The line between helpful tech and quiet surveillance is blurring — and our devices no longer feel fully under our control.
I’ve been on Linux since 2016, and I’m honestly useless at Windows Administration now.
It’s not just that, but a lot of software feels awful to use. It feels like when Cable stations would just start airing Infomercials (maybe they still do) late at night, trying to sell you things you don’t need. Using modern software unfiltered is an onslaught of advertising, and pressure. It’s not fun.
All monopolies should be split into different smaller companies which would then be given to the workers who would collectivize them.
I agree, big tech should be trust busted to oblivion
It is not user experience, it is user manipulation. We are so so far beyond Stallman’s warnings about enslavement through corporate software design.
I think that’s the reason why I always change the operating systems of my devices – Fedora Linux for my PCs and custom ROMs for my phone. The stock ones don’t feel “personal enough” to me anymore.
Laughs in every computer I own is Linux and my mobile is GrapheneOS
Cries a little for everyone else
I’m just starting that journey … Graphene is dope once you learn your way around
My favorite feature is honestly so simple. Denying network permissions during install.
I’m literally building my set-up…I love having apps but a profile without Google play!
I switched to gOS and had to go back for NFC payments and auto.
It is great to see though, those are just necessities for me. Having gone back, I can say I hate pixel launcher and can’t even change keyboard
I’m genuinely curious, what makes NFC a necessity? And what do you mean by auto?
I don’t carry a wallet, and card contactless is limited to like 50. Can’t even do the weekly shop.
Android Auto for driving is difficult to get working, I see gOS can do it but I couldn’t get it to work.
It’s been a while since I got mine set up and working, but IIRC all I had to do was install Android Auto from the preinstalled GrapheneOS App Store app
Its trains when I travel for me. I am not giving up my tap to pay.
I might just be old, but I can do that with my debit and credit cards without involving my phone, so I couldn’t care less.
Limited in terms of value so it is less useful.
Lifestyle creep is real. I was like you before. Keep fighting the good fight and I will join you once Linux figures out NFC.
Brother/Sister if that is the good fight, I seem to be missing my cape. Happy new year :)
They aren’t building things for our benefit, they’re building things for their benefit. All the idiots who gleefully bought devices with surveillance and tracking and data collection, normalized it. Now everyone has to use some of this shit or their life suffers. The masses showed them they can take from our private lives whatever they want and the masses of fucking morons will happily pay them to do it. Why the hell would they stop taking when the consumer market has lost any sense of caution?
Sure, I might own the hardware
Not for long. The goal seems to be to make RAM, flash memory, and GPU’s so expensive that most consumers will need to purchase low-powered client devices and subscribe to cloud computing business models. It’s a handful of companies who are cornering the markets, controlling the supply, and seeking rents.
I don’t really see that happen. It would mean developers (or crappy AI code generators) would have to write efficient code for the low-powered client devices. The web is basically already other people’s computers and look how memory hungry browsers are, or maybe more specifically the websites/apps that run in the browsers.
I bet it’ll be more like a subscription for an LLM upgrade, since they’re shoving “AI” into the OS, it’ll need a bit of local processing power but then you pay to connect it to a beefier server
Big Tech keeps building smarter devices
Smarter or just louder?
Our devices are no longer fully under our control, it’s not a “feeling”.
The more Windows tries to manage my files for me the less I’m able to find where anything is.
I wish Windows 2000 still ran modern games.
Linux does. Not all, but a lot, and more every day.
It’s been years now, and it still hits me sometimes how insanely nice it is that my computers now work the way I want them to.
Yeah, that was an unexpected nice thing about switching to Linux, though also the whole point. Like I knew that I wanted to take control back over my computer and OS, but I was surprised at just how much nicer it is when defaults are set without any profit incentive. There just wasn’t “spend time disabling MS attempts to get me to use their other software” or “dig deep for how to change a setting MS would really rather you don’t change” periods and it made me realize that that was where I’d spend a majority of the “computer maintenance” time on windows.
I’ve hated and avoided 11 since I first experienced it. After Xmas I had to help setup my parents new PC. It of course is win 11. I spent so much fucking time getting that shit just to a usable state. I’m more convinced than ever to fuck off from MS for good.
remind me about the odds on whether a specific distro will work with my gpu or cpu
Older stuff, nearly 100%. New stuff, still really high to nearly 100%. The only place you’ll run into trouble is with devices made with only windows drivers etc. So things like a USB label printer or glucose monitor or something like that.
Computer hardware though, very unlikely to see an issue. Servers use both the CPU and GPU. And most servers run some flavor of Linux.
Gamer’s nexus did a great testing breakdown with Bazzite in a lot of different hardware configs.
Nvidia GPUs are all over the place in expected performance, AMD and Intel just worked from what I remember.
odds are pretty good these days, and if you’re worried dont switch now, but next time you buy hardware buy it with the intention that you may switch and opt for some Linux friendly hardware, which is pretty simple - avoid nvidia and realtek (avoid realtek on windows too if I’m being honest), make sure things are compatible with standards.
What’s Realtek done? I haven’t kept up on them.
Odds?
Just look it up, or tell me what you have.
Regardless of what you have, the “odds” are good.
If you have something unusual that causes problems, that’s too bad, but it doesn’t stop the rest of us from having a good time. And now that I’m on linux, I can make sure something will work before I buy it, and if it doesn’t, I can return it.
