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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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If you don’t flash custom firmware images on them that you built yourself from source code; then you have a massive backdoor that you can’t turn off. (Same goes for all other networking vendors, especially Cisco)
Just note, this is the extreme interpretation of software in general (“if you don’t compile the compiler by hand it could insert a back door!”)
For the purpose of your question, as others have stated you can run things isolated on your network with local accounts and not use their remote services (incidentally that’s how I run it)
No, proprietary software by default is malware. Either currently active malware or will likely to turn into malware whenever they get the urge to increase their stock price by bricking your shit, extracting data from you or any other thing that they might choose to do to bump those numbers up.
That is a very idealistic way of looking at the issue, and I am very impressed if you have the skill and time to maintain your computer systems completely free from proprietary software.
However, we do neither have the skill not the resources to follow that path, so while I agree with you on principle, reality does make those principles impossible for us to work under.
My husband buys hardware which has excellent Linux support and by investing in quality products, he maintains a source code only home environment that I quite enjoy.
I am sorry but this is an argument on par with a 5 year old saying "my dad can beat up your dad!"
I am glad that you have an environment that works for you, but unless you yourself maintain it to the standard you set earlier, I find it difficult to take you seriously.
More like, I don’t discount the contributions of others who helped me. Having to expect everyone to be everything and do everything is such macho bullshit. When everyone works together and puts in the little help that they can, things you consider hard/impossible can be achieved in a rather short time frame.