Posts by slartybartfast

Re: marketing hype

Recently a tracker blocker I was using on (desktop) Firefox was removed due to it being flagged up for malicious code. I do use some security plugins to block ads, trackers and other things (in addition to the tracker blocker in Firefox) but the irony is it’s hard to completely trust these plugins aren’t up to no good or have been compromised in some way.

Phones and tablets are more at risk because although we can use privacy browsers to (hopefully) block ads and trackers, apps have no privacy settings at all and are totally open to data mining and tracking.

Re: Exclusive devices need in Schools

Same for me. We had to use an ink pen. Never used one in my adult life which begs the question: why were we forced to have to buy one to use at school?

Re: No browser based on Chromium can really be trusted to respect your privacy

Edge is now a Chrome clone too. Internet Explorer is pretty much a browser no longer in development.

Re: Wow

‘I doubt it will considering the hold Apple has on its fans.’

Or people heavily invested in Apple’s ecosystem. Not always easy to switch systems.

Re: I'm not surprised

JohnFen, your Android device IS Google.

Re: Hmm

Never ask a Brexiter why leaving is a good idea. Not one (as far as I can tell) has volunteered a sane and coherent answer to that question. We are wasting our time bothering to ask.

Re: Yeah, pull the other one

If you sign up to Gmail, it forces you to accept two policies that give Google the right to monitor, track and analyse your emails and other activities. I have literally zero confidence in Chrome’s privacy policies if such behaviour is being used in Gmail.

Re: That's horrible.

I've often seen Mac laptops with a circle or a fictional logo over the Apple logo. I guess that is when a drama or film doesn't have a product placement deal and doesn't have permission to show any products, so must disguise the logos.

Re: Dystopia, one improvement at a time

It would be great if we could dump all smart devices. Problem is, technology is constantly being invented that will rely on them more and more. There's talk of using smartphones in supermarkets to scan and pay for our goods via an app (mainly a cost cutting measure by the supermarkets). I read an article recently that said there are trials of a system that scans your phone when you get on and off a train so that you can be charged for your journey without having to queue for a ticket or scan any ticket barriers. I assume these technologies will be rife with data mining too. Sounds dreadful but I could foresee a time when non-smartphones are made obsolete and we're all forced to have a smartphone.

Re: What home users actually need this?

I keep records of all my self employed earnings in a handy LibreOffice spreadsheet. Back in the day, I even used it to write a college dissertation, with an updatable contents using styles (can’t for the life of me remember how I did it though). I pretty much ditched M$ Office when Open Office became a viable option - now using LibreOffice, of course.

Re: Galaxy Note7 anyone?

I had a 2011 MacBook Pro that suffered the notorious GPU failure. Never got it fixed. Apple wanted to charge me £400 to replace the logicboard which wouldn’t eliminate the GPU problem and also helpfully suggested I ‘would be better off buying a new laptop’. Seems Mac laptop problems have been happening before 2015.

Re: When is someone going to come up with a stealth ad. blocker?...

The site independent.co.uk now refuses to let you use it with an ad blocker installed. Once you disable your blocker, it bombards you with a tonne of ads, including large ones down both the left and right edges. I did figure out using Firefox’s tracker blocker, whilst whitelisting the site in the ad blocker plugin I’m using stops the ads showing. No such luck with Opera though.

I'm also running Win 10 on an old laptop. It did take many failed attempts to upgrade and also had to roll back to an earlier disk image several times. What is surprising, I was never able to stream HD video before (Win 7) as playback would just stutter but have had no problems since the update. Having said that, I'm not a complete fan of Win 10, I hate the whole tiles and apps concept, for example. For a number of months I couldn't use the search bar or reboot properly as they would both crash the machine. Most 'fixes' (read: guesses) found online involved some deep level tinkering with the warning it could bugger up my laptop :-( . I think a couple of recent Windows updates seems to have fixed those issues thankfully as I was just learning, with regret, to live with them.

Re: Edge - Why?

‘If you really care, I suspect you'll be using Firefox or Opera anyway.’

Surely you are aware Opera is a Chrome based browser. Firefox is pretty much the only major browser not to use the Chrome engine.

Re: Your files

M$ for years have tried to dominate markets and force users into doing things their way (IE6 anyone?). This is one reason we still have to put up with the Office document formats. It becomes a problem if there are no viable alternatives as this means people will be forced into accepting this online only b***sh**. Same goes for Adobe. LibreOffice is a good enough alternative for many but MS still is king as LibreOffice can't touch it for it's advanced features that lots of businesses rely on.

Re: 6 grand

6 grand for a computer that will be used in high end video/graphics production (likely by Hollywood film companies), not by the average small time freelancer. You don’t sound like the Mac Pro’s target customer so complaining about the price is pointless.

It’s a pony up optional extra.

Re: Weird pricing model

A win-win pricing model for UBER. They can charge £25 more for 'crap parking' and the customer has little way of challenging this charge if they think it's unfair.

Also, I can get to my friends house in South London by Tube and Overground if I avoid zone 1 for £1.50 each way. No surprise £25 charge for 'crap parking'.

Re: "feature and quality updates"

After finally getting a laptop to successfully update from Win7 to Win10 earlier this year (many aborted attempts, crashes, freezing, rolling back to Win 7), I managed to find a fix to stop it freezing when shutting down but have never found a successful fix to stop it freezing when rebooting or installing updates and shutting down. Most of them I couldn't understand and came with warnings they could erase vital files. I love you Windows!

Re: People are just too goddamn smart.

Forced, as in the growth in technology that relies more and more on mobile apps and services, deals that make it more cost effective to have a mobile data plan as your primary internet access (no need for a home based hub) and people who need instant access to the internet for their job. Just an ever increasing world that relies more and more on mobile technology each year.