I am a huge fan of Flatpak applications on Linux. I like how they work. I like how easy they are to install. I like how you can control their permissions with such granularity. Etc.

Well now, I have yet another reason to love Flatpaks: easy installation reproducibility. Let me show you what I mean.

Have you ever needed to reference a command line tool's capabilities only to find out there is no manual page and that only the -h (—help) option is available?

Normally, this isn't a problem, but -h doesn't let you search for strings the way man does. That means if you are trying to use a tool that is quite extensive, scrolling and sifting through the help option's results manually can be quite cumbersome.

Here are just a few things you can try today to make your Tailscale network a bit more robust.

Tailscale touts itself as an affordable, zero-config virtual private network (VPN) that easily connects all of your devices from anywhere in the world. Without going into the nitty-gritty of how it works, Tailscale is built on WireGuard, and it uses a centralized server to make the initial introduction between all of your devices.

I've been using Tailscale for some time now. I first tried it out because I wanted an easy and secure way to access my home media server from anywhere in the world, and I heard Tailscale was a fairly pain-free way to do this.

Not only is that true, but I've actually loved using Tailscale, and I will never go back to using reverse proxies and port forwarding into my local network again. That being said, there are a few things you can do to make your Tailscale experience quite a bit better, and I've compiled a list of three which I believe just might do the trick.

This lesser known method is dead simple AND it does not use any extensions.

Personally, Firefox is my favorite web browser for both mobile and desktop. Despite a few shortcomings, Firefox can relatively easily become one of the most secure and private options available. And though the “out-of-the-box” experience leaves much to be desired, here's the best way to change one of the most important defaults relatively pain free: the search engine.

Here is how to remove EXIF metadata on Android, iOS, or even your desktop of choice.

Sharing photos online is a critical part of how we connect with one another. Whether it's X (formerly Twitter) or Mastodon, Instagram or Pixelfed, or even just SMS or Signal, sharing pictures is synonymous with sharing our experiences. But this habit comes with a risk some aren't aware of: doxing yourself and/or your family via the photo's EXIF metadata.

Though I can't guarantee they will all work.

Firefox is easily my favorite web browser; both for mobile and for desktop. Privacy and security aside, I actually enjoy Firefox's workflow. Its flexibility and design caters to me in a way most Chromium-based browsers just can't—apart from Vivaldi and Opera, though I wouldn't necessarily equate bloat to flexibility or good design. And when you factor back in the privacy benefits Firefox brings, it's a no-brainer.

But, until recently, Firefox mobile has had one minor issue I haven't been able to get past—the lack of extensive add-on support. That was until I figured out how to add ANY Firefox extension to the Android mobile app, and now there's no looking back. Here's how to do it.