How to get and listen to audiobooks on Android I have hit upon an extremely efficient way to listen to lectures, bayans, debates, audiobooks etc. that are available on YT. Install the NewPipe Android app as described in OP Hit any YT video link in the app Click download, select "Audio", and from the drop-down, select the lowest download size - the file-type does not matter Download Voice app from F-droid. It may be available on Google Play but I prefer F-Droid whenever possible. Launch the app and set your audio files folder (any folder to which you moved your audio files post download) as a "library" There are two modes you can select: a flat mode in which you place all audio-files in a directory and each file is considered a separate book. This is good if you have less than 20 files. Anything more and the list becomes unwieldy. A hierarchical mode in which you categorize audio-files into "books" by putting them into sub-folders under the main "library" folder (there should not be any stray files in the main-folder then - all files should go in one of the sub-folders). Each sub-folder is then treated as a book and the individual files are treated as chapters. And you are done, you can now listen to YT content on-the-go, incrementally, ad-free and without internet connection. I have 4-5 hours long videos converted to audio and listen when doing chores or other activities that don't need too much focus. This Ramadan I listened to the entire mushaf in hadr qira'at using this same trick. Any video you wish to listen to "some day" - download and shove in the audiobook folder and you will "eventually" get it done. What I am listening to now? A live audiobook (well it was live during covid) of Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
For those wishing to watch YT videos ad-free on desktop, there are a few options: Any of the browsers mentioned in the OP with the uBlock Origin extension Invidious: Head to one of the Invidious sites and use it just like YT - no log-in needed. It's an alternative front-end to YT. FreeTube Desktop: This is a perfect alternative to YT and works very well - you can create custom playlists, subscribe to channels and bookmark channels and playlists. No log-in required. n.b. For Android, NewPipe is the best app hands-down - but its not available on desktop. Tor browser does not block ads by default and its not recommended to install extensions on Tor.
Sorry I wasn't talking about the self-hosted versions. I have used their cloud-based apps - where we have to create an account using email and the data is backed-up to cloud and synced across devices through that central copy. Ideally they should not be sending any requests except to that one server, however I noted that additional requests were being sent by both apps to AWS and Alibaba servers respectively and those were identified as marketing specific. On mobile, DDG flagged AnyType as using trackers which were recording several mobile device parameters including UUID. Coming back to self-hosting in general, yes its safer but its possible for the sever running on your device to send information to another server without your knowledge and the client (a desktop app or a browser page) can also send information out - though CORS restrictions might prevent it from reading incoming responses from other domains than its own. In short, always monitor network traffic for everything running on your PC and use firewalls for general protection. I have heard of Briar too - never used it though because I do not have the right use-case. There should be enough people in your network to make any app useful. For example, Signal is an excellent drop-in replacement for WhatsApp - yet how many people agree to use it? People are lazy and lack awareness. I have tried several times to make my tiny network of contacts to migrate to Signal, but no luck.
Forgive my ignorance, But how do these two apps track you if you self-host them? Wouldn't the data be stored in your own local server? (I am not too knowledgable regarding self-hosting, but I do believe that this is the same reason why decentralized servers are always prefered over centralized ones, regardless of how privacy friendly they claim to be, since there is only one point of failure and a single breach makes the whole system vulnerable to leaks) For instance the Matrix protocl snd many of the servers are hosted by organizations or individuals. Altough everything may be end to end encrypted, certain metadata is known to the server. So to avoid this leak you'd run your own server that you and your peers use or join one that you trust. The easiest solution to this is anonymous peer to peer communications.. Some people recommend an app called Briar. Altough I've never actually used it, it does look promising.
Thanks - quite a buffet! However, it's not enough that app creators claim on their website that they do not track you - you must always monitor your network traffic after starting an app to see who they are talking to. Some of the apps mentioned there as "not-tracking" do track you - apps such as Anytype and SiYuan. These were the apps I was referring to here:
Or you can install a decentralized search-engine that uses its own crawlers and does not depend on other search-engine operators. Home - YaCy Download - YaCy (easy install on Windows, Linux and Mac) YaCy - Wikipedia Server will run on your system and fetch results from one of the peers - someone like you running their own YaCy instance.
