I have had to do it one or two years ago for my previous installation, but that’s because I was using Debian on a computer whose WiFi card does not have open source drivers. But in Ubuntu it worked out of the box, and I think it may work out of the box on Debian too now that they include non free firmware by default.

You only need to install special drivers manually if you use a distro that is a bit “advanced”.

Could you explain a bit? I see main issue with Signal (though I’m not an expert, and they’re not strictly related to security): it’s centralized (and the server isn’t even open-source).

The question is also a lot about your threat model right?

You could put the subtitles for videos in languages you don’t speak. What was much more annoying to me was the automatic audio translation (it’s still available, but it seems YouTube doesn’t select it automatically when you watch a video in another language).

Do you know of PeerTube? It’s not mainstream at all either, but it seems more known to me.

It’s also in the fediverse, and isn’t accused of the same moderation issues (though idk if PeerTube is really better than Odyssee at moderation, I suppose it’s just a difference in policy).

Edit: I read a bit about it, and I can see I was wrong about Odyssee being less known than PeerTube. It’s strange, I never heard of it, but anyway. Odyssee also includes some crypto bullshit, so yeah…

(Yes of course the AFP claims “editorial independence”, but is any news site “independent” when the funder has the power to cut the money if it says something the funder doesn’t like).

I think that when the funder is the State, laws make that a bit more difficult than when it’s completely private. Although it doesn’t completely solve that problem ofc.