Firefox is also the only major multiplatform browser that is fully open-source and community driven.
Chrome use is shocking- none of us have full knowledge what spyware and tracking is baked into its binary distribution, and it can change to be even worse in an instant. Google has its hooks into us in many scary ways, I would hate to see them leveraging their power too much.
Firefox certainly might have some issues (mostly the crap of trying to turn it into Chrome) but it is a very important part of the browser ecosystem. Proven, fast, feature-rich, configurable, excellent addon collection, etc.
The ends do not justify the means.... a correct background check would reveal their history. If they need to ID someone, then it should be done using something that cannot be abused- that would be their driver's license & photo. And if that is not good enough, then they should consider using deep vein scan.
There is absolutely no reason the government should require collecting and using fingerprints, especially just to run background checks. Using fingerprints and allowing the government (or any other party) to have access to that data is unacceptable. Not only because the government should have no need to track what people are doing but because the gov should not have fingerprint registration data- which will be horribly abused. To me this is just SHOCKING.
Stand up for your rights, people... (and the rights of your children, too). Once you give this data to the government (or big business), it will NEVER be erased or restricted, regardless of claims or laws- it will go into huge databases and shared between all agencies and used however they want for as long as they want. Even worse, with every crime investigation, you will be searched without probable cause.
Again, there is ZERO reason for fingerprints just to do a background check of *LICENSED DRIVERS*, but if one MUST use biometrics, there is only one safer and practical biometric I know of- that is deep vein palm scan. That registration data cannot be readily abused. It can't be latently collected like DNA, fingerprints, and face recognition can. You have to know you are registering/enrolling when it happens. You don't leave evidence of it all over the place. When you go to use it, you know you are using it every time. And on top of all that, it is accurate, fast, reliable, unchanging, live-sensing, and cheap. If you must participate in a biometric, this is the one you should insist on using.
>"Amir Efrati, a reporter with The Information, asks: "Industry seems to be failing at convince email users to do 2-step verification. Why not require it?" "
Because not all of us want to give stupid corporations our freaking cell phone number or whatnot. Talk about a MAJOR invasion of privacy. There are things that CAN be done, but forcing an invasive "solution" on people will find at least some of their user base leaving their service.
Some of us really are VERY careful about passwords, not using malware-infected systems, etc. And forcing us to hand over even more private info to companies that ABSOLUTELY WILL spam us with it is a deal-ender.
1) Must have fast enough internet 2) Must have reliable enough internet 3) Must have internet at the moment you are watching 4) Must have enough data allocation to deal with it all 5) Clunky interfaces 6) Usually doesn't work with all devices 7) Forced commercials possible and likely on many services 8) Slow to react to controls 9) Jerky and inefficient fast forwarding and rewinding 10) Sometimes doesn't remember place across sessions
This isn't the future I want for TV watching. I want a system of scheduling and automatic DOWNLOADING of content to a local device so I can watch it at my speed, when I want, regardless of connection, in the way I want to watch it. And you can watch WHILE downloading (remember the original Amazon video model?). Otherwise, we *WILL* be held captive by "broadcasters" who simply can't resist adding forced content.... could be ads, could be ratings, could be copyright warnings, could be trailers, whatever.
A hybrid, watch-while-you-download DVR type thing might be the ticket.... as long as they can't force ads. The only thing it can't easily address is total data caps. But many of the streaming models (like Hulu) need to die. And the cable TV model certainly needs to die (pay through the nose for hundreds of channels of what you don't want and can't get what you want when you want it).
No, Firefox is not dead. It is the only major, multiplatform, open source, open standards, and fully openly developed browser. Chromium almost makes the mark, except it doesn't build well for many Linux distros.... and since it is lock-step with Chrome, even though it might not contain as many [unacceptable] Google ties, it can't really be said it is openly developed. It is also hostile to customization and hostile to centralized configuration.
