coffeeClean

Startpage is certainly more favorable than Google. But it’s worth mentioning that Startpage is a Google syndicate so Google still profits from the use of Startpage. There are a number of searx instances out there that provide Google results by scraping Google instead of paying for API access. That’s a way to get Google results without feeding Google.

I mean, you can have a custom rom on your phone etc.

The OS is not the issue. It’s that apps are exclusively distributed in the Playstore which requires a Google account to reach. People running homebrew stuff tend to use Aurora, but that app still needs Google creds to use Google’s API. The anonymous option supported by Aurora violates Google’s ToS, so it’s not a legal option that anyone could point to as an official escape from the walled garden.

I personally will not use Aurora, even anonymously, because use of the app in most cases signals to the server that they were successful in getting the app to someone and connecting. It rewards them nonetheless.

That sounds like a good option for regular users and locals. Can that card be bought anonymous non-residents using cash? It would seem to eliminate a lot cases of non-phone users getting screwed but I guess there would still be tourist cases where the 50€ is unjustified. Like if someone is just passing through and needs to change airports (though I guess those are also not the cases where someone would be forced to use a phone app).

To me it is a bit confusing what you are looking for exactly.

It’s research for this article → https://thefreeworld.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/20/comparison-of-the-human-disempowerment-severity-of-3-walled-gardens-facebook-google-and-cloudflare/

and do not have any Google account (or any GAMAM account)

That stumped me for a second. I guess #GAFAM is now being called #GAMAM? I hate to accept the renaming as “Meta” hijacked a normal word to inject their brand into normal conversation unrelated to them. But OTOH, it’s more accurate, sadly enough, since Meta owns the Facebook subsidiary.

I don’t get the 911/112 example. But maybe it’s because I’m generally confused about what you are trying to find out exactly.

Contacting emergency services is an important human right on many levels:

• right to live
• right to healthcare
• right to equal access to public services

So forcing people to patronize Google in order to install the app means people are trapped in Google’s walled garden in order to maintain their human rights. Some say “you can simply dial 112/911, no app needed”. But the app is useful in more situations as it transmits name and address instantly and supports text when you cannot speak.

Here’s a quite interesting story where someone is being denied medical service for not patronizing Google or Apple:

https://mastodon.social/@lrvick/112079059323905912

Isn’t this more easily fixed?

$ adb shell 'pm disable --user 13 com.google.android.gms'

grapheneOS and the like might work for the OP and anyone with a mainstream phone, but there are a lot of unsupported cheap obscure phones which are stuck with stock Android.

The fun aspect to this is that some banks have forced customers to use an Android for all their banking ops. So:

① You’re late paying a bill
② Creditor locks your phone
③ You cannot access your bank to make the payment because your phone is locked

Brilliant.

Thanks! I grabbed it in case it comes in handy. I wonder if the first script which searches for messages might have been simplified by using grepmail. Grepmail is slow but powerful.

You can check it’s installed (stock android) Settings > Apps > All Apps > three dot menu, Show system > search “DeviceLockController”.

Is that just a “feature” of recent AOS versions? AOS 5’s triple dot menu has nothing like “show system”.

Is Wordpress a service? It seems to be software that is apparently runs on other people’s property. So this is what I’m confused about. I write a blog that is served by a non-profit org and the software is apparently Wordpress. I don’t understand how the copyright on my work in this context would exempt Wordpress in any way.

(edit) This article clears it up → https://lifehacker.com/tech/the-difference-between-wordpress-and-wordpresscom

Love the suggestion. That’s actually a great nuclear option. They would have to be understanding in most contexts. Although in the case at hand I will have to reveal that I use Tor which would probably cause a bit of confusion. And considering what a mess HTML looks like in my MUA (mutt, a text client).. well, could be a disaster.

I might be able to get by without the script. I just found that I can render the body in Firefox well enough (that often fails but it works with the particular emails I’m dealing with), fiddle with the paper format and scale to exactly fit a page, and then import it into LaTeX, rescale, and attach a header. If you’ve already got the script ready then I would be happy to take it anyway and compare the script output to what I’m manually rigging up. But if you’ve not started then no worries. Thanks!

(edit)
fwiw to anyone with the same need, I found this project: https://github.com/nickrussler/email-to-pdf-converter It looks a bit messy to install on my distro and I’m not sure of EML / Mbox differences, so I’m not planning to use it myself.

My python knowledge is quite rough but if not much hacking is needed it could be useful. I’ve seen others asking for a similar tool. I thought about creating one over the years but keep passing on it thinking I won’t need it often enough and every situation can bring different requirements as well. Which is why I settled on pasting into a LaTeX template. I do things like use a tiny font on signature blocks that are so big they would spill over to another page.

Does python have a standard library for HTML rendering? Or do you call a browser of some kind?