They make more money, and their overhead goes down because they don't need to deal with complicated plan management anymore, which saves them additional money.
That's basically what Franz is. It's a a web browser dedicated to handling IMs that have Web APIs. The nice thing about it is that it gives you full access to whatever the target IM provides over the web, so you don't lose functionality like you would with say, Trillian or Pidgin, and you still get basic OS integration, like notifications, etc.
It's the single best option I've been able to find that lets me (relatively) painlessly manage multiple IMs without having a bajillion clients all running simultaneously.
I personally despise having to keep my browser open just to maintain my message connectivity. I'm opening and closing browser windows on a regular basis, and IMO a browser should be just that, not an OS replacement. We already have Emacs for that.:)
It also has the benefit of running under Linux, which you don't get with an unfortunate majority of dedicated clients. (Apparently Microsoft has supposedly pulled their thumb out and pulled Skype for Linux out of abandonware status... We'll see what happens, I guess.)
Of course there are. But if they don't achieve some level of critical mass, then they become marginalized and eventually disappear. Or if you have a number of overlapping social circles, you end up having to install multiple clients because some use one client and others use a different one.
Hell, I've been trying my damnedest to move away from Facebook Messenger cause I despise Facebook. But there are enough people who are on it, that it becomes very difficult.
I used to use Trillian to manage all these services, but they've slid so far behind that I've had to abandon it. Now I'm using Franz on the Desktop, and connecting to services that at least have the decency to provide a web UI, even if it's not optimal (eg: WhatsApp).
While I don't go to quite the same lengths that you do, I agree with your sentiment. Unfortunately, it seems to be very much in the minority.
The prevailing attitude seems to be, "Well, they're gonna harvest my data whether I like it or not, so I may as well enjoy it." It's nice to know that identity theft has become such a non-issue that people can be happily blasé about it.
It does require you to set up an account with a phone number first. WhatsApp is similar. Telegram requires *a* number during initial setup, but after that you can install the client on any mobile or desktop device you want, and it will just work. Supposedly, Telegram will work with a landline number in lieu of a cell number, but I never tested that.
IIRC, you can sign up with Snapchat without a phone number, but it doesn't have a desktop client.
There is no technical reason at all for companies to not work together. All the building blocks have been in place for years.
The problem is they they don't *want* to work together. They would rather balkanize so that they can have a captive audience and hopefully crush the competition.
What pisses me off the most is that companies *had* been going in the direction of federation and collaboration. Facebook and Google were notable in that they had XMPP compatible systems. But then they decided "Screw this, I want the whole pie!" and balkanized again.
Can you give an example? I can't think of a single reason why 4th normal form would be a bad thing.
4th normal form adds flexibility to the data, while also reducing overall database size and as a result speeds up full table scans. I can't think of a single reason why you wouldn't want to use 4th normal, short of having a really bad application design/code base to begin with.
That would be the logical thing to do. Unfortunately, a large number of states have granted monopoly status to the companies, and cities arn't permitted to interfere that in any way. And when the FCC tried to give power back to the cities, they were successfully slapped down with the argument that the feds were trampling on the rights of the States.
Apparently the rights of the cities within those states don't matter at all.
It cost you as an individual 200 bucks because you weren't paying for your time. You as an individual are also not restricted by the same laws that bind a contracting company.
What would you have done if you slipped with your trench digger and maimed your leg? How much insurance did you have to pay for your job site? How much did you pay yourself for the time you spent, not just driving and cleaning, but also picking up and dropping off the equipment?
While I can't say specifically why the bill would be that ludicrously high, I can see how it *could* get that high. At a minimum, I can see having multiple bonded people on site to satisfy safety regulations. That alone would have run the bill up a couple thousand dollars. Now add the logistics of coordinating those people, both on-site and at company HQ, you've now involved a large number of people for just a half-day job.
You eliminated all that by taking on the work, logistics, and risk upon yourself, and leaving you with only having to pay for the equipment rental.
It's just like people that want anti bully laws, harassment laws already exist, if someone is harassing you go take care of that.
You say that as if it were easy. What do you do when you are getting mobbed by hundreds or thousands of assholes who all insist you be raped and killed? How exactly do you "take care of" something like that? And this doesn't even consider what another poster mentioned, which is that even if you block a user, which is the most simple thing you can do on most comment systems, but that user then proceeds to open dozens of alternative accounts to continue harassing you?
This is like the Streisand Effect's demented evil cousin. If you react at all, that gives fresh incentive for these jerks to harass you all the more.
