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Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

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Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#101

Post by dreamcompiler »

sneak wrote: post #55
dreamcompiler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully Apple can find their way back. It's not going to happen. Apple talks up privacy and security but the truth is they don't care about those things. What they care about is having a locked-down platform because locked-down platforms make Apple $hitloads more money than open general-purpose computers. Let's take another example: Remember back before 9/11 and you didn't have to show an ID when you boarded a pl…

> It's not going to happen. I'm allowed to hope, I've been using macs continuously since I was 4 years old, over 30 years.

I've been using Macs since 1984. I bought a Lisa to do development for the Mac after Steve Jobs came to my university and told us we could buy his weird new computer for half price. Guy Kawasaki mailed me printouts of new sections of Inside Macintosh every month. I've single-handedly bought several hundred Macs (mostly through my employer) over the years, fighting prejudice and bias the whole time about Macs not being "real computers." I had a rack of about 50 XServes at one point that was my lab's private supercomputer.

But I'm about done. Apple has turned into an entity I no longer recognize. They have become--to use Google's word--"evil".

It's bad enough that they can't seem to fix long-standing and new bugs in their operating systems.

It's bad enough that every version of the operating system deprecates or eliminates useful features in favor of shiny useless ones.

It's bad enough that they don't care about developers any more, and cannot be bothered to create sane developer tools or documentation.

It's bad enough that they don't do backward compatibility any more and you are pretty much forced into a newer -- and in most respects worse -- version of MacOS at least once a year, or else you don't get security updates any more.

It's bad enough that the IOS upgrade treadmill is an even worse situation, where if you have an iPhone, you must keep upgrading it constantly, cannot downgrade, and will have to buy new hardware just to stay on the treadmill.

But what I cannot abide is Apple's increasing lockdown of the platform. It's now to the point that they no longer sell general-purpose personal computers. As your article points out, it's not even yours any more and it cannot be made yours.

Apple just sucks now. And I get to say that because I've been their biggest cheerleader for 36 goddamn years.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#103

Post by rsanheim »

deadbunny wrote: post #16

Yet despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - both in the article and in the comments here in the various threads - people are still making excuses for continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft/et al products because the alternatives are a bit rough round the edges. These companies have repeatedly shown that they don't respect people's privacy and people have resoundingly responded that neither do they. I would…

You pointed out a core problem here, and a common blindspot with the HN crowd:

> continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft

That is probably 98%+ of devices that most typical people use for everyday computing, across phone, laptop, and desktop. Whether it is an android device, an iPhone, a Dell laptop or a new M1 macbook you are beholden to a corporation that doesn't care about privacy. I would argue that Apple cares a bit more, and I really hope they respond to the most recent shit show with some changes, but I'm not holding my breath.

And before "have you tried this *nix distro??" comments appear, they are still too hard to setup and nowhere near as user-friendly for most people on an everyday basis. And hell, if you setup Chrome and Gsuite as your default tools of choice, as many do (or are forced to because their job) how much are you really breaking free anyways?

I don't know the solution, but its clear that in the war between privacy and convenience and usability that privacy is on the ropes and its the last round of the fight.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#104

Post by forest_dweller »

damnencryption wrote: post #64
fyfy18 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched back (after a Mac stint for 12 years) to Linux a couple of years ago, and although hardware support is much better there are still some very sharp edges you could easily bleed out on if you briefly touch. I have a ThinkPad T470s running Arch Linux (I also tried Fedora and Ubuntu and saw these there too): - Desktop performance is too poor to run at 4K, even though it works fine in Windows. I'm not talking p…

Have you tried pop OS? They do bunch of optimization and come with tested and stable drivers pre-installed.

It is to do with the Kernel and the whole stack fit together which isn't that different between distros.

Also If this person is using Arch they will know how to apply equivalent patches themselves.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#105

Post by geocrasher »

jolmg wrote: post #28
geocrasher wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Terminal run sudo echo 127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com >> /etc/hosts restart

`sudo` can't affect `>>`. `>>` is the shell opening `/etc/hosts` before launching `sudo`. sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Good catch. Another way that would work in Linux at least:

sudo $(echo 127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com >> /etc/hosts)

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#106

Post by microtonal »

fyfy18 wrote: post #43
nautical wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with that, user experience in Linux is and in foreseeable future will be the most flexible of all and hence allows users to make it look exactly the way they like. For comparison I would say Linux is like bootstrap that you can customize to make it look the way you want. iOS is like a paid theme you have bought over Themeforest with near to zero flexibility. If you want a predefined good looking desktop, y…

I switched back (after a Mac stint for 12 years) to Linux a couple of years ago, and although hardware support is much better there are still some very sharp edges you could easily bleed out on if you briefly touch. I have a ThinkPad T470s running Arch Linux (I also tried Fedora and Ubuntu and saw these there too): - Desktop performance is too poor to run at 4K, even though it works fine in Windows. I'm not talking p…

Desktop performance is too poor to run at 4K, even though it works fine in Windows.

