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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#291

Post by OvbiousError »

gethly wrote: post #264

I have been using windows since version 95. I even liked the Millennium version, that was most hated before Vista. I tried Linux several times, but Windows just always worked and Linux usually had always some issues(mostly drivers, lack of good programs and no gaming). But now, after more than two decades, I am certain Windows 10 is my last Windows. Nothing lasts for ever, not even Microsoft's domination on personal…

Gaming on linux has been awesome for years. With the advent of systems like bazzite, the transition is only getting easier.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#292

Post by wazoox »

tombert wrote: post #142
amatecha wrote: post #135

Yeah, I just got a msg the other day from someone who's saying "Windows 11 won't work on my computer, what should I do?" .. I'm suggesting they try Linux. All they do is browse the web and play card games. Linux has way the hell more games than Windows comes with, and it doesn't bundle ads with its games either!

It's kind of primitive but AisleRiot is my favorite solitaire application. It's simple, it's lightweight, it's either included with or easy to install into any distro. I play FreeCell on there all the time.

I prefer Pysol but both are free anyway ;)

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#293

Post by wazoox »

glaucon wrote: post #126

It seems to me that he's missed Teams off his list of "where this might not work for you" situations. A lot more than half my money comes from clients who know of nothing else. I'm not pleased about this, but it's another part of their grip on their more-or-less monopoly.

Teams works in Firefox on Linux perfectly fine for me.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#294

Post by 4ggr0 »

OvbiousError wrote: post #291
gethly wrote: post #264

I have been using windows since version 95. I even liked the Millennium version, that was most hated before Vista. I tried Linux several times, but Windows just always worked and Linux usually had always some issues(mostly drivers, lack of good programs and no gaming). But now, after more than two decades, I am certain Windows 10 is my last Windows. Nothing lasts for ever, not even Microsoft's domination on personal…

Gaming on linux has been awesome for years. With the advent of systems like bazzite, the transition is only getting easier.

+1, switched to Bazzite about three weeks ago. I did have to dualboot a Windows after a couple of days, unfortunately. Mostly related to Anti-Cheat and other shitty measures. Dark Souls II did not want to recognize my Controller, even though it works fine in every other game. Skate can't be played on Linux because of Anti-Cheat, but fuck EA anyways. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, Dishonored 2 and Death to the Outsider and Bioshock worked fine. Did have to tinker with the graphics settings a bit and the experience is definitely buggier than on Windows, but the huge upside is that I don't have to use Windows anymore, or at least just as a fallback-option. I know care 0 about the Windows, it's on a separate SSD, haven't even set a Wallpaper or other things, which is rare for me.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#296

Post by rolph »

whartung wrote: post #171
rolph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so if someone takes our freely available stuff, bundles it with a newly assembled system, and sells them, at a marked up price, like normal business does, it wont be an issue if no mention is made of GPL2 and what that means for the end user. the idea that positive changes are made available to everyone, is not yet broadly salient. at least now, poster is probably aware of that condition. you seem to be up on GPL2 ,…

They stick the licenses in the back of whatever pack of documents are used during the sale. Heck, print it on the back of the work order in small print with a gray font. On my motorcycle, there’s an option to view the software licenses used on the bike. The GPL is in there somewhere. So are a lot of other things. And, no, during checkout at the dealer, we didn’t spend any time talking about software licenses. As a bu…

ok, so someone makes the license available for end user to read or not, thats one down for providers responsibility.

now the next is the nature of linux as a common good, generated by many contributors over some time. is it acceptable for anyone to turn a profit from distributing copies of linux on media, or as a component of a retail unit, for an additional price ?

how does that scale up? suppose thousands of ISOs or live distros are sold, enriching the seller by some thousands of dollars, is that ok?

could i, or you, or anyone, burn a couple hundred disks, or rufus thumbdrives, then sell them for $40 each, and have no concerns ?

the submission, links to what is clearly, a profit oriented business. what limitations exist? none if you just pack a GPL2 in with it? can he charge a fee as if he is selling linux to the end user? is public awareness, and availability a suitable contra for financial profit from sale of a product of many contributions from many individuals over many years?

just how philanthropic is the community?

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#297

Post by kragen »

rixed wrote: post #220
cam_l wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly have only come across one company that is app only. That was because I was with them when they changed over, otherwise I would never have signed up. This was my local gym which sacked their front desk staff and moved to app access only, and with an app infested with trackers at that. Needless to say I don't go to that gym anymore.