So what do you do? Throw a harassment suit at each and every poster? I'm not aware of any kind of reverse class-action suit, but IANAL so that doesn't mean much. But even if you do, what's the likelihood that one of those nutjobs goes *really* off the deep end and actually tries to carry out their threat?
You're better off just throwing your hands in the air, saying "fuck this" and just walking away.
My statements are only insane if you completely ignore the greater context that the mobile industry lives in, which is apparently what you are choosing to do. The way you phrased your comment, I can only assume that you consider it equally absurd that Google put restrictions on their app store in order to reduce the number of malicious applications that were being submitted? Perhaps you should stop using the Google app store and switch to one of the unregulated app stores, which have a 1 in 3 chance of you downloading trojan copy of an otherwise legitimate app?
Your argument that it is ironic that we're discussing this on a "pro-choice" forum is as nonsensical as what you are trying to accuse my post of being. Slashdot is *free*. The fact that it is pro-open source and pro-choice is irrelevant. If every member was required to pay so much as a penny for a lifetime membership to Slashdot, it's visitor count would collapse.
Also bear in mind that I am not arguing for some Orwellian clampdown on an entire ecosystem. All I am saying is that *anyone* who has *ever* done anything remotely resembling sysadmin work knows that developers cannot be trusted with carte blanche access to a given system, because there is an excellent chance that a good number of those developers are going to do something bad, whether through laziness, time pressure, intentionally, or what have you.
The idea that Microsoft won the industry on merit is absurd. Microsoft is ubiquitous because they used various shenanigans to gain an industry wide monopoly, including going so far as to subvert internation standards bodies to stack the deck in their favour. On top of that, Microsoft considered security to a distant second place, and the end result is a vast ecosystem of computers that have been trivially compromised by the hundreds of millions.
There are countless cottage industries including antivirus, third part support services, etc, whose entire existence exploits the fact that Windows is a breathtakingly unsecure pile of crap. They *still* haven't been able to clean up the mess, although they have put a great deal of effort into doing so. But that's irrelevant because Windows continues on because of enertia. People are used to Windows and all it's warts, so they want to keep using Windows. Ditto with Office, etc.
Android is ubiquitous in the market for one reason, and one reason alone: It was relatively simple, and it was given away freely. These are the two things that nobody seems able to resist, both to copy-cat manufacturers who want to crank out devices no matter how shoddy they are, and to consumers who care more about the cost of a device than any other conceivable factor. Android isn't a product to Google. Google doesn't make money from android directly. Android *facilitates* the actual product: us. Google makes money from ads produced by the aggregate data they collect. They make money from the manufacturers who bundle all the various Google Apps into their devices in order to be Google certified.
That is why Android is designed with virtually zero security, because security gets in the way of data slurping. And as more and more manufacturers gravitate towards being able to spit out low-cost mobile devices, it was inevitable that Android would take the lions share of the market. Now it's a choice between Android and iOS because there is literally no other viable option. Nobody even wants to try other options at this point. Even Microsoft can't compete.
Meanwhile, Android has *zero* checks on what developers do. If a developer wants their app running all the time, no matter what, Android will do nothing to stop it. For example: I ran into this situation when I had a Samsung Galaxy S3. Worse, it was some Samsung crapware, so my only option was to root the device and install Cyanogenmod. The result? My battery life immediately improved about 30%. I won't even get started talking about the ridiculously sloppy way Android handles application permissions, which actively tak
What we need to do is make sure that we support the companies that DO make things right, and fail to support the companies that have a track record of failing to address issues.
ROFLMAO.
I mean, that'd be nice, yes. Too bad that doesn't actually happen. Otherwise companies like EA would have gone out of business a long time ago.
I hope they do a better job stewarding this thing than they did with Android. Todays Android is repeating all the same mistakes that Microsoft made with earlier versions of Windows. They gave way too much power to developers, so now Android may be an extremely flexible and powerful mobile OS, but it also requires every user to act as a sysadmin, constantly monitoring resources, manually killing apps, etc etc. Battery life is abysmal, and malware is ripe in the android ecosystem. And that's on top of the myriad landfill android devices which are so breathtakingly shotty that they arn't even fit for purposes as simple as a basic e-reader.
The fact is, is that you can't trust developers to code properly. Whether by design, lack of competence, or due to time crunches that result in taking short cuts, an OS *must* guard against rogue applications. Google's finally starting to understand that, based on what I'm reading in the release notes for Android 6 and 7, but they still have a ways to go.
