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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I’m being snarky, but the Linux world isn’t fully user friendly. If you’re unwilling to roll with the punches, it may not actually be for you.

    I guess you’re an Arch user, but this is exactly the wrong thinking. Yes, stuff sometimes break for pretty much every distro, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss people who want stuff to “just work” (which OP went above and beyond). We should absolutely strive to not break stuff, and if it does be humble and polite. Unless you literally want Linux to never become mainstream…

    And btw I’ve been using Fedora for ages now, don’t have to follow anything, and when stuff breaks they are generally apologetic about it and try to fix stuff.




  • Wouldn’t be surprised if it also did automatic scans for CSAM or some other BS like that. The article’s conclusion is really funny, too:

    In any case, it’s nice to see Google delivering some new safety features in its Messages app. Hopefully the company publishes documentation on how Android System SafetyCore works so other messaging apps can implement their own version of Sensitive Content Warnings. Google Messages is popular, but there are certainly other messaging platforms that could benefit from this tool.

    They are quite the optimitsts. Oh and yes please, put the spyware in more apps! We aren’t tracked enough!





  • Since arbitrations are charged a fee per customer someone figured out that you can do an effective “class action” against valve by having many people submit the same arbitration claim against valve and costing them so much through the arbitration fees that it it was almost impossible for them to cone out on top regardless of the outcome of the arbitration (iirc).

    It’s not even that they’d have to pay for it; usually the filing party has to pay. Valve tried to be the good guys and while they did push for arbitration they said that they’d pay your arbitration fee for you, basically allowing you to file a legal complaint against them at their expense.

    And then some fucking legal company figured out it’s a neat loophole on how to bleed them through arbitration where the point isn’t really the result but the costly process. Guess that’ll teach Valve to try to be better than others. :|




  • That’s just the reality of doing business on the Internet.

    That’s just not true. You can absolutely get by on the internet remaining pretty much anonymous, as it is. Very few services need (and verify) your personal data; when they do it’s basically always when it’s government-mandated, and it’s for things that have a “physical” equivalent.

    i.e. creating a bank account online requires your actual ID, but so it would if you tried to do it “offline” in a physical bank (and you largely have a choice on whether or not you do it online).

    Then you have stuff like online shopping and such where most people probably use their actual personal information but you don’t have to and it’s generally not checked.

    This is an unprecedented change, where suddenly for access to a free service someone needs to ask for and validate some very private details. And it fucking sucks.

    While Australia’s new legislation is ham-fisted and poorly thought out, the intent isn’t wrong and there’s broad consensus for it (77% approval in Australia). We need to do something about the uncontrolled exploitation, manipulation and endangerment of minors by social media services.

    That’s the issue though; I agree that something needs to be done, but you need to do it more or less correctly on the first try or you’ll probably make it even worse.




  • The manifest v3 changes primary give a lot of security and privacy changes that stop extensions from doing a lot of questionable things in the background on all your page you visit. But that does stop ad blockers from doing a lot of what they currently do - blocking in page elements and modifying the pages you visit.

    It also killed a lot of other genuinely useful extensions.

    And if security is their main concern they should have spent resources on making sure the extensions they themselves redistribute are safe, not on killing a huge chunk of extensions. Sorry but you’ll have a very hard time convincing anyone that getting rid of ad blockers wasn’t their primary motive.

    But it does not block them from blocking page requests so ad blockers like ublockorigin lite can still function in a more limited capacity to block ads.

    It completely changed how they do this, and made it way less effective and more limited. All completely unnecessary from a security standpoint.