its very easy to install via docker as mentioned above. Mumble is very lightweight. You could run the server on your desktop in the background easily or even on your router, there is a package for openwrt. The sound quality is awesome, voice is e2e encrypted and bandwidth should not be a problem either for a couple of people in the chat while you are playing.
I would switch to jmp immediately if only it were available in Germany.
Try oeffi, it’s a great app for public transport.
I’ve learned a lot about privacy/security from xmpp chatrooms, especially the room for the conversations client and the divestos chatroom. They both are kind of support chatrooms for the chat client/ android rom but privacy is often a topic and the programmers/ rom maintainers are also present and very knowledgeable. https://search.jabber.network/rooms/1
Podcasts are a leftover from the non centralized and non-monetized internet of the past. Because is that most Podcasts are still available as rss feeds, so you should only ever get adds if they are spoken by the Podcasts hosts. Ate you taking about those? Only something like sponsorblock would help against those. I use antennapod (fdroid) on android to listen to Podcasts. Sine hosts always start their podcast with an add, but you can autoskip the first minute of a certain podcast with antennapod every time. It has a setting for that. Antenna pod itself is foss software without adds.
There were problems like these ten years ago in Europe, but nowadays it works very well. W
They use xmpp as their messaging system I think. Xmpp is open source, but I am not sure about the licence used.
I’d say it’s best to only buy routing devices supporting openwrt. Some Ubiquity devices seem compatible, so maybe you are in luck. In my opinion it’s just best to stay away from preinstalled commercial software and just install Linux. You get away from the whole process of enshitification, gain long term support and an incredible set of features commercial software will never provide (at a reasonable price) imho.
Here is a good overview. You could compare this with your findings:
Do linkwarden instances federate, so that it can act as a decentralised way-back-machine?