If Firefox is dead, so are all hopes for a non corporately-controlled browser. Chrome might be nice for some people, but it is a binary, with god-knows-what stuff in it. It is a privacy and backdoor nightmare and can change to be anything Google wants it to be in a heartbeat (and without anyone knowing). VERY BAD for everyone. I tend to think that none of us really want to trade a horrible, corporate-controlled, monoculture called IE with another one called Chrome.
Indeed Mozilla/Firefox has issues- and they need to address them quickly. STOP TRYING TO BE CHROME is the most important thing of all. There is already a Chrome, and countless Firefox users have been pissed off at what Mozilla has been doing to it for years now. STOP TAKING AWAY USEFUL FEATURES. STOP DUMBING DOWN THE UI!!! STOP ADDING IN THINGS NOT RELATED TO WEB BROWSING!
>But as I've explained elsewhere in this thread, there are distros which offer KDE, but people don't pick them.
All the major distros OFFER KDE (as well as many other desktops), but few made it the default. And the reason it wasn't made the default was not because it had so many options and configuration but because it came later and Gnome was already the historical choice people were familiar with (and in which most of the system-stuff was written).
The distros that picked KDE as the default are more obscure- SuSe & Mandriva/Mageia are the only two that come to mind. The others, such as Redhat/RHEL/Fedora and many others, picked Gnome and stuck with it (including Ubuntu until they created the disaster called Unity).
KDE shot themselves in the foot when they released KDE 4 and broke so much stuff and it took them YEARS to recover from that mess, which lowered their adoption further.
(FYI- I use KDE as my home and laptop desktop, and ICEWM and XFCE at work).
That would not be the best example. You are making the assumption that the primary reason Gnome is popular is because there is so little user settings. The more likely reason is that several major distros chose Gnome as their default desktop before KDE came around.
What this does is highlight what Google is famous for- not giving any user choice. It runs throughout most of their products and platforms.
Instead of deciding for us how something must be to best meet the assumed majority, what would be nice would be to simply let us CHOOSE what options we want. What font size, if we want the scale meter to be shown, how much detail we want to see, etc.
I am sick of the "modern" "simple" design of everything that is supposedly so superior... because it isn't. Removing all controls and choices, hiding everything, getting rid of settings, etc. No thanks.
>"The success of the iPhone is starting plateau and ultimately decrease now that consumers are finding less of a reason to upgrade to the latest and greatest smartphone"
And because consumers are also finding that there is often less of a reason to buy an iphone when compared to other high-end smartphones.
>"Compared to the Nexus 4, for instance, the Nexus 6P offers a significant improvement."
Because you skipped over the Nexus 5.
Some of us (me included) don't really need any tons more speed or 1,000,000 DPI displays. We don't want 3D. We don't want iris scanners, virtual keyboards, 100 megapixel cameras, or other gimmicks..... We want LONGER BATTERY LIFE, reliability, modern memory and storage options, in a SMALLER phone without losing any features, for a reasonable price.
I am a Nexus 5 owner and love the phone. Even today it is fast enough. But was very turned off by the only Nexus upgrade path- the Nexus 6. I didn't want a big phone. And tons of us screamed that. Google sorta listened and a year later the 5x finally comes out. Although reasonably small (it is still slightly larger than the 5), it is almost double the price but is a low end device! No 4GB RAM, no 64GB (or 128GB) storage, mediocre battery, AND NO WIRELESS CHARGING!
HELLO!!! Just because many of us don't want a tablet sized phone doesn't mean we want 4-year-old specs for memory and storage. I have money to spend for a real upgrade to the Nexus 5 and still waiting...
>"Seriously, almost every Netflix subscriber will agree that the Netflix GUI has literally only gotten worse with every new iteration."
How can I possibly agree more? And I am talking about the DVD site even.
Many features I want are missing or taken away or never existed. Want to see actual new releases? Nope. Want to see a trailer? Nope. Want to rate something with partial stars? Nope. Want to sort a search result? Nope. Want to see your own review of a movie page you have up? Nope. Want an advanced search with filters? Nope. Want to see the past release date (not year) of the movie? Nope. Want to send written feedback to Netflix through the site or Email? Nope. Want to see what is available on streaming if you are not a streaming customer? Nope.
