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Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

helgeklein.com

181–190 of 296 posts

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM and Content contracts. They can't just throw 4k into an unsecured environment because they need to make a best effort to enforce that their 4k content isn't pirated.

I'm sure that is the reason, but I find it hard to believe that ripping content could possibly be that much harder just because you're on Windows. And Netflix exclusives regularly make it to pirate sites in 4K afaik?

> And Netflix exclusives regularly make it to pirate sites in 4K afaik?

Yes, generally the day of release.

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really as bad as you make it out to be? I've got everything at home: old non-retina MacBook Airs running OS X, a M1/retina MacBook Air running OS X, Windows (well, wife's computer) and then Linux laptops and desktops. Fonts on my main Linux "workstation" may not be as perfect as on the M1 Mac I use from the couch but it's because my 38" monitor ain't retina and it's a far cry from making "browsing uncomfortable…

> Is it really as bad as you make it out to be? Yes. > my 38" monitor ain't retina … perfectly happy Put another way, either you are not visually discerning or your bar is lower. // Since “FHD” laptops, and monitors

I think you misunderstood me. I've actually worked in print. I've written and typeset more books than I can count using professional DTP software (and LaTeX too). I know a thing or two about fonts.

I do not expect a non-retina display to display fonts as beautifully as a retina display, just to make things clear.

What I'm saying is that fonts under Linux aren't bad to the point of being uncomfortable.

And just to make it clear: I've got Windows and Linux, on non-retina displays, showing the same sites. Linux ain't worse.

There's a big difference between saying: "Retina displays are better than non retina ones" and saying: "Linux font sucks".

Yup: not everyone is on 4K / retina display. We know that. It doesn't make font rendering on Linux broken.

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#183
post #10

Anyone feeling tempted to play the Devil’s advocate here? :)

I will. I am actually glad that the OS interacts with many different hosts. This allows me to set up fine-grained rules to prevent specific communication channels. The real information I am missing here is which ones should be left reachable to ensure proper maintenance of the OS.

Having a small number of hosts and smaller number of queries would likely result in a worse situation: queries would be impossible to filter because filtering 1 host would likely break too many things.

Also, in terms of telemetry, I consider Microsoft to be the disabled child in the classroom. I am sincerely convinced they have absolutely not the skills nor the vision to turn the data they collect into a process that could be personally harmful to me. Google and Apple, on the other side, specialize in employing engineers and product managers that have absolutely no concern to privacy. Their only constraint is to make sure whatever they do is lawful, which is, in my opinion, the worst way a company should behave. Until today, I haven't seen Microsoft do anything worrying except showing traces of telemetry collection in my router logs.

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#184
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and other nix distros like both Ubuntu Desktop and Server.

There's https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch

Linux has lsof that can show connexions. Here's a config generator for conky that demonstrates the usage:

https://github.com/viviparous/plonky

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#185
Modern OSes (and not just Windows) are getting overly bloated and complicated. Talking to all those hosts and IPs is just a symptome of that nobody seems to care about such things anymore.

My main work-laptop, my server and work workstation are running Ubuntu (because of support, yadda yadda), but I've recently tried Arch linux on my personal laptop.

I'm not yet an Arch fanatic, and find the installation procedure particularly baroque (having to manually hunt down which firmware packages to install to get basic hardware like Wifi working, had to explicitly install a network-manager, or else no networking at all)...

But what I did find immensely refreshing, was working on a minimal system which only had the components I had asked for and nothing else. I knew why everything was there, and how it was supposed to work.

I'm really coming to appreciate that more and more, especially after a botched server-upgrade and having to wait for apt to reinstall 1000+ packages I have no idea if I need or not.

So yeah. Windows, Mac, Linux, or whatever. Keep it minimal, please :)

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#186
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux can have crappy font rendering. I can also have gorgeous font rendering. I would mess around with some live distros to see what you prefer. This is how my comment looks to me (on linux): https://i.imgur.com/wvruFyX.png

It looks very bad tbh. This is how my comment looks on Mac for comparison. Uploading to imgur to test if there is compression in play here. https://i.imgur.com/hSirmx6.png

You're either using 200% scaling or browser zoom because I had to scale your image by 50% on a 4K display for it to look 100% sized. This is apples-oranges.

