students who have to take exams proctored by spyware

Shepherdess

@andreasm @chrisisgr8 folks with corporate overlords who don’t have the mental and emotional capacity to navigate between two types of systems?

There’s privilege to being against the grain. It takes time, energy, and effort that many folks stuck in survival mode prioritize spending somewhere else.

Blanket statements suggest that you believe everyone values what you do.

scandrof

@andreasm @chrisisgr8

Last week I had to go to my local library to print three single-page PDF documents, as my Linux PC at home doesn't have a printer.

The library has Windows PCs - an O/S I haven't touched in at least a decade. It wasn't a pleasant experience.

Started well - logged in using my library card & PIN. Opened the first PDF file in Adobe Acrobat & sent it to the printer.

Then I tried to open the 2nd document:

"Adobe Acrobat is updating - please wait."

So I waited a couple of minutes, then tried opening the PDF again:

"Reboot the computer to finish the Adobe Acrobat update."

WTF? You have to reboot Windows after a 3rd-party software update? The only time I ever have to reboot my Linux PC is after a major system update such as the kernel or desktop environment.

So I had to reboot the PC, re-login & send the final 2 documents to the printer.

A simple, less than 1 minute job of printing 3 pages took me almost 10 minutes. What a frustrating operating system!

It also made me think of Star Trek (if the Enterprise used Windows). Good luck if the shields or weapons systems decide to do an automatic update when being brought online just after 3 Klingon birds-of-prey drop out of warp right next to the Enterprise.

@andreasm @chrisisgr8

Last week I had to go to my local library to print three single-page PDF documents, as my Linux PC at home doesn't have a printer.

The library has Windows PCs - an O/S I haven't touched in at least a decade. It wasn't a pleasant experience.

Started well - logged in using my library card & PIN. Opened the first PDF file in Adobe Acrobat & sent it to the printer.

J Stewart

@andreasm @chrisisgr8

Gamers?

Steam is just aight on Linux, but a lot of stuff is still unsupported.

That's basically where I'm at. Windows for PC gaming. WSL for anything requiring any kind of programming rigor on the Windows machine. Laptop with Linux for my daily driver.

Krysta

@jdstewart2008 @andreasm @chrisisgr8 yeah unfortunetly many games have antycheats making them impossible to run on linux. There are many times a program you want to try just don't have a linux version. Many people couldn't run anything on wine - not everyone is good at computers (yeah I know it's simple for most of you but majority of people are different). My friends look at me like at some masochist while I struggle to run something on linux 😅

Isaac

@jdstewart2008 @andreasm @chrisisgr8 Yup. After over a decade without using windows i know use it for Steam

Aires

@chrisisgr8
Can we just get JC Denton to blow up Area 51 and start over already?

Gorgeous na Shock!

@chrisisgr8 I jumped the Windows ship a long time ago and I just kinda feel bad for the folks still deep enough in denial to still be caught by it. Kinda like I feel bad for the folks who feel trapped on Twitter. 😞

EDIT: Same actually applies to Discord and now Reddit, I guess, too...

Six Grandfathers Mountain

@indigoparadox @chrisisgr8

Me too.... I only use Android tablets since 2011, got the #motorola XOOM (pronounces Zoom) with #Android Honeycomb OS 3

Oh wow, here comes my chance to say #backintheday when it was normal for ALL TEACHERS to only use WinPC or Mac in the CLASSROOM because the difficulty of attaching a projector, my tablet had micro HDMI out

Used a very good (expensive at the time $300) Bluetooth BOSE Soundlink speaker, draw the shades and ready to go.

OfficeSuite Pro for Android

Lorq Von Ray

@chrisisgr8 Fediverse, UbuntuCinnamon, WINE, libvirt and virtio. Most everything that I need in Windows works on the Ubuntu desktop, WINE and libvirt fill in the cracks. Ditch the turd burd site. Roll with the Fediverse.

remote procedure chris

wow my first big fediverse post :3 i am going to be a shill (for myself) and point out (for no particular reason) that i am looking for software engineering work, there's a bigger post about this among my pinned!

