Use smart tube on fire tv and other android tv devices: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

Valve must be doing something right behind the scenes. I haven't encountered a hacker since May and play regularly. To be fair, back then the game was unplayable.

For ad-free youtube on Android TV: SmartTube

For ad-free youtube on mobile Android devices: ReVanced

For desktop: Firefox + uBlock origin

Same but with scanners. Plugged in a canon protable scanner, which requires their software to work on windows while it just works on linux. The cherry on top was that when I then had to make a single pdf of the things i scanned, I just ran pdfunite file1.pdf file2.pdf ... output.pdf and guess what... it also just worked.

I've been using FF for years now, probably since the quantum update. Tbh, the thing that prevented me to switch to any other browser since is the ctrl+tab functionality. I HATE cycling through tabs in any other order than by most recent tab. I didn't find a setting to change it on chrome when I was forced to use it for work, but in FF it's easily found in the settings and probably was on by default at some point as I don't recall ever changing it.

In recent years the privacy aspect and the fact that it isn't made by google have also played a role in why I've stuck with firefox. Also extension support on android, although the browser is still a bit slower than chrome on mobile.

My thoughts about your first few points:

• I, and many others it seems, think the Sync for Reddit app was priced almost too low. Only a few dollars for an app isn't sustainable for the dev in the long run. I believe people using reddit sync with ads actually supported the dev more than people buying the app.

• The reddit API was free, so it technically didn't have ads if you used some ad-free (FOSS) 3rd party app. Sync for lemmy isn't any different in that sense.

• Sure, the lemmy devs and instances also need money to run the service. People are free to and should donate to them as well. Sync for lemmy, however, isn't costing instances any more than FOSS apps.

The rest of your points are just personal preference, really. If you like the app, buy it or use it with ads. If you don't like the app, use something else. Honestly surprised by how much hate an app no one is forcing people to use is getting.

So what exactly is the problem here? If Sync gets bought and you don't like the new owner, you can stop using it and move on..

This. Sync was so nice to use that I find myself trying to use all the swipe actions sync had in all of the not so good lemmy apps currently available. None of them are as polished as sync was (and hopefully the lemmy version will be).