Another privacy preserving meta-search-engine that collates results from more than seventy sources: Welcome to searx — Searx Documentation (Searx-1.1.0.tex) SearXNG instances (70+ currently online) https://searx.work/ https://searx.thegpm.org/ https://searx.nixnet.services/search You can host your own instance if need be From wikipedia: Searx (/sɜːrks/; stylized as searX) is a discontinued free and open-source metasearch engine,[4] available under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, with the aim of protecting the privacy of its users.[5][6][7] To this end, Searx does not share users' IP addresses or search history with the search engines from which it gathers results. Tracking cookies served by the search engines are blocked, preventing user-profiling-based results modification.[8][9] By default, Searx queries are submitted via HTTP POST,[a] to prevent users' query keywords from appearing in webserver logs.[10][11] Searx was inspired by the Seeks project,[10] though it does not implement Seeks' peer-to-peer user-sourced results ranking. Each search result is given as a direct link to the respective site, rather than a tracked redirect link as used by Google. In addition, when available, these direct links are accompanied by cached and/or proxied links that allow viewing results pages without actually visiting the sites in question. The cached links point to saved versions of a page on the Wayback Machine, while the proxied links allow viewing the current live page via a Searx-based web proxy. In addition to the general search, the engine also features tabs to search within specific domains: files, images, Information technology, maps, music, news, science, social media, and videos.[12][13] Users can run private instances of Searx on their own computer, but there are also many public, user-run, Searx instances,[14] some of which are available as Tor hidden services.[14] Meta-Searx instances can also be used to forward the search query to a random public instance.[14] A public API is available for Searx,[15][16] as well as Firefox search provider plugins.[17] As of 7 September 2023, the Searx GitHub repository has been archived, stating that SearX is no longer maintained.[18] The SearXNG repository remains open.[19]
Android Phones GrapheneOS: the private and secure mobile OS Nothing Phones (How to De-Google your Nothing Phone) Fairphones (Degoogling Fairphones) (FP5) De-Google your Devices De-Google Subreddit (RSS Link) Use Fdroid to install as many apps you need as possible I have installed FOSS series apps for: Calling, Message, Music Player, Notes, Keyboard, Calender (everything works great) Disable Google Play Store and use the Aurora Store instead Remove pre-installed Google apps like GDrive, Gmail and Youtube using Canta (you will need to first install Shizuku) Find which apps are compatible with DeGoogled devices using Sapio
salaam 'alaykum I am not the best person to answer this question. I can only point you to resources available online. A good evaluation in laymen terms is available here. (mebbe you've seen that already?) One of my main concerns is why use blockchain at all - just because its the latest fad? I tried looking for a technical paper that would explain how blockhain tech is leveraged for dVPNs and didn't find any but one and its not all that complete on technical details either: VPN⁰: A Privacy-Preserving Distributed Virtual Private Network. Take it for what its worth. Apologies for the late reply.
Any thoughts on decentralised vpn's/ decentralised networks where no one authority has control over the network. Everything is anonymously hosted on a web of machines
My updated recommendations (2024) for apps and browsers to escape the ubiquitous ad bombardment, primarily, and maintain a modicum of privacy, secondarily: New Pipe: Mobile app for accessing Youtube and a few other video hosting platforms. Best app around for watching videos, subscribing to channels, creating unlimited playlists. Can resume a video anytime - good for long lectures (and audiobooks). I haven been using it for about a year now - and its the best in class. Only once has it stops working - in the recent weeks, when YT was fooling around with their API - but they released new versions with fixes in a matter of days. For such times you can use: LibreTube, FreeTube, Tubular, Clipious. All mobile apps that access YT through the invidious servers - and so block all ads and native YT tracking. DuckDuckGo: A privacy focused browser for Mobile, a search engine for desktop (can also use browser extension) - the only search-engine recommended by EFF - the guys who maintain the Tor project. On the mobile, the App provides an "App Tracking Protection" feature - which when enabled - catches apps red-handed in the act of sending data to who-knows-where and blocks tracking and alerts you of who is trying to steal what PII (personally identifiable information). I have been using this feature for months now - enabled it for all apps - and found no glitches whatsoever - WhatsApp, Telegram - included. DuckDuckGo Player: Once enabled in browser-settings, it intercepts all YT links and plays the videos in a standalone player which auto-blocks all ads. The DuckDuckGo Email - a separate product - for generating disposable Email IDs to prevent unsolicited messages and tracking. You know those sites which require you to register for trial and then revoke access after a fixed number of days. Well, just shove a new DDG ID at them every time your access expires and you are on velvet. No need to go through the cumbersome process of creating a new Email account every few days. @abu Hasan @Aqdas Alert: Admins are kindly requested to ban all registrations with DDG IDs, we don't want people running multiple accounts and soliloquizing like Hamlet on our forums - especially the nefarious trolls who would love to create an impression of having the approbation of the "crowd ". The browser is available for Windows and Android platforms - for Linux/Mac you will have to use its browser extensions - which unfortunately provide the search and Email features only. StartPage Mostly same as DDG - mobile browser, search engine on desktop, browser extesnion But more importantly, it has a "browse anonymously" option for every search result - clicking on which will load the requested page in a kind of "sandbox" - i.e. - SP will fetch the page on their servers, strip it of all cookies and what-not and serve only the pure jam with a slice of bread. But there is a catch - you can't submit any kind of forms on the sanitized page - which means - you can't login, can't search a website etc. Think of it as "read-only" access. Actually, initially I could do both (on SP) - but someone got the wind of it and the bug or whatever it was got fixed - it stopped after a few weeks :/ Waterfox A privacy focused alternative to Firefox - it does not track you and it has its own DNS. Plus a nice vertical tabs feature like Vivaldi (another beautiful, hackable and purportedly privacy-friendly browser) and Opera (notorious Chinese spyware). My usual daily activity is to use: Waterfox + Startpage + uBlock Origin (safest ad blocker I know of) - and I rarely encounter ads in my browsing. In fact, I don't remember when was the last time an ad slapped me in the eyeball - it's that cool! ProtonMail Encrypted emailing service from the makers of ProtonVPN (no logs) - free for personal use. Portmaster This is a desktop app which lets you look through all the dirty laundry that any browser, website or app is smuggling under your nose - every single outbound network call is logged and exposed I have uninstalled quite a few apps after seeing who they were talking to behind my back! They also have their own DNS and ready-made block lists. I have blocked Meta for months and months - they don't provide anything useful anyway. Initially I also blocked Microsoft, Google and Amazon - but then some sites did not work well so had to re-enable them ..sigh.. But their core offering is an SPN - summat like VPN but with new identity per connection ... or something .... Brave Web Browser The only reason I am including it in the list is that it provides a "Private Window with Tor" option - so you don't need to start the Tor browser while doing regular work - you can just launch a Tor window with a click. The browser claims to be privacy friendly and that it does not track you - but it does dial back home on launch - so we can't be sure ... That's all for now!