Krishean Draconis

@chrisisgr8 i was about to tag you "your 2022/2023 post escaped and showed up in my feed again" lol

Krishean Draconis

@chrisisgr8 over 500 boosts now and showing no sign of slowing down, i think it definitely qualifies as a big post lol

remote procedure chris

@krishean today is the first time i used notification filtering lmao

remote procedure chris

@krishean i'm glad so many people resonate with my feelings about The Shit though

Krishean Draconis

@chrisisgr8 i'm only getting a fraction of the likes and boosts from one of my replies, i can't imagine what yours are like

remote procedure chris

@krishean a tab from when i woke up said it had like 1200 notifications to load (i did not load them)

Krishean Draconis

@chrisisgr8 congrats on being fedifamous, or i'm sorry for your notifications lol

Scarlet Ferret Bookshop 🇵🇸

@chrisisgr8 This whole mess has driven me to set up a forum at Scarlet Ferret. Yeah, going all 2002 on this!

Launching soon. 🥳

millions :spinny_cat_bi:

@chrisisgr8 the 2 reasons why I still use windows are 1. my brother has an account on my pc and 2. I can’t find any resolve cracks for linux

Tucker Teague

@chrisisgr8 what if you had to find an alternative to capitalism?

Endi

@chrisisgr8 Alternatives to Windows and popular search engines have always been semi-popular ;)

Alex

@chrisisgr8 honestly would rather support the smaller devs

Tito Swineflu

@chrisisgr8 Why? Are there no other places to find Nazis to chat with on the web?

Moving Pictures

@chrisisgr8
Unbuntu takes care of Winbloat. Reddit is a right-wing hot mess. So really, just Youtube and Discord.

Kevin Karhan :verified:

@chrisisgr8 there are alternatives for everyone of those.

@alternativeto will help you find the right ones.

#Spoiler: There is no valid reason to use #CCSS as an idividual.

📄 Mehdi.doc

@chrisisgr8 Open source : hold my beer
Mainstream : I don't care anything else is too hard to use, also I twisted my thumb while taking a selfie today, ofc it's because of opensource being complicated

RowinSpeez

@chrisisgr8 if I have to start talking to people in real life rather than post my thoughts and opinions online, I think I’d start a blog instead lol

OctoFloofy :squidorange:

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt for windows im completely stuck on it and unable to use Linux due to heavy hardware and software incompatibility

AlgoCompSynth by znmeb

@chrisisgr8 You left off iOS, MacOS, Android, GitHub and the three main "enterprise" Linux distros.

ch0ccyra1n :she_her::neocat_floof_cute:

@chrisisgr8
Ok wacky idea for search engines:

We should all be making our own Wiby instances! :blobcatthinksmart:

wiby.me/about/guide.html

Genuinely one of my favorite underrated projects.

DELETED

@chrisisgr8 I'm quite enjoying Kagi as a paid search engine. The only engine that has fully replaced Google for me.

arclight

@chrisisgr8 I would like to argue with this but sadly I cannot. Everything is so actively bad and broken and this bad brokenness keeps spreading. I'm stunned that food still works.

Jacob the Jacobin🌹🕊️🏳️‍🌈

@chrisisgr8 Mastodon, Lemmy, Signal, Peertube, Veronica 2 and Gopher, GNU/Linux and BSD

Power-Mad

@chrisisgr8 YouTube is gonna be the hardest to push. Twitter is just short message social media and cutting back on it made me realize how much I missed real communities as opposed to "social medias". Reddit is just mini forums under an umbrella account, discord is just an instant messenger and we used to have a ton of those even if discord has the best streaming tools.

YouTube though, it takes a hellva infrastructure to do what they do.

remote procedure chris

@powermad yeah, that's a hard one. i'm convinced that youtube has to die in order for society to survive, they're responsible for putting more hard right content in front of regular people than fox or sinclair broadcasting, but idk how someone would fulfill the thing youtube is supposed to be good for

Mike Schnier

@chrisisgr8 It’s sad how many people took this as an opportunity to rush at you with advice.