If they don't correct this mistake while creating Fuscia, it won't matter how excitig and awesome it is. It will already have a major uphill battle, competing against established systems, so it will need to be solid right out of the gate just to compete.
No, it doesn't. Unless the administrator has specifically declared that the open service is open on purpose, you cannot assume that it's there as a free-for-all.
The vast majority of consumer-facing services, like open wifi, websites, ftp sites, etc, make it easy to forget that those services were left open *on purpose*. For example, the vast majority of (properly set up) wifi access points will present you with a guest access ToS screen.
Unfortunately not everyone is competent in setting up front-facing services, and may do something boneheaded like what is described in the article. Accessing services that weren't specifically declared to be public is still effectively trespassing. The best analogy I can think of is a wasp that paralyzes a caterpillar and injects an egg into it. Just because you *can* do something, doesn't automatically mean it's cool to do so.
No, it doesn't. Unless the administrator has specifically declared that the open service is open on purpose, you cannot assume that it's there as a free-for-all.
The vast majority of consumer-facing services, like open wifi, websites, ftp sites, etc, make it easy to forget that those services were left open *on purpose*. For example, the vast majority of (properly set up) wifi access points will present you with a guest access ToS screen.
Unfortunately not everyone is competent in setting up front-facing services, and may do something boneheaded like what is described in the article. Accessing services that weren't specifically declared to be public is still effectively trespassing. The best analogy I can think of is a wasp that paralyzes a caterpillar and injects an egg into it. Just because you *can* do something, doesn't automatically mean it's cool to do so.
It's not even close to the same reasoning. Just because something is open, doesn't automatically mean you have a right to it.
Granted, most things that are open (eg: wifi), are left open on purpose because the administrator specifically wants to encourage people to use it, but unless you are absolutely sure that you have been given permission to use a service, then what you are doing is trespassing, period.
Slashdot Mirror
Oooh! Reading the kickstarter page, there's a whole section on how it runs Apps!
I bet the Appy Apps guy is just thrilled!
Will it be free, as in beer?
Better than free hookers. I'm not sure I'd trust those.
They make more money, and their overhead goes down because they don't need to deal with complicated plan management anymore, which saves them additional money.
Course, the customer will get screwed, but hey.
That's basically what Franz is. It's a a web browser dedicated to handling IMs that have Web APIs. The nice thing about it is that it gives you full access to whatever the target IM provides over the web, so you don't lose functionality like you would with say, Trillian or Pidgin, and you still get basic OS integration, like notifications, etc.
It's the single best option I've been able to find that lets me (relatively) painlessly manage multiple IMs without having a bajillion clients all running simultaneously.
I personally despise having to keep my browser open just to maintain my message connectivity. I'm opening and closing browser windows on a regular basis, and IMO a browser should be just that, not an OS replacement. We already have Emacs for that. :)
It also has the benefit of running under Linux, which you don't get with an unfortunate majority of dedicated clients. (Apparently Microsoft has supposedly pulled their thumb out and pulled Skype for Linux out of abandonware status... We'll see what happens, I guess.)
Why does the article's logo show Intel?
Has AMD falling so far that Slashdot can't even be bothered to show their logo anymore?
Of course there are. But if they don't achieve some level of critical mass, then they become marginalized and eventually disappear. Or if you have a number of overlapping social circles, you end up having to install multiple clients because some use one client and others use a different one.
Hell, I've been trying my damnedest to move away from Facebook Messenger cause I despise Facebook. But there are enough people who are on it, that it becomes very difficult.
I used to use Trillian to manage all these services, but they've slid so far behind that I've had to abandon it. Now I'm using Franz on the Desktop, and connecting to services that at least have the decency to provide a web UI, even if it's not optimal (eg: WhatsApp).
Yup. Tragedy of the commons 'n all that.
While I don't go to quite the same lengths that you do, I agree with your sentiment. Unfortunately, it seems to be very much in the minority.
The prevailing attitude seems to be, "Well, they're gonna harvest my data whether I like it or not, so I may as well enjoy it." It's nice to know that identity theft has become such a non-issue that people can be happily blasé about it.
It does require you to set up an account with a phone number first. WhatsApp is similar. Telegram requires *a* number during initial setup, but after that you can install the client on any mobile or desktop device you want, and it will just work. Supposedly, Telegram will work with a landline number in lieu of a cell number, but I never tested that.
IIRC, you can sign up with Snapchat without a phone number, but it doesn't have a desktop client.
