I use them constantly on laptop with GNOME. It makes it easier to switch windows with touchpad. On desktop I don't use them so often, because I forget about them.
Most sites still send domain name in clear text. You can see it in Wireshark or PCAPDroid. You need VPN if you don't want your ISP to see the sites you visit.
It supported torrent for ages, but it has only one tracker that doesn't really have very much content. Now qBitTorrent or something else supports it out of the box.
I2P is very slow, slower than Tor. Maybe after more people join, it will be faster. Last time I tried it was painfully slow to even load most eepsites.
If you don't buy no-name brand phones, you will get at least one major update. Even chinese brands such as xiaomi will provide updates. You can also install generic LineageOS image if your phone can be unlocked some way, official or not. It works on most devices.
But many smart TVs become useless very quick. When I was using 2015 phone in 2020, TV newer than that already loaded the lightweight Google version for unsupported browsers and vast majority sites/apps became unavailable. It used browser that was already 2 years old when it was released and never released an update to it. But when there was root vulnerability, they released a fix after long time of being basically unsupported.
Nothing. Everything your instance has is your IP address (mostly useless) and password hash (also mostly useless). Everything you have here is public. Maybe except your settings, like light/dark mode.
If there's no such thing as authentication when you view posts, you have no privacy anyway. Everything you post online can be seen by anyone and archived anytime. It's not like you have privacy when you post now.
Only real threats of Threads federation are EEE and server overload. Not the people from there or privacy. If someone wants to see some content you don't want to see, like some opinion you don't like, they should be able to see it. I don't understand why there would be such list, it would be pure censorship and waste of time. I have heard Threads has a pretty good moderation, so that solves this problem anyway.
I don't get what would defederating with Facebook-federated instances gives you, though.
On lineageos also just pegasus. Only thing that makes it better than stock android is that you have more chances for security patches. Dumno about graphene, it has some additional protections, but still susceptible to some vulnerabilities of android.
Enough people are used to the proprietary apps, so it doesn't matter for them. 0,01% of users flowing to other protocols for just part of their conversations isn't going to hurt them.
I think that for Lemmy and Linux the problem is actually in the people using it. Without people using it, they won't be many posts/good software support. Without the posts/support there won't be many users. It's not some UI being different, or anything else. It's the main issue. When you see lemmy.world frontpage (All, not Local), there are 15 threads about Reddit and Lemmy, 2 about Twitter limits and the rest is about tech. Meanwhile, on r/popular you have variety of communities, still mostly memes and videos but there are also other posts.
It's more about reddit that reddit is. You can't make it long-term with this type of content. On other instances it's more bearable, but it's still not enough to keep people here.
Most of them aren't profitable, especially twitter and reddit. YouTube is also doing it now, they're going after adblocks. They even threatened invidious recently.
But tbh discord change is for good. It's easier to invite someone, especially if they have special chars in nickname.
They deleted my Reddit account for me long time ago, I'm ahead of all of you.