As others have pointed out, it does come loaded with Google's own ransomware and spyware. It's just that the costs you pay for having the system loaded with Google's own malware seem worth it to you. For now.
Oh, right, because they supposedly serve the public good.
Perhaps the People of the United States should figure out if Verizon, AT&T, and a great many other abusive corporations are profitable for the public, and if they find otherwise, revoke their charters.
I think there is a legitimate market niche for advertisitng. Letting people gain awareness that things of interest to them exist is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Lots of people go and watch movie trailers of their own volition, for example.
But there is absolutely a line, beyond which advertising becomes parasitic. How much time do we collectively lose, how much wealth does our society spend, in order that some people may become wealthy selling to some other people? Where, ethically, is the line between robbery, extortion, fraud and an advertising campaign or sales pitch?
I do not know exactly where the line is for responsible advertising, but as a society I think we are very far on the wrong side of it.
not Firefox. Failing that, Chromium or even Chrome itself.
Actually, I do have Ice Dragon installed. Mostly as a backup for the - hopefully nonexistent - day PaleMoon dies. I've found Firefox unusable for both technical and UI reasons for years.
Yep. I haven't seen this (at Google or Bing), although with my browser and addon choices I'm probably unlikely to. But the day I do is the day I walk completely away from Google and don't look back.
Yes and no. Yes, you shouldn't allow your phone to do that kind of thing. And no, because while he may be clueless on some objective scale, he's representative of the overwhelming majority of smartphone users. The non-savvy users are a major vulnerability, but they're not the cause.
The problem is an insecure by design phone ecosystem, which in turn is driven by greed.
Look. Our country isn't a total cyberpunk dystopia (yet) so when corporations want to injure the public to improve their own position, they need to come up with some words to put in the mouths of their government puppets. The words don't have to make sense, or be a good argument. They only need to kind-of look like one. They're set dressing for our pretend democracy, nothing more.
Oh, and once you accept the con that the quality of the argument they're making matters, they've already won.
Exactly. I'd like to see some numbers on numbers of homes that have a PC, instead of just sales. PCs stay useful longer, the hardware seems to last longer, and brand new ones are expensive and arguably less useful. (Or at least have a learning curve, which is a big negative to many people.)
AT&T has sued cities to prevent competition.
This is part of the broken pattern here in America. Powerful companies openly flout the law, and then find some technicalities to hide behind. Everyone knows it's BS, and the only question is how long it can go on before the public breaks out the guillotines and starts setting things on fire. Those profiting are betting the answer is "long enough to flee and live like kings in Patagonia".
Don't forget to allow for end users who have no knowledge or unrealistic expectations, either though.
"I thought it meant 10 Gbps for every device I owned. I don't understand why the connection's slow after I connected my whole college dorm to it."
"What do you mean, I have to manage my own LAN? For $10/month, I expect on-site LAN troubleshooting whenever I want!"
While I don't want to say the telcos and cable companies are innocent (because they aren't), Americans' unwillingness or inability to shop critically doesn't help either.
Even in areas where there is competition, too many customers will go for hype and big numbers over actual quality of service. If Company A advertises "Always 50 Mbps! Cheap!" and Company B advertises "Speeds up to 100Mbps, performance may vary depending on location and equipment, contact us for details, pricing is fixed monthly and will never change, no deals or gimmicks (but with a number larger than the one in Company A's ad)" too many consumers will go for Company A every time, even when it repeatedly doesn't deliver bandwidth or price.
You can also blame the government that lets Company A get away with that, but said government has probably been getting re-elected by Company A's victims for 20 years.
Yeah, but back then, there was a coverup where a bunch of people working for the White House lied about stuff, and then the President fired the guy running the investigation...
I never really though of the Pirates franchise as "raunchy R-rated comedy", but surely a movie based on a prime-time TV show wouldn't fit that definition either, right? (And that couldn't possibly have anything to do with poor box office.)
If they cared about these issues, as opposed to wanting to pretend to care, they could be doing more than asking others to commit more than an insignificant percentage of their own net worth to the issue.
The idea that a quasi-biological alien probe could ride down the telematter stream was impossible based on everything we knew at the time. Simply because it was compromised in ways its creators could not have imagined, and human civilization collapsed as a result, does not mean that the creation of the Icarus Array was a bad idea.
People are modding it funny, but that's because it's half true.
Sony or the FBI will be allowed to compromise your hardware at will. But if you so much as peep back, they'll drop the legal equivalent of a 10 ton weight on you.
Slashdot Mirror
As others have pointed out, it does come loaded with Google's own ransomware and spyware. It's just that the costs you pay for having the system loaded with Google's own malware seem worth it to you. For now.
In America you shouldn't even need to ask. The latter, obviously.
Oh, right, because they supposedly serve the public good.