There is no technical reason at all for companies to not work together. All the building blocks have been in place for years.
The problem is they they don't *want* to work together. They would rather balkanize so that they can have a captive audience and hopefully crush the competition.
What pisses me off the most is that companies *had* been going in the direction of federation and collaboration. Facebook and Google were notable in that they had XMPP compatible systems. But then they decided "Screw this, I want the whole pie!" and balkanized again.
Can you give an example? I can't think of a single reason why 4th normal form would be a bad thing.
4th normal form adds flexibility to the data, while also reducing overall database size and as a result speeds up full table scans. I can't think of a single reason why you wouldn't want to use 4th normal, short of having a really bad application design/code base to begin with.
They're only pissed that people tried to take the data without paying them first.
That would be the logical thing to do. Unfortunately, a large number of states have granted monopoly status to the companies, and cities arn't permitted to interfere that in any way. And when the FCC tried to give power back to the cities, they were successfully slapped down with the argument that the feds were trampling on the rights of the States.
Apparently the rights of the cities within those states don't matter at all.
It cost you as an individual 200 bucks because you weren't paying for your time. You as an individual are also not restricted by the same laws that bind a contracting company.
What would you have done if you slipped with your trench digger and maimed your leg? How much insurance did you have to pay for your job site? How much did you pay yourself for the time you spent, not just driving and cleaning, but also picking up and dropping off the equipment?
While I can't say specifically why the bill would be that ludicrously high, I can see how it *could* get that high. At a minimum, I can see having multiple bonded people on site to satisfy safety regulations. That alone would have run the bill up a couple thousand dollars. Now add the logistics of coordinating those people, both on-site and at company HQ, you've now involved a large number of people for just a half-day job.
You eliminated all that by taking on the work, logistics, and risk upon yourself, and leaving you with only having to pay for the equipment rental.
It's just like people that want anti bully laws, harassment laws already exist, if someone is harassing you go take care of that.
You say that as if it were easy. What do you do when you are getting mobbed by hundreds or thousands of assholes who all insist you be raped and killed? How exactly do you "take care of" something like that? And this doesn't even consider what another poster mentioned, which is that even if you block a user, which is the most simple thing you can do on most comment systems, but that user then proceeds to open dozens of alternative accounts to continue harassing you?
This is like the Streisand Effect's demented evil cousin. If you react at all, that gives fresh incentive for these jerks to harass you all the more.
So what do you do? Throw a harassment suit at each and every poster? I'm not aware of any kind of reverse class-action suit, but IANAL so that doesn't mean much. But even if you do, what's the likelihood that one of those nutjobs goes *really* off the deep end and actually tries to carry out their threat?
You're better off just throwing your hands in the air, saying "fuck this" and just walking away.
My statements are only insane if you completely ignore the greater context that the mobile industry lives in, which is apparently what you are choosing to do. The way you phrased your comment, I can only assume that you consider it equally absurd that Google put restrictions on their app store in order to reduce the number of malicious applications that were being submitted? Perhaps you should stop using the Google app store and switch to one of the unregulated app stores, which have a 1 in 3 chance of you downloading trojan copy of an otherwise legitimate app?
Your argument that it is ironic that we're discussing this on a "pro-choice" forum is as nonsensical as what you are trying to accuse my post of being. Slashdot is *free*. The fact that it is pro-open source and pro-choice is irrelevant. If every member was required to pay so much as a penny for a lifetime membership to Slashdot, it's visitor count would collapse.
Also bear in mind that I am not arguing for some Orwellian clampdown on an entire ecosystem. All I am saying is that *anyone* who has *ever* done anything remotely resembling sysadmin work knows that developers cannot be trusted with carte blanche access to a given system, because there is an excellent chance that a good number of those developers are going to do something bad, whether through laziness, time pressure, intentionally, or what have you.
The idea that Microsoft won the industry on merit is absurd. Microsoft is ubiquitous because they used various shenanigans to gain an industry wide monopoly, including going so far as to subvert internation standards bodies to stack the deck in their favour. On top of that, Microsoft considered security to a distant second place, and the end result is a vast ecosystem of computers that have been trivially compromised by the hundreds of millions.
There are countless cottage industries including antivirus, third part support services, etc, whose entire existence exploits the fact that Windows is a breathtakingly unsecure pile of crap. They *still* haven't been able to clean up the mess, although they have put a great deal of effort into doing so. But that's irrelevant because Windows continues on because of enertia. People are used to Windows and all it's warts, so they want to keep using Windows. Ditto with Office, etc.
