Notices by switching.social (switchingsocial@mastodon.at), page 30

It's #FollowFriday again, time for some #Alternatives 🌟

@ring Ring: The decentralised open source alternative to Skype

@Tusky Tusky: Popular Mastodon phone app by @ConnyDuck

@elementary Elementary: Easy-to-use open source operating system based on Ubuntu Linux

@Framasoft Framasoft: The leading French promoter of free software (en français)

@GIMP GIMP: Open source alternative to Photoshop

#FFed

Previous #FF posts:
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/100406572166748332

Last month a large number of full price commercial #games (including big names such as Civilization and Elder Scrolls) were revealed to contain the tracking software Red Shell:

https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/20/17485762/red-shell-spyware-pc-games-controversy-steam

If games were #OpenSource, it would be easier to avoid spyware 😟

But though they're rarer, open source games do exist 🕹️ 👾 👍

Some lists:

https://frama.link/Q1qR-N7M

https://gitlab.com/Ashpex/Linux_Games (via @Ashpex)

https://libregamewiki.org/List_of_games

#FOSS #OSS #LibreGaming #Gaming #VideoGaming #PCGaming #VideoGames

The writer Corey Doctorow is now on Mastodon here:

@doctorow

It's a verified account as shown here:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1019698205053730817

Let's make him welcome 🎉 , he's a long-time campaigner for open standards and copyright reform:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow

#NewHere

You can avoid #YouTube's weird algorithms and broken subscription system by subscribing to channels through RSS instead. You don't need an account, just a feed reader.

Put the channel's username in this address:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=USERNAME

You can then add this RSS address to your feed reader app.

For example, OnePotChefShow's RSS feed is:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=OnePotChefShow

You can also make RSS feeds from channel IDs (strings of letters and numbers):

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNELID

#RSS #BringBackRSS

#Ring, the excellent open source decentralised alternative to #Skype, has been recently updated.

You can get it for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux:

https://ring.cx/en/download

It's in all the app stores including Apple, Google Play and F-droid. (NOTE: Make sure you have the right "Ring", there's also another company's similarly-named but totally unconnected home security app.)

You can also follow Ring's developers on Mastodon:

@hle
@pierreduchemin
@AmarOk

#DeleteSkype #DeleteMicrosoft

Are you interested in #SelfHosting or #CommunityHosting to help you and your friends/family regain control of your data?

There are many projects trying to make it easier and cheaper to store data on low-cost low-power computers such as the #RaspberryPi or #BeagleBoneBlack :

@freedomboxfndn
https://www.freedombox.org/

@yunohost
https://yunohost.org

@bob
https://freedombone.net/

and also a good thread about this topic:

https://social.masto.host/@njoseph/100299477861821188

#FreedomBox #YunoHost #FreedomBone

In case you missed it:

#GetTogether, the open source federated alternative to Meetup.com, now has its own Mastodon account:

@GetTogetherComm

#Alternatives #ActivityPub #MeetUp #FOSS #OpenSource

Bonjour la Francophonie! 🇫🇷 🇧🇪 🇨🇭 🇨🇦

If you speak French, or if you grew up learning French, you may know TV5 (or TV5 Monde) as it's the most popular and long-established global French language TV network.

Well, it turns out they have an official Mastodon account at:

@TV5Monde

We know it's official because they did a feature about Mastodon last year which includes a link to this account:

https://information.tv5monde.com/info/mastodon-le-clone-libre-de-twitter-emballe-l-internet-fran%C3%A7ais-163348

#French #France #français #LangueFrançaise #FrenchLanguage #TV #Television #TV5

The blogging platform #Plume aims to be a federated open source alternative to #Medium, and is under active development.

It's still at a pre-Alpha stage, but you can get regular updates from the lead developer at @BaptisteGelez (the account is on a Plume instance but it federates through #ActivityPub, so you can follow it on Mastodon etc).

There's a demo Plume instance at:

https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/

Developers can find out more here:

https://github.com/Plume-org/Plume/issues

#Blogging #Blogs #Alternatives

@bob

£500k is the maximum fine they can impose.

The regulator is trying their best but the UK government won't give them enough resources or powers.

The #AmazonStrike is great, but even better is leaving #Amazon completely.

Here are some #alternatives:

https://switching.social/ethical-alternatives-to-amazon-and-goodreads/

#DeleteAmazon #DeleteKindle #Books #eBooks #AudioBooks

The ethical Instagram alternative @pixelfed is launching soon, but did you know that there's another federated photo sharing site in development?

It's called #Anfora (previously known as Zinat) and it's been developed in co-operation with #PixelFed so that they will be as compatible as possible (and they both use #ActivityPub).

Anfora is asking for help and feedback, links below:

Official account:
https://mastodon.social/@anfora

GitHub:
https://github.com/anforaProject/anfora

Dev's account:
https://mstdn.io/@yabirgb

There's an #ActivityPub federated calendar/events site in development called Calendar.social at @calendar_social

It's still very early days, but if you're interested or want to help out, have a look:

https://social.polonkai.eu/@calendar_social

https://gitea.polonkai.eu/gergely/calendar-social

The developer is @gergely

#FOSS #Calendar #Events #Federation #Fediverse #OpenSource

@gergely @dansup

ActivityPub event organiser:

https://github.com/GetTogetherComm/GetTogether

https://gettogether.community

Previous #FollowFriday posts, even more #alternatives to follow:

Follow Friday IV
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/100287762758071816

Follow Friday III
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/100248023097315151

Follow Friday II
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/100209022548185377

Follow Friday I
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/100169139721834708

Some more #Alternatives to follow on #FollowFriday:

@lib_reviews Lib.reviews: Building an open alternative to Yelp

@pixelfed PixelFed: Ethical alternative to Instagram, launching very soon

@mhall119 GetTogether: Account of the lead developer on an alternative to MeetUp.com

@openstreetmap OpenStreetMap: The open source mapping project, mirrored on the OSM English instance 🗺️

@inventaire Inventaire: An open source book exchange site, you make new friends and lend each other books 📚

#FF #FFed

YES! It worked, the European Parliament rejected the copyright proposals!

WELL DONE!!!

:blobcheer: 🎉 🍾

MEP Julia Reda on what happens next:

https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1014814460488413185

#Article11 #Article13 #SaveYourInternet

#Article13 / #SaveYourInternet Update!

@rysiek is on the ground at the European Parliament, this entire thread is worth reading as it says exactly which groups/MEPs to be contacted the most:

https://mastodon.social/@rysiek/100315521600261922

Vote on EU copyright directive (including #Article13) is tomorrow! Please call your MEP today and tell them to vote against the changes.

@rysiek met MEPs in real life, here are tips:

-Calling MEPs is way more effective than e-mailing them.

-If you can, please *call* your MEPs. Find your MEP here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

-If you'd rather e-mail, write 2-3 paragraphs in own words, from your e-mail address. Even if it's not as slick as the template, it will work way better!

#SaveYourInternet