Life finds a way
Yarr
Life finds a way
Yarr
I hope **chrome **fails terribly. Just like Internet Explorer(IE). Firefox all the way
Anyone still using Google products is a fuckin idiot, IMO
There are hardly any alternatives for people who don't have the time to self-host and setup everything.
"Oh but Firefox!" the tools that Mozilla provides are indeed good - but there's no Mozilla Photos, Mozilla Notes, Mozilla Assistant, and so on.
"Oh but Microsoft!" and why would that be better than Google?
"Oh but mix Firefox with Proton and this specific GitHub project for photo management and this FOSS notes apps with a Docker backend for sync and thi-" I wish I had the time to do that, truly, I actually prefer many of the FOSS alternatives I've seen lately. I do not have the time nor hardware to do this correctly.
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm a technical person, I run Linux as my primary OS and use FOSS software. But I also have a full time job and 2 small kids, and frankly I just don't have the time or patience to be a full time sysadmin. Proton has come a long way in providing alternatives to Gmail, GCalendar, GDrive, etc., but like you said if you want to replace ALL of Google you practically have to self host a gazillion Nextcloud instances or whatever.
I'm sorry but this sentiment is so utterly detached from the technical capabilities and general engagement of the average layman that it bears a response.
Tech savvy people have this awful habit of calling anyone not in our specific field an idiot when they don't do things our preferred way, and it's not a good look. Those people aren't the weird ones, we are. And if you're the sort of person who thinks you've elevated yourself above the commoners because you don't use Google's stuff ... yeah, that and 5 bucks will get you a latte. There are oceans of professional expertise you're not privvy to, and unless you really think you're doing better than everyone at everything, a little humility, temperance, and grace for others is warranted.
Except when it doesn't. That saying never made sense (far more species have gone extinct than exist today) and it doesn't apply here.
Piracy will continue, obviously, but what we're seeing here is the creation of an internet we can't even fathom yet. This is just where it starts.
Also consider how much more difficult it will be for the average person to participate in piracy. Remember a few months back when Microsoft floated they were basically looking to lock down windows? No unsigned apps, no win32, etc. People will get around that, of course, but fewer people will. Especially if they continue with this trend towards stripping options and de-admin-ing all users unless they pay for an enterprise license.
Then there's the dangerous trend toward encryption being broken by regulation and possibly even VPNs being rendered useless for anyone but businesses. There goes secure torrenting.
The trends don't look good, across the board. We can't just sit here and hope it all works out and the loopholes are found, like it always has before.
And then the plan to force everyone to abandon Firefox whether they like it or not.
At that point, the userbase of anything that's not Chrome or not DRM'd to death will be so eroded that virtually everyone else will abandon Firefox support, DRM will get enabled by default. Also, comes the lobbyists to Congress demanding changes to the DMCA to throw users in prison who dare to try to crack the DRM to block ads. "Ad-blocking is stealing!"
Just means I'll have the shittiest Chromebook I can buy used, for access to the sites you just listed, and my Linux laptop for everything else. If their non-financial, non-commerce site won't let me in with my adblocking Linux machine, I just won't go there. There will be lots of site still, run by us, that don't do this shit, and they'll get my traffic.
Google is such a bad company. People should discontinue use of all their software and at the very least stop using chrome or chromium. They’ve got the internet by the balls.
I still remember old days, when most coders used to praise google. Their services were amazing and I think one of their old principle was >"Develop good products first, think about monetisation later"
We warned you about Chrome. We told you bro.
Google and Chrome really need to be broken up. Maybe people should start writing (physical) letters to the FTC asking to review Google's recent actions as monopolistic behavior.
It wouldn't be the first time. But showing the interest is the best way to get the ball rolling that we can do.
"Google engineers want..."
No. Google executives want this to happen. Google's CEO wants this to happen.
They want to change the internet and remove any little bit of freedom for their own corporate profits.
Fuck "do no evil" Google.
The internet is unusable without adblockers.
We waste intelligent minds on this rubbish when we are facing an existential crisis in climate change.
Why's everyone blaming the engineers lol, pretty sure they're just doing what they're told right?
Exactly, headline should be more like "Google executives want Google engineers to make ad-blocking (near) impossible"
Just following orders is not the ironclad excuse some of you seem to think it is.
Use Firefox.
Support Firefox.
Using alternative Chromium based browsers is not it.
This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. And it's a death knell of the internet as we know it. It won't be today or tomorrow, but slowly, over the next few years, expect surface level internet services to be extremely user unfriendly. I expect normies to just accept their fate and pay access fees to literally every website and service they use, while more tech savvy or explorative people might find their way to federated spaces or Usenet, etc.
Google finds users are covering their ears and closing their eyes; releases nanobots to force eyes open and lock hands behind back.
I find it disturbing that there are people out there who spend much of their time thinking about new ways to get people to see adverts. Surely it falls under the "bullshit jobs" category that David Graeber once wrote about.
It's not just that there are people thinking about it, it's that this is what our brightest minds in our society are incentivized to think about.
There is a joke in tech circles - if you are smart enough you eventually end up in ad tech. It's really unhealthy for our society.
Ad pushing is only part of the problem… These tokens will kill the #InternetArchive Wayback machine. It’s anti-library tech.
Anti-bot tech is inherently anti-human.
And another question: did someone already lay out a roadmap to google's collapse?
Right now we're going through a financial crisis, big tech needs to start making proper money so they try to squeeze the users. Google hopes to "drm the internet" to maximise ad revenue. Let's assume they succeed. 3 years from now the dystopia of dead adblockers is live, google and other leeches make bank off ads.
But there's no more adblockers and no more ad revenue left to squeeze out (because every internet user is already chained to a screen and force fed ads within ads). And shareholders demand increase in profits. What do they do then? Is there any hint of a long-term strategy? How long before the maximum theoretical ad revenue is reached and plateaus? Then COVID29 or something comes, fed raises rastes again and...?
You’re describing the inherent limitations of capitalism. Our entire economy is predicated on infinite growth, which doesn’t exist and isn’t possible. What you describe is the eventual collapse of not just organizations, but of the US as a whole.
Use Firefox.
Even the Android version lets you install uBlock Origin.
Google controls way too much. People need to stop using their products. Many people complaining right now are still using Google stuff. If everyone concerned stop using Google stuff, that would cause them to reconsider very quickly.
There are no laws stating that we have to watch or see ads, so forcing us to watch them feels like a huge overstep. Companies shouldn't be able to have this much control over a public service.
It isn't Google Engineers wanting to do it. It's Google engineers being told to do it.
Even if they do that, some people will just create illegal website mirrors that remove ads.
On reddit, people already copy paste articles when there's a paywall. I can totally envision that thing to be more common.
I am not fucking kidding, I will stop using websites if I cannot block ads. This is non negotiable. I don't care about your business model, I have zero money to give you. I tried the official reddit app, and uninstalled within a week.
When will they understand, if I'm introduced to your product through an advertisement, I do not want to buy it. I will make a point not to. Do not annoy me. If your product is good enough, it will be bought.
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