DELETED

@chrisisgr8 Good thing those exist, bad they require some tech know how

Reading Ratchet

@chrisisgr8 <sighs deeply 'cause she missed the Discord situation but knows the others all too well>

dvsk

@chrisisgr8 oh boy, the long downward spiral continues. Commercial interests continue to run rough shot over their user bases in the interest of infinite growth, only to turn their platform into a massive pile of shit. Someone much smarter than me @pluralistic has a great write up about the “enshittification" of online platforms here: pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/pot

As for search alternatives, kagi.com is decent and free up until a point.

🏳️‍🌈 HeroRareheart 🏳️‍⚧️

@chrisisgr8 I can do 2 of those with Mastodon and Linux but I'm aprehensive about using Linux on my main rig due to poor VR support and the lack of polish on the Linux version of tools I use like DaVinci Resolve.

ಚಿರಾಗ್ 🌹✊🏾Ⓥ🌱🇵🇸 (he/him)

@chrisisgr8
Twitter: Mastodon (duh)
Reddit: Dunno just yet, but forums or maybe Lemmy
Discord: Any privacy-respecting IM (Signal for individual conversations or group convos with people you know IRL, something else for group convos with people you don't know IRL)
Youtube: creator-owned platforms (Nebula, Dropout, etc) or ones that compensate more fairly (e.g. Qobuz for music)
Search engine: DDG, but I know it's not perfect
Windows: GNU/Linux

PurpleHaze

@chrisisgr8 if you're using iOS (and other platforms I am sure) can't you download the media prior to getting on the plane and listen to it then? That's what I do for the subway, plane, etc.

Edward Fattell

@chrisisgr8 already done; mastodon, Lemmy, matrix, peertube, DuckDuckGo (for now), and arch Linux. 😉✅

andwhyisit

@chrisisgr8 Microsoft tends to alternate between shit and good releases of Windows. Just sit on Windows 10 until Windows 12 comes out.

remote procedure chris

@andwhyisit i mean, if windows 10 can still be considered a 'good' release...

forgotten / забравен

@chrisisgr8 not sure where discord users are going, back to teamspeak? matrix?

Televise (Mastodon)

@chrisisgr8 its insane, there is no good social media anymore. disagree on the YouTube bit because that's about the only long-running social media site that's good now

Joe Original

@chrisisgr8 I’m still looking for an alternative to MySpace.

Track_Shovel

@chrisisgr8
Apple: what about these cool glasses that will inject ads right into your fucking occipital lobe?

noodle

@chrisisgr8 I quite like Kagi as a search engine. Not free tho.

Bryan :progress_flag: Calckey :calckey:

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt oooooh I love the idea of a Fediverse search engine! (nit necessarily for searching the Fediverse- but as a replacement for Google, Bing, etc)

d0v4k1n

@chrisisgr8 lemmy, teamspeak, peertube, duckduckgo and linux

Mic

@chrisisgr8 I've always been a fan of the fediverse concept, but damn content exploration needs to improve. Say what you want about algorithms but that can help find the things you're interested in.

Mikal with a k

@chrisisgr8
You ask these questions like it's a bad thing.

Staid Winnow

@chrisisgr8 Wait until people have to find alternatives to GitHub, AWS, Azure, Oracle Cloud, ...

183231bcb

@chrisisgr8 Sorry I'm not seeing it. Google Search and Youtube still work for me (for the limited kinds of videos I watch).

Birdsite was the worst of the big social networks well before 2022.

I have lots of complaints about Discord, but none of them are new or really exacerbated in 2023.

Windows...okay, I don't know this one, since I ditched Windows in 2017.

The only one where I agree with your timeline is Reddit. I'm hoping #InfinityForReddit gets converted into #InfinityForLemmy.

Poppy Farbird (Pen Name)

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt Youtube is going after blockers and its proxies (Newpipe, Invidious) because they need their blood money. They don't care if people are mentally drained by the toxic, exploitative online environment created to optimize personalized advertising. It's "piracy" if something causes them lose their blood money. 💢

Poppy Farbird (Pen Name)

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt Also, I feel that Linux actually needs more tech-inclined users to achieve "The Year of the Linux Desktop" without something going wrong, not more Linux hardware nor advertising. Linux is already somewhat known to most people, even just as "that one OS that's neither Mac or Windows," and anyone who is determined enough to use Linux is fine just installing a distro on a Windows PC. What Linux needs, however, is people who can do many basic computer skills, such as knowing how to navigate software documentation or making a bootable flash drive that has the installer for Linux. For that, I'm really hoping that works, since most hardware manufacturers just don't care about Linux and people were open to trying new things besides Windows before, such as the adoption of Mac OS or Android.