I jump back and forth between typing notes and handwriting them. Of course, it often depends on if a computer is handy or not. I can type a zillion times faster than write, plus my handwriting is horrible to the point often only I can make it out. And typed documents are easy to edit and reuse later, and can be distributed nicely, and searched. So typing is a win.
One factor is noise... typing is loud, and in a meeting, it is often unacceptable/distracting to people and can be rude. And there are things that are much easier with writing- like putting in stars, lines about relations, quick diagrams, etc. Doesn't rely on batteries, easy to use just about anywhere, very compact. So writing is a win.
The more important news is that EC2 is ~ 341,000 Linux installs to MS-Windows' puny 26,000. Linux is 1,312% more popular! No wonder Microsoft wants to somehow incorporate Linuxy and Linuxish in MS-Windows...
>"The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week to match a more than 42-year low"
And could that be because so many are "disabled" now and collecting that or some other government money instead? I really don't know, but it seems plausible.
>"Lets be honest, they're all jackasses. In my living memory this is most certainly the best time for a candidate to run as a third party or independent and have a chance to win."
Which makes the chance about 0.0000001% instead of 0.000000001%?
It is essentially impossible for any third party/independent to ever win large/important elections in this country with the current system. People will always resort to voting against the worst choice, in fear, rather than throwing their vote away. The only solution is instant runoff voting. And that, too, will never happen, because it would loosen the stranglehold the two major parties have on the country so neither will support it.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's put it this way- if they even listen and/or accept 10% contribution, that is still 10% more than the other browsers.
Firefox is also the only major multiplatform browser that is fully open-source and community driven.
Chrome use is shocking- none of us have full knowledge what spyware and tracking is baked into its binary distribution, and it can change to be even worse in an instant. Google has its hooks into us in many scary ways, I would hate to see them leveraging their power too much.
Firefox certainly might have some issues (mostly the crap of trying to turn it into Chrome) but it is a very important part of the browser ecosystem. Proven, fast, feature-rich, configurable, excellent addon collection, etc.
Using that logic, there is no limit to what we "should" do to citizens to "protect the children" or whatnot.
Living in a [supposedly] "free" society has risks. Otherwise, there is no freedom.
The ends do not justify the means.... a correct background check would reveal their history. If they need to ID someone, then it should be done using something that cannot be abused- that would be their driver's license & photo. And if that is not good enough, then they should consider using deep vein scan.
There is absolutely no reason the government should require collecting and using fingerprints, especially just to run background checks. Using fingerprints and allowing the government (or any other party) to have access to that data is unacceptable. Not only because the government should have no need to track what people are doing but because the gov should not have fingerprint registration data- which will be horribly abused. To me this is just SHOCKING.
Stand up for your rights, people... (and the rights of your children, too). Once you give this data to the government (or big business), it will NEVER be erased or restricted, regardless of claims or laws- it will go into huge databases and shared between all agencies and used however they want for as long as they want. Even worse, with every crime investigation, you will be searched without probable cause.
Again, there is ZERO reason for fingerprints just to do a background check of *LICENSED DRIVERS*, but if one MUST use biometrics, there is only one safer and practical biometric I know of- that is deep vein palm scan. That registration data cannot be readily abused. It can't be latently collected like DNA, fingerprints, and face recognition can. You have to know you are registering/enrolling when it happens. You don't leave evidence of it all over the place. When you go to use it, you know you are using it every time. And on top of all that, it is accurate, fast, reliable, unchanging, live-sensing, and cheap. If you must participate in a biometric, this is the one you should insist on using.
>"Amir Efrati, a reporter with The Information, asks: "Industry seems to be failing at convince email users to do 2-step verification. Why not require it?" "
Because not all of us want to give stupid corporations our freaking cell phone number or whatnot. Talk about a MAJOR invasion of privacy. There are things that CAN be done, but forcing an invasive "solution" on people will find at least some of their user base leaving their service.
Some of us really are VERY careful about passwords, not using malware-infected systems, etc. And forcing us to hand over even more private info to companies that ABSOLUTELY WILL spam us with it is a deal-ender.
