As others already stated there are solutions already to pin apps and to be honest, I feel I would not give the phone to a policeman like that.

On the other hand, what I’m more concerned about is giving the access to my phone’s data through different permissions to my government.

For example this is the list of permissions for the Hungarian government app: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/hu.gov.dap.app/latest/#trackers

It’s just really sad to see this comment and also upvoted this many times. Doesn’t contribute to the conversation at all, plus possibly starts some hate circlejerk.

Unfortunately this is the case I’m seeing happening more. I would love to use a router of my choice, but then I would lose the TV service (Telekom, Hungary). And it’s not just about the freedom of mine to choose the hardware, but the features their one is lacking.

Also with the TV box I got from them 2 yrs ago, I can feel and see that’s is miles behind my 2015 (!) Shield TV.

So yeah, ISPs giving out crappy hardware and force you to use it, is my nr. 1 gripe.

That’s one way. Or you can contribute code, help others in the forum, file bug reports… OR if you’re the lazy one like me you can actually give them money.

Don’t like subscriptions? Ok by me, but please don’t think that complete teams will be working on great and secure software for free. That’s not something that can be maintained for a long time.

If you like something, contribute to it.

I do agree that it’s pretty cool that HA can be used for free, but if you like something and use it regularly please find ways to contribute.

I believe playing with visibility would be the easiest way

This is the first time I’m exploring this, but I think you’re wrong.

On Mastodon you can:

• Control who’s following you (also block)
• Set your post to appear only to your followers (link)

So post visibility is not something you set per profile, but per post. But you have an effective tool to decide who you let in AND remove on the way.

Yeah, I was also wondering about the transcoding. And thanks for the power draw comment, great to know. Sounds manageable.

I still think you should give this one a try. Unless, you’re goal is not like having an actual solution, but doing this project as a hobby, and throwing some money at it. Which is also fine, I’ve done the same before.

Testing one or two of these media severs will cost you some hours of your time. Anything other will take much more time, effort and money.

Peripherals are one thing, handling concurrent streams, transcoding… is another one.

So in theory, a Pi can be kept alive with a power bank, but OP is expecting (as I understood) multiple hours of streaming (with “local” only access) , which includes the above tasks for multiple concurrent streams. How big of a power bank we’re talking about and how long will it last?

As others already wrote, I would go with the Plex server at home and using the “Download” feature to have some content available offline for the times you don’t have internet. You can actually set a limit for the size of the download library and individually set video and audio quality for the files.

Seen raspberry pi mentioned some times, I don’t have one, so maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think there would be an easy way to power it up on a train for example.

Can confirm, seen it live. As soon as LogSeq was open on both devices it threw an error.

Just check what privileges these apps ask for when you’re installing them. They could get infinitely more data then “just” the ones tied to the conversations.

So once again my point is that, if their app is not touching my phone, that’s one bullet dodged.

Not sure if you haven’t read my comment, or just didn’t get the jist of it: the point is that you can use the service without installing their crappy app.

Not the solution you looking for as I feel, but I leave it here for others to discover: With a home server and proper technical knowledge you can use WhatsApp via Matrix: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/whatsapp/

This is something I discovered way before, when I was trying to ditch Facebook Messenger. I felt like there’s absolutely no chance to convince everyone around me to use Signal, so even not having the app on the phone looked like an OK option.

Gboard runs OK without any permissions, so if you don’t find anything good enough, that still could be your solution. I tried many other options but haven’t found a bilingual swipe keyboard as good as Gboard unfortunately. I just gave it network permission to download dictionaries, switched off all permissions, and it’s running smooth since months now.

Those purchases will be lost if you want to degoogle. Just went through this some time ago and actually it was a good opportunity to think about which one I’m really using. The ones I really like and there was an opportunity to buy them outside of the Google ecosystem, I rebought (for example Tasker). For all others, I found good replacements.

I feel like their goal is more close to providing a privacy-minded alternative to Google’s G-suite to “regular” users, so for me it totally makes sense. But yeah, I’m also really waiting for the Linux drive app.

I was more thinking about as something that should be baked into the “phone app” from my point of view. So when the phone rings, I’m seeing who calls, why is he calling and what amount of time would he need. If I’m missing the call, I would also see these info in the recent calls.

For me it would help if there would be an option for me to see the at least the reason why the call is being made and also an estimated time of the call.

And with work related calls, it kind of makes me insecure to not know the topic beforehand. I don’t want to blob out some half information. Write it in email, I’ll see for it and get back to you.