Want another exemple as fresh as yesterday? I'm on a move, had to pay some transport company to move some stuff for me, pick-up date tomorrow. Paid online, website asked for a confirmation from my bank's app (N26), fair enough. Opened the app, just to be greated with "Please Update. The latest app version includes new features, enhancements and stability improvements" with the only choice: "Update now". Being confron…

Your story is appalling, and I agree that this is a major problem.

However, drowning in e-waste from smartphones is many orders of magnitude from being an issue, as trivial calculations easily show. Mentioning it makes your argument rhetorically much weaker. The iPhone 16 is 147.6mm × 71.6mm × 7.8mm (8.2 × 10⁻⁵ m³) and weighs 170g, according to https://www.dimensions.com/element/apple-iphone-16-18th-gen. The population of France is 68.6 million people. One iPhone per person each year for the next century would be 6.86 billion iPhones in France, assuming the population remained constant. This would weigh 1.2 million tonnes and fit in a sphere 51 meters in diameter. If stacked 6 meters deep it would cover 9.4 hectares, a circle 340 meters in diameter. France contains 63 million hectares. The hypothetical pile of iPhones would cover about a third of the area of the Gravelines Nuclear Power Station near Calais.

Far from drowning in e-waste from smartphones, if you dump it in a landfill, it will be extremely hard even to find the e-waste without a map.

Even if you didn't have a countryside to bury e-waste in, this should be obvious even on the household scale. Suppose you and your four children each get a new iPhone every year, and instead of throwing them away, you put them in a box in the attic. How big is the box? It's a 35 cm cube after 100 years. It would weigh 85 kg, though, so you'd want to use several smaller boxes. But there is no risk of drowning.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#298

Post by breakingcups »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #87
heavyset_go wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would say that specifically with Secure Boot, Microsoft actually promoted user choice: A Windows Logo compliant PC needs to have Microsoft's root of trust installed by default. Microsoft could have stopped there, but they didn't. This was not the case with the initial rollout of Secure Boot, it was combined with locked BIOS to lock PCs so that they could only boot Windows 8 on some devices. This was the case on W…

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation. People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue. Remote Attestation is the kind of tech that if abused will end free computing over night.

Microsoft had a lot of practice with this with the recent Xbox hardware & software.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#299

Post by rixed »

encom wrote: post #244
rixed wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want another exemple as fresh as yesterday? I'm on a move, had to pay some transport company to move some stuff for me, pick-up date tomorrow. Paid online, website asked for a confirmation from my bank's app (N26), fair enough. Opened the app, just to be greated with "Please Update. The latest app version includes new features, enhancements and stability improvements" with the only choice: "Update now". Being confron…

Yes, your bank is shit, but this is also Apple's fault to a large degree. There is absolutely no reason to release a new major version of your OS every year, and there is no reason to arbitrarily drop support for older devices (except extremely contrived ones, that I'm sure will be posted below). I made the mistake of acquiring an Ipad once. Its only job was playing YouTube videos in bed (yes I know), until Apple and…

> this is also Apple's fault to a large degree

I don't know, I haven't checked extensively but I believe supporting iphone7 is still one checkbox away in xcode (xcode 26 release notes state that it "supports on-device debugging in iOS 15 and later", which is what is installed on my iphone).

I could imagine how some team at N26 though that "supporting" more devices was too much on their plate, which I would sympathise with, but the most likely scenario to me is that some technically inept "decision maker" decided to ban older phones in a security gesture to give the impression that he is adding value.

Note: I also own a venerable ipad air2 (2009) that I bought second hand long ago to serve as a midi controller. Still a very nice, well build machine. It's not allowed to connect to wifi or it would figure out what year it is. I call it "hibernatus" (reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernatus) :)

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#300

Post by robin_reala »

gethly wrote: post #264

I have been using windows since version 95. I even liked the Millennium version, that was most hated before Vista. I tried Linux several times, but Windows just always worked and Linux usually had always some issues(mostly drivers, lack of good programs and no gaming). But now, after more than two decades, I am certain Windows 10 is my last Windows. Nothing lasts for ever, not even Microsoft's domination on personal…

If you’re this engaged already I’d just make the jump. Be part of the future you want to have rather than watching from the sidelines.
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