I don’t know about firstest, but he was definitely firster. That’s why they call him a founding father, not a founding fathest.

While I agree with you, and I do dearly love garlic, I feel obligated to give you a word of caution:

If you eat too much roasted garlic, for the next 24-48 hours, every room you enter will smell like garlic, your sweat will smell like garlic, your farts (and there will be many) will smell like garlic, and your poop will smell like garlic. It will not be a pleasant experience.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

Silicone isn’t what makes parchment paper heat-resistant (and isn’t even used on most standard parchment papers). Cellulose pulp is treated with sulfuric acid to cross-link the cellulose molecules, making them more chemically and thermally resistant, and the result is parchment paper.

People like to stick with what they know, and anyone who used Sync on Reddit will now be that much more inclined to give Lemmy a try because they get an interface that feels familiar. I can see this only benefiting the communities on Lemmy over time as the user base increases. Other popular apps like Boost coming to Lemmy would also draw in new users.

It’s great to have a base layer of free, good quality apps to accomplish some goal because it creates a very low barrier to entry. I keep F-Droid installed on my phone because there are times I need a very basic app to do something simple and the risk of malware is inherently lower in an app whose source is public vs private. I can check out the repository and take a look for myself if the permissions it requests are concerning.

That said, there are real advantages to a proprietary app. The developer has a financial incentive to keep the product up to date and add more features to maintain or increase the user base. This benefits not only paid users but also unpaid, ad-supported users.

Like you said, it’s about choice. If FOSS is important to you, go ahead and pick one of those clients. If you like snazzy new features or you want to stick with a client you’re familiar with, go ahead and do that. Nobody should be shamed or criticized for their choice either way.

That’s what I said though.

Your ISP can’t see what you’re downloading if you encrypt, but the IP (intellectual property) enforcers still can if they’re participating in the torrent. Then they find out which ISP that IP (address) belongs to and sends them a letter saying “we caught your subscriber downloading XYZ illegally.”

However, at least one US district court has ruled that just catching an IP address downloading a torrent illegally isn’t proof that any particular person illegally downloaded the IP (intellectual property). As a result, some ISPs simply ignore the letters the IP enforcers send, while some of the bigger ones count “strikes” against the subscriber with that IP address.

If you use encryption (I always change the settings from “prefer” to “require” encryption on every install), the ISPs literally can’t identify what you’re downloading.

So the IP enforcement companies send the ISP a letter saying “this IP was illegally downloading our stuff. We don’t actually have proof, but trust us and punish them.”

Big surprise, a ton of ISPs just ignore them.

Edit: to be clear, I’m only saying encryption prevents your ISP from seeing what you’re downloading. IP (intellectual property) enforcers who participate in the torrent are the ones who inform your ISP, but their letters to the ISPs have no teeth. Some ISPs care, but a lot just ignore the letters. You still definitely want to use a VPN for all public trackers.