Once I had to use the internet without and ad blocker ( shiver ). It was horrible. I still have nightmares.

Joking aside. I couldn’t believe how crammed full and chaotic sites were without an ad blocker. I have no evidence to support this other than my experience but I think , for me , ad blockers are good for my mental health. Being constantly exposed to all those messages trying to exploit insecurities can’t be good for people.

Anyways ad blockers are the best.

Yeah I 100% understand and to a large extent agree with this. I think money should be involved , creators should get paid. I don’t think peertube has become “the answer” yet and there is some combination of market level event and technology/feature set that needs to be in place to create enough moment for people to move off YouTube. It will happen eventually ( I think ) but what exist today isn’t enough of a pull to overcome the momentum YouTube has but that doesn’t mean that “we” should give up.

As much as I like the privacy frontends I think ‘we’ have to move to alternative platforms sooner than later and pull the bandaid vs. continuing to indirectly be dependent on google as the base platform.

Yeah it is great – their sales are pretty good but they kind of hide it but I often pick up a bunch of books from there and then host them on my home server so my family can read the books I bought. Also good to support your local book shop if you can , in my opinion.

https://libro.fm/ you can buy audiobooks through independent book store and they are drm free. It’s great. If you want more of an eye patch solution. You could rip audio from YouTube. There tends to be a lot of books uploaded there.

Sinn

Nice, I was familiar with Sinn but actually didn’t realize that Sinn was German ; learn something new every day : )

Nomos Glashuette

Nice! these are cool. I like the Metro , a little bit ‘funkier’ than my normal selection but maybe that is a good thing.

these are very cool , the single hand is a really interesting design choice. I’ve seen a few of these but couldn’t recall the brand name. Thanks!

I’ve used StandardNotes for years. They are great, very privacy friendly and lots of good features. I’ve also used Obsidian like others have mentioned but I didn’t use 95% of the features on either standard notes or Obsidian – now days I just use a general markdown files and store them in a git repo – low complexity and I like the simplicity of it. 100% recommend.

Much bling! So shinny and chrome. I am in the market for something blue. I agree with you and others, the strap looks clean.

I was coming here to say the same thing!! The date pointer is so clean and clear. I hate it when I have to squint to tell what something is actually pointing at.

I use apple music. On linux I use Ciderwhich is amazing. Super clean interface and lots of nobs to turn in order to make everything sound and behave the way I like. If you like apple music or are looking for a streaming solution cider is awesome.

No worries. Honestly , this is a pretty hard question to answer. I’ve always been NB, but for a long time I didn’t have the ‘words’ or ‘desire’ to acknowledge it. For me it is very much a combination of ‘feeling’ and ‘philosophy’ – It started as an acknowledgment that I was pretending a lot , mostly to try and fit into gendered social circles. For me I wasn’t pretending to be male or female , I was pretending to be either. Once I acknowledge that I was pretending to feel and like or not feel and not like specific things to fit into social structures I started to be more honest with myself and actually be open to who I am. It was and continues to be a Journey. Very similar to you I realized that I “can’t be bothered with [socially] constructed masculinity or the version of masculinity my family expected from me and started distancing myself.” At first I distanced toward Fem but that didn’t work for me either – it does for a lot of people , many of which are probably here and I am absolutely in love with the fact that it does work for them and inspired to continue figuring out my own truth. Eventually , I was really tired of not ‘knowing’ where I fit and just decided to not give a F*** and set everything aside and embrace my non-definable-self. This worked for me and was a literal weight off my shoulders. It just feels right for me. I call this NB. Others do it differently.

I feel bad going off topic to NB stuff in this thread/community meant to celebrate and unite TransFem ( I love my chosen family and community ) but also didn’t want to not respond to you given all of this stuff is hard and we all need support. Happy to answer more questions in Direct Messages if you want. Hope this is helpful : )

I don’t know you but I am proud of you. I am only out to a few people as NB and the thought of coming out to my coworkers is particularly scary for some reason. Thanks for the inspiration.

Same. I used graphene and calyx for a while but really needed the nav features so stoped using them. Very excited for this!!

The dial details are amazing. Also love the second hand. Great choice.

No it isn’t a true compressor. It has an internal rotating bezel and general look of one but not the pressure seal.

The strap is a nylon perlon strap from the same manufacture as the watch. The watch shipped with a rubber strap that I wasn’t a big fan of — it felt too narrow for my taste.

The perlon strap feels and looks a lot better in my opinion but I am a bit concerned about how well it will hold up.

I got an all back version of this watch and absolutely love it.

I use kagi. I think it depends on your level of concern , as it does with most things. Kagi has a pretty nicely written privacy policy. They do require an account but I signed up with a masked email and cc. For my use I find their privacy policy enough given the other measures I take but the main reason I like kagi is zero ads or prioritized posting. Experiencing search with out ads is a pretty awesome exp in my opinion. There are other ways to get free search with ads stripped out but this “feel” fundamentally different from a service purpose built to be ad free and private. I am happy to pay for ad free platforms vs using platforms that are trying to do privacy preserving ads but this is more of a personal stance and preference. I know your question was more about privacy than ads but I find the two closely linked. I’ve attached a summary of their privacy policy below:

• Searches are anonymous and private to you. Kagi does not see what you are searching at all.
• We do not log or store your IP address. Your IP address is used only temporarily when enriching location/maps searches, and is not shared with any other party.
• We only store cookies needed for site functionality. We do not use any web browser analytics or other frontend telemetry.
• We do not display any ads, or have any first-party or third-party tracking in service of ads.
• We do not share customer data with third parties, except as needed to perform explicitly accessed services. In those cases, we will share the minimum amount of data needed to provide the service, and will do so in an anonymous way.
• We collect only the data needed to provide and protect the service.
• We proxy all images to prevent tracking from third parties.
• We use HTTPS encryption everywhere. All passwords are hashed and salted.

https://kagi.com/privacy