Android is ubiquitous in the market for one reason, and one reason alone: It was relatively simple, and it was given away freely. These are the two things that nobody seems able to resist, both to copy-cat manufacturers who want to crank out devices no matter how shoddy they are, and to consumers who care more about the cost of a device than any other conceivable factor. Android isn't a product to Google. Google doesn't make money from android directly. Android *facilitates* the actual product: us. Google makes money from ads produced by the aggregate data they collect. They make money from the manufacturers who bundle all the various Google Apps into their devices in order to be Google certified.
That is why Android is designed with virtually zero security, because security gets in the way of data slurping. And as more and more manufacturers gravitate towards being able to spit out low-cost mobile devices, it was inevitable that Android would take the lions share of the market. Now it's a choice between Android and iOS because there is literally no other viable option. Nobody even wants to try other options at this point. Even Microsoft can't compete.
Meanwhile, Android has *zero* checks on what developers do. If a developer wants their app running all the time, no matter what, Android will do nothing to stop it. For example: I ran into this situation when I had a Samsung Galaxy S3. Worse, it was some Samsung crapware, so my only option was to root the device and install Cyanogenmod. The result? My battery life immediately improved about 30%. I won't even get started talking about the ridiculously sloppy way Android handles application permissions, which actively tak
What we need to do is make sure that we support the companies that DO make things right, and fail to support the companies that have a track record of failing to address issues.
ROFLMAO.
I mean, that'd be nice, yes. Too bad that doesn't actually happen. Otherwise companies like EA would have gone out of business a long time ago.
I hope they do a better job stewarding this thing than they did with Android. Todays Android is repeating all the same mistakes that Microsoft made with earlier versions of Windows. They gave way too much power to developers, so now Android may be an extremely flexible and powerful mobile OS, but it also requires every user to act as a sysadmin, constantly monitoring resources, manually killing apps, etc etc. Battery life is abysmal, and malware is ripe in the android ecosystem. And that's on top of the myriad landfill android devices which are so breathtakingly shotty that they arn't even fit for purposes as simple as a basic e-reader.
The fact is, is that you can't trust developers to code properly. Whether by design, lack of competence, or due to time crunches that result in taking short cuts, an OS *must* guard against rogue applications. Google's finally starting to understand that, based on what I'm reading in the release notes for Android 6 and 7, but they still have a ways to go.
If they don't correct this mistake while creating Fuscia, it won't matter how excitig and awesome it is. It will already have a major uphill battle, competing against established systems, so it will need to be solid right out of the gate just to compete.
Oh FFS. Ok, no more slashdot while it's so hot I can't focus clearly enough to reply on the correct comment. Twice. :P
No, it doesn't. Unless the administrator has specifically declared that the open service is open on purpose, you cannot assume that it's there as a free-for-all.
The vast majority of consumer-facing services, like open wifi, websites, ftp sites, etc, make it easy to forget that those services were left open *on purpose*. For example, the vast majority of (properly set up) wifi access points will present you with a guest access ToS screen.
Unfortunately not everyone is competent in setting up front-facing services, and may do something boneheaded like what is described in the article. Accessing services that weren't specifically declared to be public is still effectively trespassing. The best analogy I can think of is a wasp that paralyzes a caterpillar and injects an egg into it. Just because you *can* do something, doesn't automatically mean it's cool to do so.
Sorry, ignore my other comment. I conflated what you wrote with what you quoted.
No, it doesn't. Unless the administrator has specifically declared that the open service is open on purpose, you cannot assume that it's there as a free-for-all.
The vast majority of consumer-facing services, like open wifi, websites, ftp sites, etc, make it easy to forget that those services were left open *on purpose*. For example, the vast majority of (properly set up) wifi access points will present you with a guest access ToS screen.
Unfortunately not everyone is competent in setting up front-facing services, and may do something boneheaded like what is described in the article. Accessing services that weren't specifically declared to be public is still effectively trespassing. The best analogy I can think of is a wasp that paralyzes a caterpillar and injects an egg into it. Just because you *can* do something, doesn't automatically mean it's cool to do so.
Shame you posted AC. That comment is worth a +5 Funny.
It's not even close to the same reasoning. Just because something is open, doesn't automatically mean you have a right to it.
Granted, most things that are open (eg: wifi), are left open on purpose because the administrator specifically wants to encourage people to use it, but unless you are absolutely sure that you have been given permission to use a service, then what you are doing is trespassing, period.