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I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

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Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#61

Post by acomjean »

jim_dow_jones wrote: post #31

Richard Stallman was right. We didn't listen!

I heard Stallman talk at graduate school in the early part of this century.

I though he was a bit extreme at the time, but over time I've come to appreciate his position. Having software be open and modifiable is really quite an amazing thing. those open building blocks lets us do amazing things with software quite easily.

Its time for an open source desktop os and software to go mainstream. We realize that apple is not reliable making developer grade notebooks and their unix underpinnings show that it is possible. Then onto phones. I feel open source software will keep the hardware from being too weird

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#62

Post by vanderZwan »

cesarb wrote: post #29
jimmies wrote: post #7

>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…

> I turned off auto-updates on my phone. Even if you turn off auto-updates, some things still auto update silently. A long time ago, I wrote a small utility which listened to the PACKAGE_ADDED and PACKAGE_REMOVED events (I don't know if it's still possible to listen to these events on recent Android versions). IIRC, there were two packages that always updated silently (wihout a notification icon) and automatically, e…

And I have had the pleasure of breaking a phone, being stuck with an old one for a few months, and said old phone slowing down to a crawl, as well as losing it's very limited storage space (a few hundred MB) for no other reason than the Google Play Store insisting on being the most recent version.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#63

Post by isaiahg »

I agree wholeheartedly with everything except for pocket. I've never had a service like that become so integrated in my life so fast. I don't even use bookmarks anymore, it's just easier to pool it all together and tag it relevantly. The suggested news is astoundingly fine tuned to my interests as well, much more so than other services that claim to do the same thing. It's become my favorite time killer now just to go through my suggested articles.

Now if only they can keep from screwing with it and mucking up the great service with updates. They could literally do nothing else to it and I'll be a lifelong user. I'm not optimistic though...

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#64

Post by afterburner »

robotsonic wrote: post #47
therealmarv wrote: post #26

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…

I agree that there are certainly benefits to auto-updates, but where I tend to dislike them (especially on the phone), is where I have infrequently used apps. To stick with the Uber example, I don't live in a city with Uber, but have it on my phone for when I am. Why do I need to be burdened with using my data to constantly update an app I use once a year. This applies to a lot of apps (airlines, games, etc.). Games…

> burdened with using my data

There's usually a setting that forces updates to only download over a Wifi connection.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#66

Post by vanderZwan »

metalliqaz wrote: post #51
cesarb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I turned off auto-updates on my phone. Even if you turn off auto-updates, some things still auto update silently. A long time ago, I wrote a small utility which listened to the PACKAGE_ADDED and PACKAGE_REMOVED events (I don't know if it's still possible to listen to these events on recent Android versions). IIRC, there were two packages that always updated silently (wihout a notification icon) and automatically, e…

Is that a problem? I mean you're using a Google OS. At this point they are selling you a service, not a program. I have no idea what is in one version vs another, and I don't really care as long as the service keeps working. Now, I do still care of being in control of my own hardware, but I do so on my server. I don't know of a cell phone that delivers what I want without being sold as a service rather than a standal…

> I have no idea what is in one version vs another, and I don't really care as long as the service keeps working.

They insist on updating to newer versions of the Play Store on very old hardware that doesn't actually have the hardware power to run it.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#67

Post by gascan »

robotsonic wrote: post #47
therealmarv wrote: post #26

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…

I agree that there are certainly benefits to auto-updates, but where I tend to dislike them (especially on the phone), is where I have infrequently used apps. To stick with the Uber example, I don't live in a city with Uber, but have it on my phone for when I am. Why do I need to be burdened with using my data to constantly update an app I use once a year. This applies to a lot of apps (airlines, games, etc.). Games…

Mostly this reads like an argument for delta updates.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#68

Post by radarsat1 »

ryandrake wrote: post #60
radarsat1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. But.. > "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". is an interesting choice of example. The anger at updates only really makes sense for apps that are entirely local to your hardware. As soon as you have an app where part of it runs on a server that you don't control, that logic goes out the window. They can stop your non-updated app from working with no effort, just by making the server API incompati…

The anger is still valid because at the end of the day, the software (that used to work) no longer works due to a choice made by the company that makes the software. To the end user there is no difference between "making a breaking API change on the server" and "pushing a native update that disables the app". This may be the current sucky reality of SaaS, but it could be fixed if the market demanded it.

Ah, yes sorry, I do agree with that. The company is changing things. It does suck. The main difference is just that with SaaS, when they change the server, they change something for everyone, there is no way to really block it. With local apps, you can block updates.*

I'm not so much angry about server-based apps changing things, although I see your point, but I am angry about too many server-based apps in the first place. At least when it's not necessary. Hard to argue when it's literally for a social network.

* Although in practice this only works for so long as it gets more and more painful as time passes.. there are still users of Windows XP! But I'm sure it's far from a pleasant experience these days.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#69

Post by craftyguy »

zer00eyz wrote: post #43
fallous wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seriously contemplated a roll-your-own "dumb phone" solution not only for myself but also for my mother and in-laws (they're all in their 70s). An Adafruit Fona would provide all of the telephonic functionality I'd care about, and then it's just a matter of choice regarding microcontroller, display, etc.

Honestly you can pick up a "dumb" phone for $20 - it just makes calls (and might play an MP3). Building one would be fun, but would it be worth it?

> Building one would be fun, but would it be worth it?

For one, you'd know exactly what was in it.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#70

Post by michaelt »

therealmarv wrote: post #26

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…

  Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest
  security benefit I can think of for a normal user.
Auto updates are a great security benefit, yes.

So it's a shame so many companies shit all over auto updates by rolling out poorly tested changes that introduce new problems, and similar behaviour that motivates users to disable auto updates.

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