Why should it be? A faulty software update from a 3rd party crashes the operating system. The exact same thing could happen to Linux hosts as well with how much access those IPSec programms usually get.

Apple is a bit like Microsoft in that regard. Their browser (safari) is so tightly integrated into their operating system that removing it is basically impossible. Due to that, they can use/abuse it for basic functionality like a pdf reader instead of creating a separate app for it.

Android, on the other hand, doesn’t even have a real default browser. While Chrome ships as the default since android 4, it’s basically just the app tacked on top. Since PDF readers on android existed before Chrome became the default, Google was never really bothered with including a build in PDF reader in their browser. It simply wasn’t necessary. And since most browser depend on chromium, which lacks this functionality, they don’t have it either.

Firefox on Android has the option to open PDFs, so if you want it, that would be an option. It isn’t a limitation of the operating system, Google simply couldn’t be bothered and most others just use copy + past on Chrome.

Let’s be honest, opt in telemetry features will collect so little data they might es well not exist.

Considering that ot is supposed to reduce user tracking by tracking ads directly, it’s a net gain for everyone.

Or have a public social media account and a ‘business’ one I use to share my own music or something? My dual-boxing MMO accounts?

Wanna bet that you are already breaking TOS with both of these things? And I don’t mean SimpleLogins TOS, but the one of the social media platform and MMO. Most big platforms only allow one account per user, no matter how the account is used. Sometimes you can create a business account, but that’s still linked to your private one. Same goes for pretty much any online game, you are limited to one account per person.

I don’t think that there is any sense behind these limitations, but simplelogin isn’t concerned about that, they only care about the legality of your actions and limit their service accordingly.

Technically yes, but the Google and Googlegetmanager scripts are used in so many cases that you want to keep them active permanently.

Considering that most VPN adresses are linked to suspicious, if not outright illegal, activity, its quite reasonable to assume that they end up on automatic block lists.

You are definetly in a bubble, even if its a pretty big one. Owning a pc is pretty much a prerequisite for going into comp-science or working in IT.

Out of all the 30 odd people I know of at my workplace, one other apart from me has a gaming pc, and two others have consoles. The rest doesn’t play any games at all.

Tbh, that’s something I can totally understand. Some programs use very obscure savefile locations, usually hidden behind 10 subfolders somewhere under your documents.

You don’t really prefer a lower resolution, you just work within the limitations you have.

Also, I don’t notice much of a difference between 1080p and 720p

Either your display is really shitty or you need (better) glasses. This isn’t like the difference between 60 and 144hz where its barely visible for untrained eyes.

Java version runs flawlessly on Linux and is superior either way.

Proton pretty much always complies with government access requests, and they never claimed otherwise. They, however, don’t have access to the content of your emails due to their encryption, meaning the data they give to governments is restricted to what you give them. They can at most give out your name, payment information, and backup mail if you voluntarily gave that info to them.

It was a bit of a hyperbole, I have no idea about the exact amount.

Let’s say you charge your 2000mAh battery every day and your PSU is 10% more efficient than your charger (the difference is most likely not even this big).

2Ah × 5V x 356d= 3.56kwh

3.56kwh × 0.1 = 356Wh

356Wh would be the difference per year, that’s about 12ct per year.

Now estimating the power usage for fediverse messages is very hard to do since it depends on a lot of different factors (your device, cellular or WiFi data, amount of hops needed to reach you, general state of your nearby network, your instances infrastructure).

The only even remotely similar thing I could find was emails with pictures producing about 20-40g CO2, which only slightly increases with more recipients, and Reddit usage comes at about 2.5g per minute. Comparing these two numbers just shows that all estimates done are pretty much useless for us since we have no idea how they are done.

But if we go with a low estimate of 0.1g (slightly above SMS and somewhere around spammail level) per user seeing it and a few hundred to a thousand users seeing this even if they just scroll past, we reach the CO2 equivalent of 1kWh pretty fast without even talking about long term storage and future indexing. Not to mention that comments produce something too since they need to be federated, albeit not so much as the post itself.

So while 10 years was a bit much, 2-3 years would be very much in the realm of possibilities, but no one knows or can even properly estimate the actual numbers.

Not to discourage such thoughts in the future, but your single post asking here probably used up more electricity than what you would save over the course of the next ten years.

Vanadium is purposefully made this way. It tries to minimise profiling by making your actions noise in a big mass of users. That only works if you use the standard config without anything to discern you.

Mull is the other extreme of this. They try to eliminate fingerprinting by reducing the amount of trackable things in your browser.

It’s hard to say what really is the better option. You can’t completely eliminate fingerprinting, and the more you try, the more you will stick out of the masses.

If the game is DRM free on GOG it usually only has the Steamworks DRM on steam. That one is so easy to remove that you might aswell call it DRM free since its only use is to make publishers think their game is protected.

Yeah, but it lies.

No it doesn’t, at least not if the update isn’t already a month overdue

But a future Windows update will reset them without informing the user.

I’ve done 3 years worth of updates in one day cause I needed too. Pretty much everything was reset including registry edits, but the privacy toggles were one of the few things that stayed persistent. Maybe it’s a EU special feature (wouldn’t be the first), but at least here they won’t change back silently.

I’ve spent ways less time editing the windows registry than I’ve spent trying to fix all the dual monitor bugs with linux.

Windows issues/changes are a 30 second google search away, linux issues often enough require a 1 hour deep dive into multiple forums.

Proton upheld their claim of privacy, no Emails were disclosed. But they never promised anonymity cause that’s something they simply can’t do under the Swiss law. If you willingly give them your other mail addresses or contact details, they have to comply. Sure they could have denied the Spanish authorities, but it takes less than a week to get a court order for things like this.

This is not a ban and it was never meant to be. They just force tiktok to sell the US market to a US company. Said US company will continue the platform just like it is at the moment, just with a bit more of that sweet American propaganda mixed into it. Tiktok won’t be gone, all that data will just go to the NSA instead of the CCP, that’s all they wanted.

No, it’s not. You paying them money won’t stop them from collecting data about you. It only stops them from selling it to show targeted ads.

Don’t get me wrong, I despise meta for it and think they should be prosecuted for that immediately, but that has nothing to do with the article or what the EU is saying.

Mixing these two things just cause you hate meta will get us nowhere. Their data collection of non-users is straight up illegal, but the pay with money or data model is something that especially news sites have been using for a long time now.