Open source software is wonderful! It helps drive us toward a future of privacy and security. If you'd like to learn about how & why, check out this blog post! If you're looking to get started with using open source software, this is a great place to start. If you're already using open source software, you may find some new & awesome programs to try!

Matrix/Cinny

Matrix is an awesome way to chat with your friends. It's decentralized, meaning no single party has authority over it, and it's encrypted by default, meaning your messages are 100% private. When using something like discord or telegram, this is actually not the case. You're giving all of your personal messages up for free to the company! Privacy nightmare! Cinny is one of the best clients for matrix. Check it out here! I'd recommend signing up with a server like the-apothecary.club! Once you have an account, feel free to message me here: @via:the-apothecary.club!

Mastodon

Mastodon is an open source, decentralized social media platform! Plenty of awesome instances can be found at joinmastodon.org. Mastodon is interoperable with pleroma and any other platforms which use the “ActivityPub” federation system, including this blog! If you make a mastodon account, you can follow my blog here: @via@blog.kitties.gay.

Bitwarden

Bitwarden is an open source password manager, with a free service at bitwarden.com. It's one of the best (easily syncing) password managers out there, and it's free, so check it out! One of the most important tools for online privacy (and for not forgetting your passwords!) is a password manager, just make sure to keep your master password very secure! Password managers can auto-generate very long and secure passwords, which you won't have to remember, but will keep your accounts safe.

Librewolf

Librewolf is an open source web browser, based on the firefox source code! It's more focused on privacy and security than firefox, so some websites may require a little fiddling, but imho it's worth the effort. Google currently has too much control over the web right now, so at least give firefox a try if librewolf isn't for you!

Ungoogled Chromium

Ungoogled chromium is a chromium fork which removes any dependencies on google products. This fork of chromium is probably the best, most privacy respecting option you can use, if you absolutely have to use a chromium based browser. You will have to follow the instructions here to acquire extension support, and you will have to set your search engine, before using it.

Ublock Origin

Ublock Origin is one of the best adblockers out there. It's got extensive support and seldom causes issues on any websites, but if it does, you can disable it site-wide with the click of a button!

Tor

Tor can be one of the most secure ways to browse the internet. It's a decentralized, open source network of servers, which encrypt and distribute your browsing data multiple times. Recently, however, malicious relays have been popping up on the network, so be careful! If you can spare the computing power, running a tor node yourself would tremendously help with decreasing the efficacy of this kind of attack. If you're interested, you can learn more here.

Mullvad Vpn

Mullvad VPN is one of the most trustworthy vpn's out there, as creating an account requires zero personal information, and you're able to pay for the service in cash (and bitcoin, however bitcoin is not secure unless used very carefully). They also have regular independent audits, meaning they're likely to be fairly trustworthy. I wish they had something like an open collective, however, they're still one of the most secure vpn's I know of.

Sharex

ShareX is a wonderfully simple, yet powerful screenshot and screen recording program. You can do so many powerful things, such as auto-uploading screenshots, tweeting images, screen recording a specific area of the screen, etc. Sadly, ShareX is only available on windows, but for those who can use it, it's a no-brainer!

Windows 10 Ameliorated

Windows 10 Ameliorated is a set of open source modifications to the windows operating system, focused on privacy and security. The modifications are open source, however, windows itself is not, and thus it's impossible to guarantee that it is a completely secure system. This is extremely useful for individuals who need to use windows, and cannot 'just switch' to linux (although if you can, you totally should).

Linux

Linux is the future of privacy and security. It's an open source kernel, which is commonly used in tandem with GNU, to create the linux desktop experience. For the tech-non-savvy, there are some great 'beginner' distributions, such as linux mint or fedora. Just make sure not to use manjaro, as it is a horrible distro. For the more advanced users, I'd recommend artix or arch (Artix has iso's with pre-installed de's & arch has an easy-install command now!).

I'd also recommend straying away from ubuntu/ubuntu based distros, along with appimage, flatpak, or snap, as they all have pretty big issues, including the fact that they directly contradict the entire spirit of linux (snap is especially guilty of this, only being partially open source), and should only be used as a last resort, if the built in package manager on your distribution doesn't have an application you need.

If none of that convinced you to try linux, consider the following; Xenia, unofficial linux mascot:

