Firipu

I'm not arguing Google is a holy company and inheritely good. It's just that they offer a service and in the capitalist market we live in, they want/need to be compensated. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet. I can live with the price I pay to use YouTube. It gives me just enough joy in life that I find the monetary fee reasonable. If they would jack up the prices, I might say fuck it and find alternatives.

My whole point is that this blocking of ad blocking apps is not a surprise at all, and even understandable from a capitalist company pov.

That doesn't mean I support capitalism and assholes making life worse for us plebs. It just means that in this particular situation, it fits with my lifestyle as a cog in the machine. It's too much of a pita for me personally to "pirate" YouTube vids like I do with other media content.

Those are amazing. The painting one would require a math degree to plan out correctly ;)

Tbh, if you're that nervous about crossing the border with data, I'm sure you could find other ways to use the internet and decent encryption (behind multiple layers and/or people with a Deadman's switch if you're really paranoia and worried a judge will force you to unlock the precious 4mb worth of information) to protect your data when crossing a border.

Or probably even safer if you're talking about just 4mb of data: send it from a random address in one country to a postbox in your destination or something by post. Tampering with mail carries a pretty heavy fine in most countries, chances a random postman opens a random envelope to a random address abroad are basically non existant. Security through obscurity.

I like reading about infosec, but some of it borders on absolute paranoia tbh :)

Ever heard of a job? Some people need to work with a specific software suite as part of their job, regardless of their personal convictions :)

I have to use office and chrome on windows at work, I don't get any choice in the matter.

As an end user, I don't care about proprietary garbage, I want my mouse to work :). I understand the aversion to proprietary stuff etc. But non techie end users don't give a flying fuck.

Also, everyone has had an MS account since the msn messenger and Hotmail heydays. That is an absolute non issue for 99% of the people tbh.

But that's the entire point. The windows UI is still easy, especially for people that have always used windows. There have only been gradual changes. :)

And to slap in an anecdote, I am quite proficient with everything IT related. I try installing Linux once a year on average, in general I try to recommended "noob distros" . I always go back to windows after a few weeks at best. You really have to make an big effort to fully go to Linux. I end up spending more time dealing with the OS itself than doing the stuff I want.

I can absolutely see the appeal of it, but I don't enjoy it :)

Because Linux doesn't just work out of the box.

Somehow the Linux evangelists never understand that point.

All your peripherals, no matter how old, and all your (legacy) software just works on windows. Maybe the OS isn't blazing fast and there is more and more so called bloatware (at least according to FOSS people), but if I plug in my 10y old Logitech wireless mouse, it works in 10 sec. In Linux I'd have to start searching for a solution, a driver, a little hack, a script, a controller repository, etc... It will work eventually, but it's not intuitive. Doubly so for people that were raised on windows.

Linux is absolutely not user friendly for non techies that have 20y of windows habits in them.

Been saying this for years, the day Firefox gets native gestures, is the day I'll swap.

Can't live without them (and speeddial tbh)

Why would I use brave (with its weird fucked up crypto links) over Vivaldi? If you're using chromium anyway, I don't get the brave love.

I mean, it's almost Monday again, have to find a reason to get a long weekend no?

Haven't seen a queue in ages tbh. Weak argument, not to mention that it doesn't make any sense whatsoever