And if you're looking at those other screenshots on a 4K display then you need to also zoom to 50% and get your eyes close the the display, otherwise you're just seeing the results of an image scaling algorithm, which will indeed look terrible.

Here is Fedora/KDE/Flatpak/Firefox with default settings at 4K resolution and 100% browser zoom for comparison:

https://i.imgur.com/s3ynhuj.png

Also with my preferred browser zoom: https://i.imgur.com/9PXDbxY.png

For the above images you'll need to zoom 50% on a 4K display, because PNG image files do not carry pixel density metadata. If you have 1080p display then you have to keep 100% zoom and sit far away instead.

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#187
post #146
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kerning on your screenshot is very chunky. In particular look at the kerning on the lower case r’s in your screenshot. The r is given way too much horizontal space particularly to it’s right, especially so in the word “crappy”.

AH, that's because I'm using a monospace font for editing, normal pages use the normal font: https://i.imgur.com/otqaSTa.png

That looks horrible to me too, perhaps I'm used to windows but the word "comment" sticks out to me there as particularly bad.

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#188

I read a lot of comments here wanting to block the connections, but wouldn’t be easier/better to switch to an OS that doesn’t spy you? The answers possibly is no, because they might use X or Y that requires them to use Windows, so a better question is, what holds you back to switch to Linux? (macOS also talks to a lot of servers and collect telemetry as Windows, maybe in a different scale, so isn’t an alternative if…

> what holds you back to switch to Linux?

I occasionally need to do some development work in a Debian VM. I can't even remember the name of the window manager it came with; but I just can't figure it out. The equivalent of the dock / taskbar just isn't useful. I had to jump through hoops and hoops just to get Visual Studio Code to work, in part because it took awhile to figure out how to have root access to my own VM.

Now, I obviously could use a different window manager; but that leads to the real problem: It's just too much work for me to figure out how to use Linux, and find a setup that I like. And, after I do that, it's quite a bit of work to "keep up" with the Linux community and the changes. And, then it's quite a bit of work to ensure that I can find good, compatible hardware.

Finally: I'm very happy with Mac, and Windows 11 is "good enough" for me. I'd consider purchasing a laptop with a Linux-based distro pre-installed; but even then, that's a huge financial risk if I end up not liking it, or I hit compatibility issues. At least the Microsoft Surface has a 60-day return policy.

Which leads to my final point: I use a computer as a tool. Linux on the desktop isn't a tool, it's a hobby. I could see myself using Linux if I wanted to develop an alternate shell / UI as a hobby, or using Linux on the desktop if it was common in my profession.

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#189
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux still has horrible font rendering, which makes web browsing uncomfortable. It doesn't come close to Windows or Mac. Fonts often appear soapy, kerning is off etc.

Linux can have crappy font rendering. I can also have gorgeous font rendering. I would mess around with some live distros to see what you prefer. This is how my comment looks to me (on linux): https://i.imgur.com/wvruFyX.png

Look at the last word, "linux". In both the "n" and "u", the left stem is thin and crisp, but the right stem is thick and blurry. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but I couldn't put up with that if I were using it all day.

You're right about trying different distros. Manjaro+Gnome does much better IMO: https://i.imgur.com/kiLDWzJ.png

Re: Windows OS, Services and Apps: Network Connection Target Hosts (2021)

#190
post #166
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with Linux for compiling Android images (with VSCode on Windows through SSH), and I also customize the kernel (drivers and DT, mostly). I also do some Qt porting to Linux, but I used Windows my entire life (apart from DOS). And honestly, I won't boot my PC from Linux (at home or work) because I'm afraid it will break. I'll explain: I have some VMs with Ubuntu and, from time to time, I hit some problem that mad…

Eh, Linux is more stable than Windows 10 in my experience, even with a bunch of extra bs and custom configuration that I needed. Windows 7 was rock stable. Indeed, it was W10 that caused me this kind of headache a few times - just updated itself overnight and blue screened. No way to recover even with their recovery tools. Still have no clue what was wrong with it. Oh and it still to this day starts hibernating rando…

"it still to this day starts hibernating randomly on my ZBooks, with the event log saying it is caused by a CPU overheat event."

Hybernating or thermal throttling?

Thermal throttling is done on the hardware level and can happen while using any operating system, including Linux.

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