It’s only at the time of when you switch you need to think about whether your existing hardware will work.
it says created for windows vista on the front if that helps
It’ll work.
I just installed plain old boring Debian on three (3) random decommissioned office PCs the other day and every single piece of hardware in them worked out of the box including the Wi-Fi cards.
What’s so hard about C:\users\skisnow, it’s pretty intuitive. Also I don’t think that has changed for almost 2 decades now. (XP was last I remember it being different).
Unless your talking about OneDrive or some shit.
What’s so hard about C:\users\skisnow, it’s pretty intuitive
Except it only plays out like that if you follow their entire plan for how you want to structure your files and do it exactly how they want. Yessir, I put my pictures in Pictures and my documents in Documents and my music in Music and my videos in Videos like a good boy and everything is taken care of, until the moment I have to do something very very slightly different to Microsoft’s plan for my life, like get a second SDD or install one of the many many many applications out there that prefer to put themselves in the top level directory and store their own data in there.
Unless your talking about OneDrive or some shit.
You mean the OneDrive that gets bundled with every Windows along with an account that you have to really fight the computer to not give you? Why wouldn’t I be including that?
You can move your home folder anywhere you want, like the second SSD you mentioned. This can be done with both a GUI and the command prompt. I’m forced to use a Mac OS for work, and use linux for my devices. But file systems on Windows are easy. Complaining about forced injections of ads or ai makes sense, but their file system is fine.
I watched something on Netflix the other day.
It immediately then showed an ad for that same movie I’d just watched, telling me the last day to watch is in a few days.
The other day my spouse was trying to watch a movie on prime I think it was, it started by playing an advertisement for the movie she chose to watch. I told her a copy was on the jellyfin server. She said I pay for this so I want to use it. It hit a 2 min 40 second ad break a little later and I saw her glare at me out of the corner of my eye, I chose to pretend to watch the commercial and not look at her, didn’t want that conversation.
I saw her glare at me out of the corner of my eye
As if you were the one putting the Ads into Prime lol
We need to stop supporting them. We’re just helping them build their empire to leave us behind sooner than later.
I down graded phones for simplicity and control
Repost: The power and influence of billionaire tech companies over the government is enormous. Ofcourse workers/users don’t get any (privacy) rights in america, none is lobbying for them lol, nobody in Washington is fighting for us
- A measure you would normally impose on convicted criminals or terrorist leaders is now being used by the U.S. against these three people:
- former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was responsible for European legislation including on social media;
- Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, who researches online hate, A US judge has temporarily blocked the detention of this British social media campaigner Imran Ahmed, who took legal action against the US government over having his visa removed. Mr Ahmed, a US permanent resident, had warned that being detained and possibly deported would tear him away from his American wife and child. 😳;
- and Clare Melford, who maps disinformation with her organization.
- Trumps inauguration lmao
their power and influence wont stop 100 million people breaking down their gates, grabbing them out of their beds, and throwing them into woodchippers.
I’m holding my breath, do it quickly.
- A measure you would normally impose on convicted criminals or terrorist leaders is now being used by the U.S. against these three people:
people are experiencing innovation fatigue
What innovation? The user experience hasn’t undergone significant innovation (improvement) in the last decade
It’s enshittification fatigue, not innovation.
Innovative data collection for the shareholders so the line goes up!
Don’t forget all the innovative ways they’ve found to make it harder to repair “your” device.
The user experience hasn’t undergone significant innovation (improvement) in the last decade
B-b-b-but thinner bezels!!! Slimmer phones!!!
Exactly. I almost feel like many are hungry for something new and different. So much so, that you give them something completely useless like an Ai widget, and they are willing to accept it to scratch an innovation itch.
My dream phone would basically be a phone jammed into a small handheld console with a big battery. Like stuff a pixel into a gameboy advance and that’d be perfect.
There’s kind of been an increase in things being more accessible and usable by the standard user where previously they would need to be quite savvy or know a language.
But, yeah, I can’t think of much else. Not user-based tech anyway. Just the usual insignificant increases and a bunch of bullshit no one asked for and actually ends up using, but has to pay for.
I think smartphones are an excellent example. Most people wouldn’t notice the differences between a second-hand $150 Samsung Galaxy from five years ago, and the latest flagship for 10× the price. The innovation is almost entirely unnoticeable.
In many cases that accessibility is a full-on neutered replacement for a previous system that offered more user control and customizability, removing options from power users, so one man’s progress is another man’s step backwards.
As someone with a second hand Galaxy from seven years ago, yeah there’s not really much difference. Newer phones are slightly more annoying to use, actually.
Only difference is lack of updates for security and latest android, turns phones into ewaste long before the end of the hardware useful life.
Forced ‘innovation’ see-
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Windows 8/10/11
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Gnome 3
There’s no forced Gnome 3 (and it’s not been called that for a long time either), because you choose to install it, have the freedom to install anything else you want, and can customise it infinitely if you so choose.
Besides, Gnome is great. Maybe you don’t like it, but it seems odd to say that the way Linus Torvalds uses Linux is the “wrong” way to use Linux.
If you want to keep using Gnome 2 there are a million forks that are actively maintained, or idk you could just use another desktop. Nobody is forcing you to use gnome but you aren’t entitled to having a project do things the way you specifically want.
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