My experience with streaming:
1) Must have fast enough internet
2) Must have reliable enough internet
3) Must have internet at the moment you are watching
4) Must have enough data allocation to deal with it all
5) Clunky interfaces
6) Usually doesn't work with all devices
7) Forced commercials possible and likely on many services
8) Slow to react to controls
9) Jerky and inefficient fast forwarding and rewinding
10) Sometimes doesn't remember place across sessions
This isn't the future I want for TV watching. I want a system of scheduling and automatic DOWNLOADING of content to a local device so I can watch it at my speed, when I want, regardless of connection, in the way I want to watch it. And you can watch WHILE downloading (remember the original Amazon video model?). Otherwise, we *WILL* be held captive by "broadcasters" who simply can't resist adding forced content.... could be ads, could be ratings, could be copyright warnings, could be trailers, whatever.
A hybrid, watch-while-you-download DVR type thing might be the ticket.... as long as they can't force ads. The only thing it can't easily address is total data caps. But many of the streaming models (like Hulu) need to die. And the cable TV model certainly needs to die (pay through the nose for hundreds of channels of what you don't want and can't get what you want when you want it).
>Firefox is dead.
No, Firefox is not dead. It is the only major, multiplatform, open source, open standards, and fully openly developed browser. Chromium almost makes the mark, except it doesn't build well for many Linux distros.... and since it is lock-step with Chrome, even though it might not contain as many [unacceptable] Google ties, it can't really be said it is openly developed. It is also hostile to customization and hostile to centralized configuration.
If Firefox is dead, so are all hopes for a non corporately-controlled browser. Chrome might be nice for some people, but it is a binary, with god-knows-what stuff in it. It is a privacy and backdoor nightmare and can change to be anything Google wants it to be in a heartbeat (and without anyone knowing). VERY BAD for everyone. I tend to think that none of us really want to trade a horrible, corporate-controlled, monoculture called IE with another one called Chrome.
Indeed Mozilla/Firefox has issues- and they need to address them quickly. STOP TRYING TO BE CHROME is the most important thing of all. There is already a Chrome, and countless Firefox users have been pissed off at what Mozilla has been doing to it for years now. STOP TAKING AWAY USEFUL FEATURES. STOP DUMBING DOWN THE UI!!! STOP ADDING IN THINGS NOT RELATED TO WEB BROWSING!
>But as I've explained elsewhere in this thread, there are distros which offer KDE, but people don't pick them.
All the major distros OFFER KDE (as well as many other desktops), but few made it the default. And the reason it wasn't made the default was not because it had so many options and configuration but because it came later and Gnome was already the historical choice people were familiar with (and in which most of the system-stuff was written).
The distros that picked KDE as the default are more obscure- SuSe & Mandriva/Mageia are the only two that come to mind. The others, such as Redhat/RHEL/Fedora and many others, picked Gnome and stuck with it (including Ubuntu until they created the disaster called Unity).
KDE shot themselves in the foot when they released KDE 4 and broke so much stuff and it took them YEARS to recover from that mess, which lowered their adoption further.
(FYI- I use KDE as my home and laptop desktop, and ICEWM and XFCE at work).
>"Proof: Gnome vs. KDE on Linux. "
That would not be the best example. You are making the assumption that the primary reason Gnome is popular is because there is so little user settings. The more likely reason is that several major distros chose Gnome as their default desktop before KDE came around.
>"What this also highlights is how ridiculous it is that openstreetmap hasn't already made the criticism irrelevant"
I will say it is amazing how much openstreetmap has improved over the years. I really didn't expect it to get so nice...
What this does is highlight what Google is famous for- not giving any user choice. It runs throughout most of their products and platforms.
Instead of deciding for us how something must be to best meet the assumed majority, what would be nice would be to simply let us CHOOSE what options we want. What font size, if we want the scale meter to be shown, how much detail we want to see, etc.
I am sick of the "modern" "simple" design of everything that is supposedly so superior... because it isn't. Removing all controls and choices, hiding everything, getting rid of settings, etc. No thanks.
