Some problems I don't have

My Saturday link round-ups usually include a few "PSA"-type links warning people about various problems, often related to computers or other such devices, that they should be aware of or do something about.  I myself, however, practically never suffer from such problems.

To begin with, I don't have to deal with most of the issues created by "AI" because I don't use it.  Ever.  For anything.  Not to create pictures, not to write things, not to "help" write things.  I don't use it in any way whatsoever.  I don't think I would even know how.  I never knowingly post an "AI"-created image or video, although I'm sure a few slip through here and there because I don't realize they're "AI"-generated.  (I did make one exception, for this post, using some British-made "AI" videos because they were necessary to illustrate a political point.)  By never using it, I avoid the issues it can create.

I never use Google for searches.  I don't understand why anybody still does.  There are many search engines out there and Google is generally recognized as the worst, especially now that it gives you "AI" summaries ahead of real results.  I mostly use DuckDuckGo, for which you can easily use settings to completely turn off all "AI" features, as I have.  For a few special cases, I use Yandex because it's uncensored.  It doesn't restrict or block results for searches on "forbidden" topics, such as suicide methods.  I'm sixty-five and I don't need some damn blue-nose nanny bot telling me what I can and can't read.  Yandex is based in Russia, but there's an English-language version which works fine.

I don't have an Alexa or a Siri or anything like that, and I never will.  I don't have any "smart" devices of any kind, and I never will.  I have no gadgets nagging and pestering me about things and reporting information about me back to some hypertrophic corporation.  I never save anything to "the cloud".  All my stuff is backed up on flash drives and a portable hard drive physically locked in a safe.  I don't even know what "Google Docs" is.  I don't have pictures "hosted" anywhere.  All the pictures I post in the image round-ups and so forth are just uploaded from my own computer.  No third parties to deal with.

I use Firefox almost exclusively.  It allows you to turn off and hide all "AI" features in its settings, and I have.  I added uBlock Origin years ago.  It was a very simple set-up and didn't even require restarting anything.  So I never see ads.  Not even on YouTube.

Speaking of which, YouTube is obviously dying.  Yes, I can watch it ad-free thanks to uBlock Origin (it sounds like it's unwatchable without an ad blocker), but these days it's so infested with "AI"-generated videos that it's becoming a real slog to watch, and not enjoyable any more.  I mostly just stick to channels I already know.  I assume over time more and more content creators will migrate to other platforms like Vimeo.

I never save any passwords, which would enable someone else to get into my accounts if he got access to my computer.  I keep my passwords on a document on my secondary computer, which is not connected to the internet and cannot connect to it.  In that document, the passwords are written in a code which no one except me can understand.  Try hacking that.

My internet computer uses Linux.  I will never need to deal with Windows 10 or 11.  No bloatware, no spyware, no "AI", no needing to create an account, none of Microslop's bullshit.  The computer just does what I want it to do and that's that.

I drive a 1999 car.  It has none of the tracking spyware and other electronic junk that modern cars have.  I just keep on and on repairing it regardless of cost.  By now I've probably spent more on repairs than the car could be sold for, but that doesn't matter -- it's still far less than the cost of replacing it, with the ridiculous prices of even used cars these days, and any replacement car would be full of that pricey, snoopy electronic junk I don't want.  I drive very little.  The car will probably outlast me.

Most importantly, none of this even involved making any effort, which is a good thing because I'm basically rather lazy.  I've just ignored all the companies pushing new fake-exciting ways to do things.  I'm not interested in it, I don't care about it, I don't want any of it.  I just keep doing things the way I always have, with the occasional add-on like uBlock Origin which is easy to set up and actually solves a problem without creating any.

It shouldn't take you any major effort either.  You're not doomed to be part of the ubiquitous "AI"-using, smartphone-gawking, app-downloading blight on the planet.  It shouldn't even cost you any serious money to unplug from all the garbage.  It will probably save you more than it costs.