Some Iphone users behave as if they’re in a cult. Worse, Apple treats customers without Iphones/Macs as inferior to their golden children even while selling services that don’t require Apple hardware.

I subscribed to Apple TV+ and dealing with the company was infuriating. Every single support rep instructed me to do something to solve a problem using my Iphone or Mac. The last straw was when I wanted to add another profile to my account and was told the company has made it impossible without Apple hardware. The rep actually told me to find someone with an Iphone to help. I cancelled Apple TV+ instead.

One member of the Iphone cult I know was going on and on about a problem she was having receiving calls. When I mentioned a relatively minor problem with my phone her immediate response was “That’s because you have Android.” It was comical.

People shallow enough to believe they’re superior because they own an Iphone aren’t worth being around anyway.

Google is now expecting users to watch ads that are sometimes a full 25% of the viewing time, or slowing access and requiring logins when adblock is being used. And even if you wade through all that, watching Youtube tech and info videos has become a lot like looking at online recipes. The majority of what you find is fluff and filler for only small amounts of useful content.

I used to go to Youtube daily for research and entertainment but now I avoid the site completely whenever possible. It seems we’ve finally reached an enshittification tipping point.

It’s about time.

Every wifi device we own that’s connected to wifi and the Internet can be precisely located by the companies involved even when using a VPN.

If you have an Android phone you’ve probably noticed a prompt at some point asking for your permission to transmit precise location information and enable wifi scanning. Those wifi SSIDs and MAC addresses along with its GPS location is sent back to Google. The combination of all that information is almost as unique as a fingerprint. They can use that along with signal strength of each AP in the area to determine your device’s location with precision. (Google used to allow apps like Maps to be used with wifi scanning turned off, but no more.)

Your Google stick can’t tell it’s on a VPN directly, but even without GPS Google can still pinpoint its physical location using their database of SSIDs and MAC addresses, and if they want to they can determine you’re using a VPN by comparing that to the expected location of your IP address. There probably aren’t enough people doing this right now to make it worth the trouble to detect your VPN, but IMO it’s just a matter of time before they decide it is.

I also expect that Google sells that information to every company willing to pay for it, so almost every single wifi enabled device can be precisely located if it can transmit data to the Internet.

We live in a scary time.

I’ve been running Mint since 17.x and have only had one upgrade fail in all that time. You’re very unlikely to have a problem, but backup your system just in case!

No matter where it appears to be on a map, Missouri is in the deep south.

We live in a sad time when a stunningly ignorant imbecile who believes he can can spot children with “mitochondrial challenges” while walking through an airport is in charge of public health, and this news post about vaccines can just as accurately be posted in a political sub.

Because Trump and his worshiping morons politicized a pandemic, 180,000 American’s needlessly died during the worst of COVID, but that’s not enough. Trump and his ilk want more people to die from diseases that are preventable and were previously nearly gone.

COVID, Polio, Whooping Cough, Measles, and even Small Pox are now welcome in Trump’s America.

Thanks for that list. No need here for more advanced hardware so I’ll have to put off networking upgrades until I can come up with a reason to justify it.

As a home user, what additional features have you found useful on enterprise networking equipment? Just because what I’m doing is already ridiculously complex doesn’t mean it can’t be more so.

OpenWRT is amazingly flexible and would be a great place to start.

I switched from DD-WRT last year and have been amazed how good OpenWRT is. There are thousands of software packages that allow you to do pretty much anything you can think of on inexpensive hardware. Used Netgear R7800s are available for less than $50 on ebay or there are plenty of newer hardware options if you want to spend more. Those thousands of downloadable software packages include Wireguard and Adguard Home, plus there are OpenWRT integrations for Home Assistant. The forum is full of people who are happy to help newcomers.

I started by running OpenWRT in a virtual machine to get familiar with the UI and moved on to a live installation. Highly recommended, especially if you enjoy learning.

On my Linux Mint laptop Winboat installed quickly and allowed me to install and run the one program I use that requires Windows. This biggest issues were with that same app’s windows when they were rendered on the Linux desktop. They sometimes couldn’t be moved, resized or closed, however the same app ran just fine on the Winboat Windows Desktop itself.

The latest version is identified as an alpha release on the UI, so these problems aren’t surprising. What is surprising is how well so much of this works for an alpha release, particularly how polished the installation process is.

Looking forward to using Winboat when it progresses to the beta.

4gb isn’t much ram, but it can be surprisingly useful if you configure Zswap. Lots of guides out there. Here’s one of them.

Removed by mod

Western news outlets don’t spam Lemmy with hundreds of propaganda posts.

Says another propagandist who can safely be ignored. Are you two employed by the same government?

What are those alternatives? I can’t think of any that are ready for prime time.

[email protected] has made 677 Russian propaganda posts in the 3 months and 41 propaganda posts in the last 8 days alone!!!

The infuriating part of the Google enshittification process is that there is absolutely nothing the user can do about it.

Literally the only thing that motivates Google is profit. Controlling side-loaded apps will almost certainly boost their profits by a infinitesimal fraction of a percent, therefore it will be done. Even if consumer uproar causes Google to back down in the short term, they’ll simply implement this a few months later. Late-stage Capitalism sucks.

I was surprised that the masked men weren’t law enforcement. Police hiding their faces because fascism is just standard procedure under President Epstein.

Holy shit dude!

636 Russian propaganda posts in the 3 months since you’ve created the account!

You’re a full time employee! Why aren’t you in Ukraine fighting for your cause? How much does the Russian army pay you to spread their propaganda to Lemmy? Is it enough to cover your rent in Moscow, or do you live in Russian army barracks?

Anyway, you’re not going to find many people here that buy into your bullshit. Exit’s thataways------------------------->

Oh, did I trigger you by pointing out a that Russian owned propaganda outlet is a Russian owned propaganda outlet? You are either a Russian stooge or a paid operative. Western news media can be lousy but it doesn’t even approach the shit you post.

Возвращайся в Россию.