I have used 4k with Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA GPUs on Linux (both Wayland and X11) and it is a smooth as it is on macOS. My only data point is GNOME though, because I am happy enough to never try another DE.

I fully agree with Bluetooth problems. I just gave up and use a wired headphone with mic now :(.

But yeah compared to macOS or Windows, Linux really lacks a lot of polish.

I generally agree. I am a NixOS user, though I recently tried Fedora Silverblue and I was surprised how smooth the whole experience is. They nailed the desktop. Atomic upgrades/rollbacks. Flatpaks are really a nice model for installing desktop applications. It's one of the first times I felt that it's a Linux-based system that I wouldn't worry much about recommending to non-technical users.

I think the more serious problem is the lack of applications like Microsoft Office, the Adobe Suite, the Affinity Suite, OmniGroup applications, etc. Sure, there are free replacements, but they are not as good. And even if they were as good, people generally do not like to switch away from what they know.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#107

Post by damnencryption »

JimTheMan wrote: post #94
damnencryption wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking into various differences among demographics which use and prefer apple products. Nobody rated any of the problems often thrown in here as a priority. Majority of iPhone users are women and HN/reddit are primarily men dominated. It should be no surprise that apple caters to aesthetics over thermals and you see people complaining about that on these platforms. Apple customers put status and prestige when…

>Majority of iPhone users are women I sold iPhones for years and never noticed this trend. I highly doubt it is true in any significant way. I would also challenge the assumption that women want aesthetics over some other factor. In this day and age, that's an incredibly 'old fashioned' statement to make. From what I could tell. People bought iPhones because they were: a)Cool and of good quality. (Your everyman can j…

> that's an incredibly 'old fashioned' statement to make

If spending in cosmetics industry is any indicator, women definitely cares about how something looks over men. There are hard number even if you don't believe in the various evolution theories and biological differences which makes women more prone to noticing subtle visual and design cues.

From 2010: https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/01/women_want_apples...

From 2013: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271204/android-vs-iphone...

From 2015: https://www.statista.com/statistics/513995/smartphone-user-g...

I am not aware of any large scale recent surveys focused entirely on that but there are many dating surveys which reports women having preference for men with iPhones. Likely dubious at the numbers most of them report (70%?) and could be influenced by other factors but still it seems women do prefer iPhones more.

I don't think this should be odd. iPhones have the best overall cameras every year and are huge on Instagram and Pinterest (platforms dominated by women) so I can only extrapolate the difference would be bigger now with social media booming.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#108

Post by SPBS »

RandomWorker wrote: post #14

1. Disconnect Internet (if possible) 2. Open Terminal 3. Run `sudo vi /etc/hosts` 4. Type `G$` (go to end of file) 5. Type `i`, left arrow, enter 6. Type `127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com` 7. Press esc then type `:x` then press enter 8. Restart https://gist.github.com/nathanhleung/2ceeda4c743f2a1cf3d670c... Some updated procedure.

sidenote: `G$i` is completely unnecessary. Just press `Go` (end of file, open new line below) and start typing.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#109

Post by qz2 »

rsanheim wrote: post #103
deadbunny wrote: post #16

Yet despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - both in the article and in the comments here in the various threads - people are still making excuses for continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft/et al products because the alternatives are a bit rough round the edges. These companies have repeatedly shown that they don't respect people's privacy and people have resoundingly responded that neither do they. I would…

You pointed out a core problem here, and a common blindspot with the HN crowd: > continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft That is probably 98%+ of devices that most typical people use for everyday computing, across phone, laptop, and desktop. Whether it is an android device, an iPhone, a Dell laptop or a new M1 macbook you are beholden to a corporation that doesn't care about privacy. I would argue that Apple cares a…

I’ve worked out that breaking free from this is just not for the average person. If you have the power then stand outside and look in but there’s absolutely nothing you can do about the churn other than watch it burn. I’ll carry on educating people but even suggesting this might be an issue is drowned out by the marketing machines of the large vendors and downvoted into oblivion even here. That is unless there is some large story that something fishy is going on. But a big story is made of a thousand small ones which people don’t care about.

Look where fighting Facebook and political influence got us. Nowhere.

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