The clarify, they said to get rid of all that stuff from OTHER peoples devices. The point being that you’re not the weakest link in this chain.

To illustrate, I have a phone number for less than a year that maybe 20 people have. All friends and family. I still had a sales call on it who was targeted and addressed me by name.

I dont agree with every point made, but agree with the overall sentinent. My problem is that the same thing can be said about other retailers, especially the brick and mortar ones. Walmart, Target, Home Depot, …whoever. They’ve all done it, and continue to do it.

Small business? Yeah, those essentially don’t exist in this context.

I have always said, ecommerce isn’t killing brick and mortar retail. They are killing themselves. Why? Because I’ve never felt like a valued customer at any of the retailers out there. I’ve been absolutely shit on by all the big retailers out there. And that’s not even getting into their policies, politics, and other behind the scenes stuff that I do care about, but it doesn’t directly impact my shopping experience.

So then I can buy something online, from a wide selection, with competitive prices, have it delivered to my door quickly, and if there’s any issues have zero problem with returns? That works for me.

Now in modern times I can argue that they don’t always have great customer service, don’t always have great pricing (for what you get), and its not all sunshine and roses. But I don’t see a viable alternative.

Find me another retailer online or brick and mortar that can supply me well and treat me well and I’ll go. But small business cant compete. And big retailers when they had all the money and power they didn’t do that so now that they are the underdogs why would they do it? So it’s just not happening.

I was thinking of going hardware, and I might still as a backup, bit I think I’ll need a software solution as well for family sharing. I’ll have to think this through a bit. Thanks.

I used Aegis a long time ago. It was solid. I think I moved away from it for sync reasons (or lack thereof), I’ll need to take a look at it again. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, I’m just looking for choices others are using to compare notes. I like bitwarden a lot, but keeping it for just 1 MFA token is a bit overkill. This is considering bitwarden doesn’t allow TOTP codes in their free plan (last I checked).

Yeah Proton Pass, I was using shorthand of sorts considering where I was posting.

Thanks for the recommendation.

One time authentication. Same thing, just different name.

Is pass-otp browser only?

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Damn, it looked like candy to me too until I read your comment. Now all I see is candy guitar pick.

I’m going to second the comment to leave well enough alone. Do NOT mess with your machine if its what makes you money.

I know you commented you don’t have funds for a second computer to test with but that really is the best step for you.

This is especially regarding some of your other details. You are not in for a quick and smooth transition (sorry to say).

VSTs are “sort of” supported on Linux. Basically they’re not and there are work arounds that I haven’t done using wine for compatibility.

I run a virtual machine for the windows software I am reliant on. So basically my Photoshop etc I use Affinity in a windows VM and it works fine. Depending if you get intensive with your work you might need a lot of resources or experience lag. But for the most part it should be fine. Look into virt-manager for your VM if you want to go that route.

Besides the VST issue, audio recording will probably give you additiinal problems. I haven’t delved into it because he rabbit hole went too deep for me, but from what I’ve read there tends to be issues with audio in VMs (tremendous lag for one).

But all that being said, there should be a solution for all of your needs. It probably won’t be straight forward though given your use cases. I don’t want to sound negative with my warnings, I just want to make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot with your work.

I get that, but it’s more logical to me that of I’m going to whistleblow on a company to not use one of their devices to do it. That way it doesn’t matter what apps are or are not secure, you’re not using their device that can potentially track you.

Not “you” necessarily, “one”.

I bring it up because you mentioned company MDM blocking signal. The fact that company MDM is active indicates its a company device (if it’s not that’s an entirely different conversation).

So why would one expect privacy on a device they don’t own?

Why would you expect any form of privacy on a device you don’t own?

Out of curiosity, do you use your xmpp app for SMS as well? I’ve been doing so (since the majority of my family will not leave the SMS messaging system) but its a bit lacking when it comes to groups and MMS.

As far as I’m aware there shouldnt be any differences between the two. I’d say buy the phone your budget allows for. Personally I spent more by getting he 256gig model because the storage was worth it to me. So basically my advice is buy older but spend the difference on meaningful storage.

Depending on your threat model you may wish to buy second hand or buying with cash so the IMEI isn’t tied to your name.

I initially struggled with the zero google because many apps didn’t work. I ran a secondary profile with google services running for those. Recently, due to another comment here on Lemmy I retried those apps (with exploit compatibility on) and most of them worked. So I’ve ditched the secondary profile. My point being, that most apps will probably work but if they don’t you always have the option of a secondary profile.