• Threw away my pc from the window

1. A slow diversion from Chrome. I used to use Chrome for 30% of my web browsing and games, but have switched that to Firefox and Vivaldi.

2. I almost completely stopped using Reddit, and instead, switched to Lemmy.

3. A big shift to majority of headphone usage being wireless, mostly due to the BT600ANC headphones I have with excellent noise cancelling.

4. A renewed push to seriously consider dailying Linux. Windows 11 was just Windows 10 but with some UI changes running at 0.3x the speed. But MS keeps making Windows worse, and I'm scared of Windows 12.

5. Considering Third Party Apps for existing software, whenever I could. Most recently, Steam has been super slow so I really wanted a third party launcher to bypass Steam. Same for EGS, except Heroic fulfills that duty, until it fails to work.

6. Due to YT being especially greedy this year, I've soured on it enough to sometimes adblock it, use it less, and most recently and hopefully most devastatingly for YT, purchasing a year of Nebula to watch many creators videos there (ad-free) instead of YT. As a creator myself, I empathize with creators of all sizes.

7. Oh, almost forgot. I stopped listening to the Linux podcasts I was previously listening to. I just find it more enjoyable to listen to music at the moment.

Wait, actually forgot these:

8. Purchased my friend's old PC for cheap. He likes to be on the bleeding edge and I'm perfectly happy with a water cooled 3900X + 32GB RAM + 2.5TB storage + everything except GPU for $400.

9. And now the most unfortunate thing. My Facebook usage increased from basically zero to occasional use of the marketplace. It was how I found my GPU replacement for the PC, and my first motorcycle. I still adblock it hard whenever I can.

Wait, how can I forget this one!

10. Use of AI as a debugging tool has skyrocketed. I now default to ChatGPT before StackOverflow because on average it's way faster with ChatGPT.

Redoubled my efforts to selfhost more services, abandoned reddit and generally started using the www less.

I've switched to the Arc web browser, where tabs behave more like bookmarks (and they replace bookmarks as well). It's been a game changer for me - my favourite feature is the ability to close a window and it doesn't remove any of your tabs. Just open a new browser window and they're back. My tabs are also more organised than ever.

Large Language Models, specifically ChatGPT+, are now part of my daily life and I'm not just talking tech. For example I use it in the kitchen every time I cook a meal I haven't made a thousand times before and I've been cooking better than ever. Unlike a recipe website, you can tell it you don't have (or don't like) a particular ingredient and chat about alternatives, then it will update the cooking instructions. Love it.

I've given up on streaming music services, and gone back to occasionally buying a new DRM free albums. This has been part of a general cost cutting theme to my year - especially monthly bills.

I've been using the ever living heck out of Stable Diffusion. Shit is so fun. It's another tool for me as and artist to learn and utilize.

i got off reddit

I got a subscription to nebula, since my favorite creators are on there and YouTube’s subscription costs too much.

Quit Spotify for Apple Music and PlexAmp.

Slowly starting to phase out everything Google but it’s taking some time.

I’m using Google search less and now Ecosia has become my primary search engine.

Next thing on my list is to reduce streaming services. I quit Netflix and HBO in 2023 after having it for many years.

Using a VPN more and more.

I’m using much less Reddit, Facebook and whatever the fuck twitter is now. Instead I’m using Lemmy and Mastodon. Maybe this year I’ll delete all the old accounts finally for good.

Started using RSS again for news.

• Started renting a VPS and a domain. Now I have my own silly blog, a few services and a proxy to go to blocked sites (with the possibility to upgrade to censorship-resistant protocols if needed!)
• Among other things got an IRC bouncer, so started hanging out on IRC a lot more.
• Deleted my Twitter, Reddit and Insta (which were almost dead anyway but still).
• Went from hating IT and thinking it's just not for me to studying it in uni, as well as learning some topics myself.
• Degoogled my smartphone as much as I could with ADB (although barely noticed a difference, everything was from F-Droid anyway).

Dropped Reddit, Twitter, Spotify. Still have never been on Facebook, still have an Instagram account to stay in touch with old friends. Tubi and YouTube for entertainment

AI.

Biggest productivity increaser in yonks and fun to mess around with when bored.

A lot like before but with more crying.

• Left Reddit for Lemmy, only came back several times to seek for specific information in a couple of niche communities
• Started using Firefox again, both in desktop and mobile
• Opened a nextcloud account, with plans to host our own when we have a little more free time
• Autohosted FreshRSS
• Started with Sonarr, Radarr, jellyfin and so on (you can guess what for)
• Mastodon is now my main social network
• Stopped using Windows. If I have to use some applications to interact with my clients I prefer to do it via cloud.

Around a month or two ago I got flashpoint and ruffle so I can play flash games on my computer. I have never really used either program before. I got ruffle because flashpoint doesn't have Nitrome games on their platform and I wanted to play a specific game. Haven't done much with ruffle since the games run kinda slow on my desktop.