Perhaps the People of the United States should figure out if Verizon, AT&T, and a great many other abusive corporations are profitable for the public, and if they find otherwise, revoke their charters.
I think there is a legitimate market niche for advertisitng. Letting people gain awareness that things of interest to them exist is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Lots of people go and watch movie trailers of their own volition, for example. But there is absolutely a line, beyond which advertising becomes parasitic. How much time do we collectively lose, how much wealth does our society spend, in order that some people may become wealthy selling to some other people? Where, ethically, is the line between robbery, extortion, fraud and an advertising campaign or sales pitch? I do not know exactly where the line is for responsible advertising, but as a society I think we are very far on the wrong side of it.
not Firefox. Failing that, Chromium or even Chrome itself.
Actually, I do have Ice Dragon installed. Mostly as a backup for the - hopefully nonexistent - day PaleMoon dies. I've found Firefox unusable for both technical and UI reasons for years.
Thanks for the reminder to donate to PaleMoon!
The cable company (or companies) who paid him to write the column?
Yep. I haven't seen this (at Google or Bing), although with my browser and addon choices I'm probably unlikely to. But the day I do is the day I walk completely away from Google and don't look back.
Yes and no. Yes, you shouldn't allow your phone to do that kind of thing. And no, because while he may be clueless on some objective scale, he's representative of the overwhelming majority of smartphone users. The non-savvy users are a major vulnerability, but they're not the cause. The problem is an insecure by design phone ecosystem, which in turn is driven by greed.
Seriously. That's insane. Three companies sitting on five percent of M2!
Look. Our country isn't a total cyberpunk dystopia (yet) so when corporations want to injure the public to improve their own position, they need to come up with some words to put in the mouths of their government puppets. The words don't have to make sense, or be a good argument. They only need to kind-of look like one. They're set dressing for our pretend democracy, nothing more.
Oh, and once you accept the con that the quality of the argument they're making matters, they've already won.
Exactly. I'd like to see some numbers on numbers of homes that have a PC, instead of just sales. PCs stay useful longer, the hardware seems to last longer, and brand new ones are expensive and arguably less useful. (Or at least have a learning curve, which is a big negative to many people.)
AT&T has sued cities to prevent competition. This is part of the broken pattern here in America. Powerful companies openly flout the law, and then find some technicalities to hide behind. Everyone knows it's BS, and the only question is how long it can go on before the public breaks out the guillotines and starts setting things on fire. Those profiting are betting the answer is "long enough to flee and live like kings in Patagonia".
Basically what I was going to say. He's not being fined for being a scamming robocaller, he's being fined for doing scamming robocalling *wrong*.
Don't forget to allow for end users who have no knowledge or unrealistic expectations, either though. "I thought it meant 10 Gbps for every device I owned. I don't understand why the connection's slow after I connected my whole college dorm to it." "What do you mean, I have to manage my own LAN? For $10/month, I expect on-site LAN troubleshooting whenever I want!"
While I don't want to say the telcos and cable companies are innocent (because they aren't), Americans' unwillingness or inability to shop critically doesn't help either.
Even in areas where there is competition, too many customers will go for hype and big numbers over actual quality of service. If Company A advertises "Always 50 Mbps! Cheap!" and Company B advertises "Speeds up to 100Mbps, performance may vary depending on location and equipment, contact us for details, pricing is fixed monthly and will never change, no deals or gimmicks (but with a number larger than the one in Company A's ad)" too many consumers will go for Company A every time, even when it repeatedly doesn't deliver bandwidth or price.
You can also blame the government that lets Company A get away with that, but said government has probably been getting re-elected by Company A's victims for 20 years.
Drum magazines are notorious for jamming.
I know there aren't a lot of rural Americans left, but for folks in flyover country a gun really can be a useful, even neccessary, tool.
No, it isn't helping to pay for itself. That "slight maintenance" from mileage adds up.
Yeah, but back then, there was a coverup where a bunch of people working for the White House lied about stuff, and then the President fired the guy running the investigation...
I never really though of the Pirates franchise as "raunchy R-rated comedy", but surely a movie based on a prime-time TV show wouldn't fit that definition either, right? (And that couldn't possibly have anything to do with poor box office.)
Each night, there won't be anyone telling him they'll most likely kill him in the morning.
I mean, it's not a real PC without that.
If they cared about these issues, as opposed to wanting to pretend to care, they could be doing more than asking others to commit more than an insignificant percentage of their own net worth to the issue.
The idea that a quasi-biological alien probe could ride down the telematter stream was impossible based on everything we knew at the time. Simply because it was compromised in ways its creators could not have imagined, and human civilization collapsed as a result, does not mean that the creation of the Icarus Array was a bad idea.
People are modding it funny, but that's because it's half true.
Sony or the FBI will be allowed to compromise your hardware at will. But if you so much as peep back, they'll drop the legal equivalent of a 10 ton weight on you.