The sheer amount of data we feed our personal machines is insane, and it's important that companies are transparent about what data they collect and how it's used. I commonly hear that most people “just don't know how much data is being tracked,” however, when I try to show people examples of how deeply companies actually track them, they simply respond with “I have nothing to hide.” In this post, I hope to inform people who don't believe privacy is important of why it's a vital human right, which must be protected, along with how open source software can pave the way for a better, more private future. Even if you don't have anything to hide, there are plenty of reasons you should care about privacy. Many individuals need privacy to fight back against oppressive governments, abusive partners, and even malicious companies, which can target vulnerable people. Isn't who you are something you should be able to share on your own terms? Privacy should be a universal right, not something only people who “need” it are awarded, as such a system actually decreases privacy and puts a target on anyone's back who finds it important. But how does open source software incorporate with privacy? Well, since open source programs are 100% free to look at review, anyone with some free time can diagnose exactly how data is collected and stored from these programs. This means that companies will be held more responsible for any shady business they partake in, and users will be more informed and competition will be encouraged, meaning a better, more privacy oriented future for everyone. Just think about the programs you run on your personal computer. Many people run things like Chrome, Steam, Riot Vanguard (gaming anti-cheat with ring 0 access), all of which can be running shady code without your knowledge. Hell, even the Windows or MacOS Operating systems have been found to be doing very shady things behind their users' backs. MacOS was sending unencrypted http signals to Apple's servers, telling Apple every single app you opened, and Windows blatantly tells you it's impossible to entirely turn off their tracking. Isn't that dystopian? The fact that these companies have been caught with this kind of stuff, means there's likely a lot more going on behind the scenes, which is honestly terrifying. Open source software also increases security for the same reasons it increases privacy. The code is open, meaning any individual can look at it, find vulnerabilities, and commit security patches or report security issues for others to look at. Since the amount of good-hearted individuals will likely be higher than the amount of malicious individuals, security issues will usually be patched out very quickly and faster than malicious people can exploit them. So how do you make a difference? The best and easiest ways to make a difference is to simply start using open source alternatives to your everyday software. I have an article showcasing many awesome open source programs, and they would be a great place to start. If you're tech savvy, submitting bug reports on github/gitlab for these programs is a good place to start, and you can even submit bugfixes if you know how!

This guide will teach you the basic setup steps to have a functional KovaaK's setup. There are a few settings that aren't super intuitive by default, and some that may not be immediately obvious that this guide will help you navigate.

First Start

The first time you launch the game, it's going to try to put you into the trainer instead of sandbox. Sandbox currently is much, much better than the trainer, so make sure you choose it. If you forgot, there's a way to switch back to sandbox in the settings.

Settings

Main Settings

In the main settings, you will see a place to put your sensitivity. Above the box, there's a Sensitivity Scale drop-down that lets you choose which game's sensitivity you'd like to convert to KovaaK's. For example, if you want to convert Apex sensitivity, you'd choose Apex Legends from the drop-down and input your ingame sensitivity. For FOV, it's the same. Just set the FOV Measurements drop-down to whatever game, and your ingame setting.

Weapons

Weapons visually just create a distraction, which isn't helpful for trying to focus on improving raw aim. Check the Hide Weapon checkbox and uncheck the Hit-scan Graphics Visible checkbox. Ignore the Zoom Sens Multiplier, as it's unimportant. Under the Shoot Sounds section, hit the X next to the audio file. This will mean that your gun does not make a sound when you shoot it. This is useful because it means that the only auditory feedback that you will get is positive, which will help you focus on when you're hitting targets. Especially, since on the tracking scenarios, it spams shoot sounds. The only sounds you should have enabled are for Hit Sound and Head Hit Sound, which you can change at your leisure.

Video

Make sure you set the Video Mode to fullscreen, and NOT anything else. Any other settings will cause frame lag. This is the same in any other game; always use dedicated fullscreen. If available, set NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency to ENABLED + BOOST. This will decrease system latency.

Visuals

Check the Hide Gibs checkbox and set decal time to 0. For the wall and floor textures, I would recommend selecting Pure Color under Texture and setting it to something like black. Then set Enemy Colors to a bright color like red. This will help ensure you don't get distracted by anything.

If you'd like a pre-existing theme, you can download my theme here. Place the file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FPSAimTrainer\FPSAimTrainer\Saved\SaveGames\Themes and select it in the theme menu.

Keybinds

I would recommend setting a bind to ResetSession, which will reset whatever scenario you're doing. This can be very useful!

Scenarios

Scenarios are some of the most important parts of your KovaaK's setup. You could spend a thousand hours in KovaaK's, but if you're playing bad scenarios, you will only improve marginally. What you need to understand is that there are many complex, different parts to aim. Voltaic has created some very very good scenarios and playlists to play, which are built to increase your overall skill, as well as measure it. Voltaic benchmarks are for benchmarking your skill, which can help with motivation and informing you of your skill. To get their resources, you'll have to join their discord server and go to the #resources channel. Keep in mind, the most important resources to get started are their Benchmarks, Fundamental aim training routines, and Game specific aim training routines. The fundamental routines help you round out your overall skill, whereas the game-specific ones are great for improving on the types of aim that are prioritized in the specific game you're playing. I believe it's important to focus more on the fundamental ones, even if you only play one or two games, but the game-specific routines are also very useful. Issue-specific scenarios are useful if you're dealing with any of the issues they address.

Playlists

Playlists are very useful, so make sure to utilize them. They are essentially an editable list of scenarios that you play one by one, which is super useful for creating a routine or copying the voltaic routines. Some of the voltaic routines also have a downloadable playlist file, which goes in the playlist folder in your game files, so make sure to watch out for those!

Spreadsheet

Voltaic also supplies a spreadsheet in the #resources channel. This is extremely useful, as it automatically tells you what your rank is and how close you are to ranking up when you input your scores. Make sure not to miss it!