Micr0byte<p><strong>📣 Announcing Altbot 2.0: The Privacy & Green Update 🔒💚</strong></p><p><strong>Exciting news!</strong> After months of development, <strong>Altbot 2.0</strong> is officially launching with major improvements to privacy, efficiency, and description quality.</p><p><strong>What's new in Altbot 2.0:</strong></p><ul><li><strong>100% local AI processing</strong> for true privacy - unlike Google Gemini which saves data for training, Altbot 2.0 retains <strong>ZERO</strong> information about you or your images using the powerful <strong>Ovis2:8B</strong> model running on my custom AltTron server equipped with an A5500 GPU and expansion capacity for two additional GPUs</li><li><strong>Full GDPR compliance</strong> with clear informed consent - I've implemented comprehensive privacy measures including transparent data handling policies, user rights protection, and minimal data collection practices that exceed GDPR requirements</li><li><strong>Better quality descriptions</strong> across all 11 supported languages thanks to a newly developed translation layer specifically optimized for local LLM models</li><li><strong>Significantly more energy efficient</strong> with a new feature that shows you exactly how much energy was used for each request! This efficiency comes from using a server-grade GPU optimized for lower power consumption, and 36% of the energy consumed is from clean sources mainly nuclear power (thanks to being based in Georgia)</li></ul><p>The only data Altbot 2.0 records:</p><ul><li>That a request happened</li><li>How long it took to complete</li><li>What type of media it was (image, video, or audio)</li><li>What language was used</li></ul><p><strong>No images, no content, no personal data saved - ever.</strong></p><p>For those who don't know, Altbot has been helping make the Fediverse more accessible by automatically generating alt-text descriptions for images. The project has grown beyond anything I imagined, now serving thousands of users across the network.</p><p><strong>Support Altbot's Future 💝</strong></p><p>To bring these privacy and efficiency improvements to life, I had to invest in a more powerful server than initially planned. The server costs exceeded my budget by around $900, which I've covered out of pocket. <em>Who woulda thought that competing with a $1.98 trillion dystopian mega corporation would be expensive? Shocking, I know.</em></p><p><strong>I've set up a Ko-fi fundraising goal</strong> to help recover these costs and support ongoing development: <a href="https://ko-fi.com/micr0byte" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ko-fi.com/micr0byte</a></p><p>Your contributions will help ensure Altbot remains:</p><ul><li>Free for everyone</li><li>Continuously improved</li><li>Sustainably maintained</li></ul><p>Even small donations make a huge difference and motivate me to keep enhancing accessibility across the Fediverse!</p> <p>This milestone represents a commitment to ensuring accessibility doesn't come at the cost of privacy or environmental impact. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together.</p><p>As Altbot continues to grow, I'm open to sharing more about this journey with anyone interested in accessibility, ethical AI, or Fediverse projects. </p><p>For press inquiries: inquiries@micr0.dev</p><p>Feel free to boost or reach out!</p><p><a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/Accessibility" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Accessibility</span></a> <a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/Fediverse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Fediverse</span></a> <a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/AltText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AltText</span></a> <a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/EthicalAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>EthicalAI</span></a> <a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/OpenSource" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>OpenSource</span></a> <a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/Privacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Privacy</span></a> <a href="https://fuzzies.wtf/tags/Altbot" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Altbot</span></a></p>