I absolutely *HATE* this idea. And I predict the consumer reaction will be swift and severe.
http://fairvote.org/
>"The success of the iPhone is starting plateau and ultimately decrease now that consumers are finding less of a reason to upgrade to the latest and greatest smartphone"
And because consumers are also finding that there is often less of a reason to buy an iphone when compared to other high-end smartphones.
>"Compared to the Nexus 4, for instance, the Nexus 6P offers a significant improvement."
Because you skipped over the Nexus 5.
Some of us (me included) don't really need any tons more speed or 1,000,000 DPI displays. We don't want 3D. We don't want iris scanners, virtual keyboards, 100 megapixel cameras, or other gimmicks..... We want LONGER BATTERY LIFE, reliability, modern memory and storage options, in a SMALLER phone without losing any features, for a reasonable price.
I am a Nexus 5 owner and love the phone. Even today it is fast enough. But was very turned off by the only Nexus upgrade path- the Nexus 6. I didn't want a big phone. And tons of us screamed that. Google sorta listened and a year later the 5x finally comes out. Although reasonably small (it is still slightly larger than the 5), it is almost double the price but is a low end device! No 4GB RAM, no 64GB (or 128GB) storage, mediocre battery, AND NO WIRELESS CHARGING!
HELLO!!! Just because many of us don't want a tablet sized phone doesn't mean we want 4-year-old specs for memory and storage. I have money to spend for a real upgrade to the Nexus 5 and still waiting...
True, they can't expect tons of so-called "free" stuff.
+1 THANK YOU. Yet another unfounded attack on X11 to push an agenda. An agenda to push something that isn't necessarily better.
>"Seriously, almost every Netflix subscriber will agree that the Netflix GUI has literally only gotten worse with every new iteration."
How can I possibly agree more? And I am talking about the DVD site even.
Many features I want are missing or taken away or never existed. Want to see actual new releases? Nope. Want to see a trailer? Nope. Want to rate something with partial stars? Nope. Want to sort a search result? Nope. Want to see your own review of a movie page you have up? Nope. Want an advanced search with filters? Nope. Want to see the past release date (not year) of the movie? Nope. Want to send written feedback to Netflix through the site or Email? Nope. Want to see what is available on streaming if you are not a streaming customer? Nope.
I jump back and forth between typing notes and handwriting them. Of course, it often depends on if a computer is handy or not. I can type a zillion times faster than write, plus my handwriting is horrible to the point often only I can make it out. And typed documents are easy to edit and reuse later, and can be distributed nicely, and searched. So typing is a win.
One factor is noise... typing is loud, and in a meeting, it is often unacceptable/distracting to people and can be rude. And there are things that are much easier with writing- like putting in stars, lines about relations, quick diagrams, etc. Doesn't rely on batteries, easy to use just about anywhere, very compact. So writing is a win.
So it "depends" :)
>"Is EC2 really only ~370,000 instances overall? That seems off by several orders of magnitude..."
I thought so too. But those are the numbers from the site. They don't say what criteria is being used.
The more important news is that EC2 is ~ 341,000 Linux installs to MS-Windows' puny 26,000. Linux is 1,312% more popular! No wonder Microsoft wants to somehow incorporate Linuxy and Linuxish in MS-Windows...
Rather they spend the effort making a higher-end 5 version with wireless charging...
>"The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week to match a more than 42-year low"
And could that be because so many are "disabled" now and collecting that or some other government money instead? I really don't know, but it seems plausible.
>"Lets be honest, they're all jackasses. In my living memory this is most certainly the best time for a candidate to run as a third party or independent and have a chance to win."
Which makes the chance about 0.0000001% instead of 0.000000001%?
It is essentially impossible for any third party/independent to ever win large/important elections in this country with the current system. People will always resort to voting against the worst choice, in fear, rather than throwing their vote away. The only solution is instant runoff voting. And that, too, will never happen, because it would loosen the stranglehold the two major parties have on the country so neither will support it.