My Dumb Computer- What, why, and how?

What?

A dumb computer is a term I made up for a computer without a browser nor a way to download and install a browser. It has no app store. No social media etc. Basically it is the dumb phone of computers. This isn’t to say there’s nothing to do on my dumb computer. I actually have a lot of software installed on it. I have things like games, email, my RSS reader, online banking, online shopping, and travel booking. This brings me to the why behind my dumb computer.

Why?

I already have a dumb phone, but it is easy to replace scrolling on a phone with scrolling on a computer. The purpose of my dumb computer is to have a device where I can access software that’s useful to me without the infinite, toxic wasteland of having the entire internet at my fingertips. The internet has many great uses. I love a lot of what it allows me to do. What I hate is alogirthimc never ending streams of content desiged to distract, AI slop, ads, and tracking etc. I don’t need or want constant, never ending access to the internet, and I strongly disagree with the idea that people should have that constant access. The internet used to be a place you had to go. It was relegated to the family desktop, a computer lab, library, or internet cafe. Wi-fi wasn’t everywhere. I think things are better that way. My dumb computer still allows me to do useful, fun, and entertaining things while not having any direct access to the world wide web at large. This allows me to be present in my own life, productive, and still enjoy the benefits of having this technology with some internet enabled services.

You might also be wondering, why not just use self control, and/or some internet blocking software like Cold Turkey. Well, believe it or not the setup I have is EASIER. Despite being more work to setup and more planning initially, once it’s setup my life is actually way easier and simpler. Exercising willpower to manage screentime is a losing battle which is exhuasting to manage. Using blockers works great for a little while, but eventually there’s an excuse to turn them off. Then once again it takes willpower to turn them back on. This constant going back and forth creates decision fatigue, guilt, and shame, and most importantly doesn’t ever really solve the problem. Digital minimalist life hacks like leaving your phone in the other room, creating screen time limits, etc. trap you in a never ending and exhuasting cycle of constantly managing your screentime and constantly fighting tech giants who continue to try to design their sites and apps to be as addictive as possible. How many times have I heard, “I am trying to do x with my phone.” (or iPad, or whatever), and how many times do those devices and apps always seem to slowly but surely creep their way back into our lives, distracting us from being present, creating mental fog, and fucking up our sleep schedules. It’s just not worth it and never really solves the problem. This is why I believe having no smart devices at all and getting rid of your smart phone, social media accounts, etc. COMPLETELY is the only real, lasting solution. It takes the decision fatigue out of it and makes your life easier despite culture telling us it makes life easier to have a smart phone and constant internet access. August Lamm, an anti-tech activist, went one step further and in addition to only having a dumb phone, got rid of her laptop completely which I think is an awesome solution as well. Another great solution I think, is just not having any wifi or internet access at home (in addition to of course only having a dumb phone).

How?

So lastly, how did I actually create a dumb computer? What I did will illustrate a little bit more of why I consider my computer to be a dumb computer. To start, I made a list of things I wanted to be able to do on my computer like online banking and online shopping etc. I downloaded and installed software to meet the different uses I wanted my computer to have. For several things I wanted to be able to use my computer for though, I couldn’t find a good piece of software to install directly to accomplish. This is where a GitHub repository called Pake came in handy.

I used Pake to turn useful websites into progressive web apps. This basically just let me install some useful websites as software directly on my computer. Things like ebay.com for ordering things, OpenStreetMaps (an alternative to google maps) for planning routes, and a travel booking site for booking flights are all examples of what I used Pake for. Using Pake I was able to install many things that I would normally require a browser to access, but now I could access directly on my computer. This way I could directly accomplish the different tasks I’d like to with my computer without getting lost browsing the internet. I made sure NOT to install any websites that could be time wasters or distractions like YouTube for example. I didn’t want anything on my computer that gave me the ability to endlessly scroll. Instead for entertainment I installed an app for the streaming service “Tubi”. I also made sure to specifically buy a laptop with a DVD drive in order to watch movies and TV shows I have on DVD. I don’t find movies and TV shows distracting at all. I rarely watch them on my own, so for me this was a good option to still have some entertainment accessible.

Finally, the most important step is to uninstall the ability to get new software and to browse the web. I’m on Windows, and Windows tries to prevent you from doing this. Thankfully, there are several helpful guides that a quick google search show. Essentially it just comes down to typing a command into your Command Prompt terminal. Even if you’re unfamiliar with using the terminal, if you just search online “How do I uninstall Microsoft Edge?”, you’ll find the guides are very easy to follow. You can pretty much copy and paste the commands to accomplish this. So one by one, I uninstalled the Microsoft app store, Microsoft Edge, and finally a command line program called “Winget” which allows you to install apps from the web. After completing this, there’s no way to install apps on the computer directly from the web anymore, and there’s no way to browse the web! Of course, I can still use many of the programs I have installed which might make use of the internet. Some of those programs might contain links to the internet, I’m hapy to say, clicking those links just results in an error window due to not having a browser.

I intentionally chose software which allows me to make use of the internet without being able to endlessly browse or scroll. If I have a question that I don’t know the answer to, I can ask someone around me, just accept not knowing the answer, or walk to the library and use one of their computers to search the internet! It’s a very nice feeling. What’s nice about this setup too is you can use Pake to install whatever you’d like to install and customize the setup. For example you can turn Wikipedia into an installable app on your computer if you’d like to. When creating apps with Pake just remember to NOT check the box which allows the app to open links within it. Doing that would allow you to browse the web using the app if it has any kinds of links that lead off of the site. As long as that box is unchecked it is totally self contained, and you can only use the app to access that one website. If I ever find that my computer is lacking anything that I’d like to have, I can always put additional software on a USB using someone else’s computer or the library computers to install on my computer.

So that’s it. This has been my setup for two weeks. It’s been extremely refreshing to use my computer like this. It feels like being a kid again where I actually have time again to do the things I want and most importantly to me, I’m present in my own life. If you’re wondering how do I publish blog posts with this setup, I have GitHub desktop installed which allows me to push commits to my website! :)