You're linking to global stats. not U.S. stats. Google isn't doing so great in countries like Russia or China either, and US is the most profitable market (and the GP is also referring to it in the post, see title)
What I found stupid about the whole thing was the sentence
While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine
Yeah yeah, slashdot has the FAQ point about it being US-centric site. But including the word "world"? That maybe true for US, but it varies by country. For example Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia and Baidu is in China, and they both lead Google by miles.
If you use Adblock and Noscript, it is nearly impossible to get infected. Why that functionality is not in every browser and enabled by default I simply don't understand.
Because it's pain in the ass even for us geeks, and much more so for normal users. Build-in adblock with filters in every browser would also put most of the sites out of business, or they would start charging subscription fees to access their content. I rather take the possibility to install such myself if I want to rather than destroy the existing "free" models that currently make the internet possible the way it is.
Yes, because all malware comes from emails, and you've never ever searched or done anything new or something you don't really know about on the internet.
if someone makes a brand-new account and like more than a few things a day, it is an obvious seller of likes. ban.
Eh, when people make an account on Facebook or Google+ they usually have a huge spike of likes then. All your favourite music, movies, games and so on.. After that it slow downs and people like things randomly when they come across new things they, well, like.
Even if Google does get some code running that detects and bans them, well, it doesn't take long for people to study what works and what works and act upon that information. People aren't that stupid that they would just continue doing shit that gets them banned, they will route around it. Besides, a few mistakes in bans of normal people for no good reason does A LOT more harm than getting rid of a few accounts used solely for liking websites.
It doesn't matter to Netflix, it matters to media companies, and if you want to make their content available you have to play by their rules. Arguably also, it is about the common barrier. Nothing you do will ever make it 100% secure, but if you get the threshold high enough most casual users will not bother.
That's not the point really. Entertainment is something that is hard to fulfill with the next best thing. Yeah yeah, people could probably get the same entertainment value from some other movie, game or music. But in the real world, when one wants to see thing x, he or she wants to see exactly that and not pick something else.
Can anyone suggest a streaming movie service that has a selection comparable to Netfix and will run on a computer using GNU/Linux?
No. There isn't one because Linux market share on desktop is so incredibly small that no one wants to put up with the cost of supporting those few users. Most normal people run either Windows, set-top box or some console like PS3. Even if someone were to make such service they would immediately get huge backslash for the need of DRM (demanded by copyright owners). Yes, continue to use Linux, I do too. But if you are not willing to come even a little bit forward (like, accepting DRM or closed binaries) don't cry about it when companies don't want to support it.
Slashdot Mirror
You're linking to global stats. not U.S. stats. Google isn't doing so great in countries like Russia or China either, and US is the most profitable market (and the GP is also referring to it in the post, see title)
While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine
Yeah yeah, slashdot has the FAQ point about it being US-centric site. But including the word "world"? That maybe true for US, but it varies by country. For example Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia and Baidu is in China, and they both lead Google by miles.
If you use Adblock and Noscript, it is nearly impossible to get infected. Why that functionality is not in every browser and enabled by default I simply don't understand.
Because it's pain in the ass even for us geeks, and much more so for normal users. Build-in adblock with filters in every browser would also put most of the sites out of business, or they would start charging subscription fees to access their content. I rather take the possibility to install such myself if I want to rather than destroy the existing "free" models that currently make the internet possible the way it is.
Yes, because all malware comes from emails, and you've never ever searched or done anything new or something you don't really know about on the internet.
if someone makes a brand-new account and like more than a few things a day, it is an obvious seller of likes. ban.
Eh, when people make an account on Facebook or Google+ they usually have a huge spike of likes then. All your favourite music, movies, games and so on.. After that it slow downs and people like things randomly when they come across new things they, well, like.
Even if Google does get some code running that detects and bans them, well, it doesn't take long for people to study what works and what works and act upon that information. People aren't that stupid that they would just continue doing shit that gets them banned, they will route around it. Besides, a few mistakes in bans of normal people for no good reason does A LOT more harm than getting rid of a few accounts used solely for liking websites.
It's 160 characters, not 150.
It doesn't matter to Netflix, it matters to media companies, and if you want to make their content available you have to play by their rules. Arguably also, it is about the common barrier. Nothing you do will ever make it 100% secure, but if you get the threshold high enough most casual users will not bother.
That's not the point really. Entertainment is something that is hard to fulfill with the next best thing. Yeah yeah, people could probably get the same entertainment value from some other movie, game or music. But in the real world, when one wants to see thing x, he or she wants to see exactly that and not pick something else.
Can anyone suggest a streaming movie service that has a selection comparable to Netfix and will run on a computer using GNU/Linux?
No. There isn't one because Linux market share on desktop is so incredibly small that no one wants to put up with the cost of supporting those few users. Most normal people run either Windows, set-top box or some console like PS3. Even if someone were to make such service they would immediately get huge backslash for the need of DRM (demanded by copyright owners). Yes, continue to use Linux, I do too. But if you are not willing to come even a little bit forward (like, accepting DRM or closed binaries) don't cry about it when companies don't want to support it.