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt Also, I feel that Linux actually needs more tech-inclined users to achieve "The Year of the Linux Desktop" without something going wrong, not more Linux hardware nor advertising. Linux is already somewhat known to most people, even just as "that one OS that's neither Mac or Windows," and anyone who is determined enough to use Linux is fine just installing a distro on a Windows PC. What Linux needs, however, is people who can do many basic computer skills, such as knowing how...

runarcn

@chrisisgr8 fediverse/kbin, matrix, newpipe or other frontend, ecosia & startpage, Linux

(like if you actually want something to look into, i get the post but like if you reaaally want to)

TheFrenchGhosty

@chrisisgr8 I already moved to an alternative to those years ago. Reddit was the only one that remained and I planned to quit it.

Wiktor - wikiyu

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt
2024: what if we drop concept of MegaCorps owning our world...

w4tsn ~> :idle:

@chrisisgr8 2024: what if you had to find an alternative to reality

#mrmcd23

Jeramee

@chrisisgr8
If I may offer an amendment: we needed to find an alternative to MS Widows years ago.

Thank goodness for Linux!

Bushra Kurt

@chrisisgr8 the alternatives I found so far;
Reddit: N/A
Discord: Guilded
YouTube: N/A
Search engines: DuckDuckGo
Microsoft Windows: Literally any Linux distro/ChromeOS

Weltzeitgeist

@chrisisgr8 Don't forget Twitch. They're also trying to fight their customer and content creators, because they're all psychopathic capitalist pigs, who want to destroy everything in their paths.

Victor J Merino

@chrisisgr8
I'm scared to ask why Microsoft Windows too (apart from well... being Microsoft Windows). 😅

Vlad 🇺🇦🦀

@chrisisgr8 @arichtman 2030: what if you had to find an alternative to Earth 🥺

Vonny Veshy

@chrisisgr8 here cuz my twitter was locked for saying "r3d n3ck".

Ministerofimpediments

@chrisisgr8
[raises index finger sheepishly, clears throat, pauses, thinks about it, lowers hand slowly]
“Nah…I can wait…my time is near.”
[…every Free Software Foundation person]

marley the butterfly 🦋:sparkles_trans:

@chrisisgr8 2023 is truly the big corporate software self destruct speedrun :metal:

katerberg

@chrisisgr8 I’m really not ready for the instability of the 90s to return

Ijohnson

@chrisisgr8 not sure about the rest; I somewhat like discord. But yeah, where can we go post-reddit?

Andrew (bookseller era)

@chrisisgr8 Good thing we've got so many ideas laying around waiting to be picked up.

DELETED

@chrisisgr8 maybe one day the internet will be back in the hands of the people again

Craig Hatler, MSET, CFH

@chrisisgr8 Why would I have to find an alternative to all of these?

patter

@chrisisgr8 could 2023 be the year of windows on the desktop? :P


@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt Windows is the easiest one (and I feel a lot of people have been on that train for decades), and YouTube for me is the hardest one.

Sure the Reddit communities are lost, and the fediverse “versions” exist but are very anemic. But if new communities pop up or at least partially migrate I’m there.

1 maybe 2 YouTubers I follow are also on other platforms. There’s just nothing there for what I’m interested in:(
sad face And they have the most to gain from getting off a platform that treats them poorly. Though some seems to make good bank.

@chrisisgr8@tech.lgbt Windows is the easiest one (and I feel a lot of people have been on that train for decades), and YouTube for me is the hardest one.

Sure the Reddit communities are lost, and the fediverse “versions” exist but are very anemic. But if new communities pop up or at least partially migrate I’m there.

1 maybe 2 YouTubers I follow are also on other platforms. There’s just nothing there for what I’m interested in:(
sad face And they have the most to gain from getting off a platform...

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