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Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

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Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#371

Post by morganvachon »

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…

> "...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."

I found myself being one of those people, so I made a commitment to no more Microsoft or Apple for my personal devices[1]. I'm eagerly awaiting PostmarketOS to reach full functionality on the PinePhone and I'll give up my Android phone at that point, taking Google out of the equation as well.

I'm even considering trying to learn C so I can contribute to OpenBSD for my hardware that is "rough around the edges".

[1] My wife's PC with Windows 10 is exempt for now; she's not a techie person at all and I don't want to force her into something alien. She tends to borrow my Thinkpad with Linux every now and then and is getting more used to it, so we'll see how that goes.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#372

Post by tistoon »

szc wrote: post #127

I'm not going to comment on the linked article, other than say I think it contains serious mistakes in describing what OCSP is for and errors in other statements. In the background there is a war going on, but it isn't what you think. It is a war between malware creators and OS creators. From my perspective it goes like this: To "identify" malware you need signatures. Signatures need valid certificates. Signing keys…

So what? There are risks everywhere in life. You buy a new car and you decide to go on a road trip and there is a dangerous road ahead. The car company should stop your car remotely?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#373

Post by jimktrains2 »

anonymousse1234 wrote: post #323
aembleton wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed apart from fingerprint scanners on laptops.

And LTE modems. And sleep and suspend. Oh there is also this bug with screen locking that shows your desktop for few seconds. Oh and with dual graphic chipsets too.

> Oh there is also this bug with screen locking that shows your desktop for few seconds.

I definitely encountered this on my mac work laptop from three years ago. (Left that job and have been Linux-based since then.)

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#374

Post by addandsubtract »

pizza234 wrote: post #93
zepto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternatives are still completely unusable by most people.

Not anymore. Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered, which is something one can experience with a Linux distro on pretty much any machine. I agree that it's not as much as a polished experience, but that's the point as indicated - trading off polish for ownership. I'm excluding from the discussion professional documents editing - compatibility with Libreoffice is mediocre (at best) in my experience, but hav…

Ok, suppose I can find an alternative to Adobe & co. on linux. Which laptop features a multi finger touchpad as nice and feature rich as the MacBooks?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#375

Post by m4rtink »

danuker wrote: post #317
cassepipe wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better : Switching to Linux on a Mac. So you get a blazing fast Linux experience on a very sturdy long-lasting laptop. I did just that. I love it.

Long-lasting? Sturdy? You mean the ones tuned by Apple to maintain silence by overheating?

The number of aluminium balls (battery swelling) that used to be Apple laptops I've seen recently makes me a bit worried.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#376

Post by croes »

eznzt wrote: post #276
zanny wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do this in the first place. Its the same thing with Windows. People will preach all day that they won't make any personal sacrifices to try to avoid feeding literal cancers that are eating the software industry and are shocked when said all consuming voids take aw…

And what do you expect us to do, install Linux and spend days configuring the touchpad? Computers are a tool we use to do our work. Setting up the computer cannot become a job by itself.

But it should be your tool. Apple just grands you the right to use it like they think it's the best for you. That leads to this https://mobile.twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/13269902964...

How could it be that people are all about freedom when it comes to governments but have no problem if private companies censor and controll what they write and do?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#377

Post by cj »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #143

What we poor souls didn't understand all these years is that we're effectively helping other companies to steal from Apple by running software that isn't distributed via their app store [1]. I think now that Apple has learned from iOS how profitable a walled garden business model is they are trying to bring that model to the PC world as well. Shipping hardware with their own processors is an important step in that di…

> people have to get used to seeing computers as closed-source devices with app stores

Consider all of the school age kids using chromebooks, many of them their 1st computer.

Will they care in 10 years as adults that their Mac doesn't allow programs to be installed from "untrusted sources"? Unfortunately, this transition probably won't phase them.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#378

Post by rorykoehler »

unnouinceput wrote: post #162
alphabettsy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about efficient? A Mac Mini is extremely efficient.

I am most efficient at my desktop. The sheer screen estate allows me to organize my work better than on any laptop, Apple or not. I have 2 laptops, bought them to my kids for this times when online school is a must. I tried to do some work, didn't like the small screen.

Mac mini is a desktop computer. Regardless we're talking about energy efficiency not productivity.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#379

Post by mattlutze »

Solutions like "switch to ___ manufacturer and run Linux" are great and relatively accessible for folks in the tech/IT crowd.

1. What do we do for family members embedded in the Apple, Google, Microsoft ecosystems? 2. How do we help move our companies and non-tech colleagues off of Windows and the Microsoft cloud behemoth?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#380

Post by the_only_law »

m4rtink wrote: post #355
the_only_law wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without the ability to grow up playing with system level software, combined with the software industry's unwillingness to pass on institutional knowledge to younger generations, I fear we are already on a path towards a civilization that loses a lot of the technological capability we currently enjoy. Gen Z here. I tried to give manufacturers the finger and try to play with systems level software on modern PC's and…

Most of the issues you list should not be a problem if you use a Linux distro on a fairly standard pc/laptop. Pretty much all inside it is open for you to look into and change as needed.

At the OS level sure. Its still running on a completely non-free / hardly hackable platform though riddled with all sorts of backdoors and other curiosities. I'm aware of things like coreboot / libreboot, but support is even more limited there and porting involves a deep understanding of the x86 platform in my brief experience.
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