I use Zimbra with an external email gateway that only accepts authenticated email. Zimbra is pretty heavy (it’s intended to be a Microsoft Exchange replacement) but it at least has a huge amount of protection built-in to deal with spam and comes configured out of the box to not relay (well, outside of you setting up aliases and lists.)

That said, it’s not hard to find “incoming email only” configurations that deliver to local mailboxes only, for most email servers. The thing to avoid is having a single server configuration that tries to do both - accepting external email and sending locally originated email out. The configurations do exist to do that, but they’re confusing and tricky.

External email gateways… that bit is hard. I use a mail server I set up myself on a VPS. It does not listen on incoming port 25. It requires credentials. I did this largely because I was trying to send email out via Xfinity’s customer email relay, but the latter kept upping the authentication requirements until one day Zimbra just couldn’t be configured to use it any more. And each time they changed something, I wouldn’t find out until I noticed people had clearly not received the emails I’ve sent out.

VPSes are problematic as some IPs are blocked due to spam. There’s not much you can do about it if you’re stuck with a bad IP, so if you can find a way to send outgoing email via your ISP’s outgoing email server, do that. For Postfix, you can send out authenticated email using something like: in main.cf:

relayhost = [smtp.office365.com]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_use_tls = yes

and in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd:

[smtp.office365.com]:587 example@outlook.com:hunter2

So in summary:

• Consider an email-in-a-box solution like Zimbra, I understand the wish to go for something light but it might make sense if your aim is just to control your own email
• Regardless of whether you do or not, use separate servers for incoming/outgoing email.
• For incoming email, lock it down to accept local email down if you’re manually doing this rather than using an email-in-a-box solution like Zimbra.
• For outgoing email, use authentication and avoid it listening on port 25. Consider either directly using your ISPs, or if that’s not practical, configuring your outgoing email server to relay in turn to your ISP (see above for how to do this.)

Good luck.

The big problem with blocking GA altogether is that GA is usually how people who put together websites find out what browsers people are using to browse those websites.

And if you’re about to say “But they can just look at the user agent in access.log!”, sure they can, but those are in logs that are accessed by sysadmins, not people trying to find out how their websites are used. The first thing someone who’s trying to find out how to optimize their website does is go into GA. If they see no Firefox users in GA, then they don’t care about Firefox compatibility. They may even filter it out to prevent bots.

In order to fix the tracking cookies thing we need to do more than block a popular tool for getting website metrics, we need to understand why it’s used and provide alternatives that respect privacy.

This feels like more of an operating system issue than a hardware issue. What you’re looking for is a way to reduce the power it sips while still allowing downloads to happen. Leaving aside the edge cases like OS updates others have mentioned, the major issue is that applications aren’t structured like that.

If I have Firefox open with one tab displaying a website that runs 1,102 javascript routines all the time in an attempt negotiate a really good advertising deal for each of the banner ads it’s showing - you know, the type you visit and your machine starts crawling and the fans start blowing almost immediately - and another open on Ubuntu.com where I’ve just clicked on the “Download Ubuntu desktop ISO” button, only Firefox knows which of those tasks can be backgrounded and right now (as far as I can see) there’s no API in any of the major OSes where it can say “Send me this signal and I’ll only do the thing that can’t be interrupted.” nor “I’ve put the stuff that can’t be interrupted in this thread, so only run this when you’re trying to save power and nobody’s using the computer anyway”)

Would it be a good idea? Well, that would depend on whether developers actually use that API if it ever comes into existence. I’d like it, I just see it being one of these well meaning things that devs would avoid using because it complicates their code and probably makes it easier to break.

The only thing I can think of (aside from the remote possibility that someone’s trying to move something very wide along the walkway and their way is blocked by 1") is that it’s very pseudo-OCD triggering, which definitely would put it in the Mildly Infuriating camp, just not in the way that is normally posted here.

Matrix is good, though I’ve been reconsidering it ever since I read this: https://telegra.ph/why-not-matrix-08-07

Also I’ve considered it less than perfect since they added encryption and managed to make it a hell to set up. If you can’t get people to understand Mastodon because “yOu hAvE To cHoOsE A SeRvEr” how the hell are you going to get them to set up a Matrix account when it involves downloading files and other crap that you need to keep with you when setting up all your clients.

Revolt looks nice but until it’s possible to use one account (and browser tab) to access multiple servers (in the computing sense, not the Discord sense), it’s not going to be ideal as a Discord replacement.

The pound was a part of it, but there was always the UK’s veto which Margaret Thatcher negotiated, which also made the entire “BUT SOVEREIGNTY!!” thing a nonsense - now the UK is under the EU’s thumb, while before it could prevent the EU from doing anything that wasn’t in the UK’s best interests.

Despite her being associated with Euroskeptics I suspect even Thatcher would have been a Remainer.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

Removed by mod

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Context follows:

EDIT: I’m just going to bow out at this point.

The guy I responded flamed me over something that I never said, and you’re all upmodding them and downvoting me because… I can speculate.

But it’s clear nobody here cares about the arguments. Nobody, not one, has addressed the issues I’ve raised. Insulted me, changed the subject, put words in my mouth, sure. But that gives you some idea of the shitshow this has become. You’ve taken a side and the moment someone says “Wait, WTF? This principle has never existed and the logical conclusion of what you’re demanding is tyranny, not frozen peaches”, you downvote, and flame, and lie about what’s been said.

You want to defend a campaign to kill trans people, or support the view that an action ISPs take every day with respect to spammers, fraud, copyright infringement, and a whole host of other things without any external prodding or lawsuits, is somehow inappropriate when done against a campaign to kill trans people, you go right ahead.

That’s between you and your conscience.

To me, I’m disappointed in humanity. And that means you all. You are all horrible, horrible, people.

c/technology, you are evil people.

.

pdqinfo

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.

As a postscript for this discussion only, be aware that virtually all the replies to my comments quote me out of context, or claim I’ve made arguments I haven’t. It’s safe to disregard them.

Removed as a protest against the community’s support for campaigns to bring about the deaths of members of marginalized groups, and opposition to private entities working to prevent such campaigns, together with it’s mindless flaming and downvoting of anyone who disagrees.