...is xhtml.weather.com. A long time ago I had a 30MB data plan and this was one of a few websites that continued to work after running out of data and getting paywalled, although most of the graphical assets were stored on a different domain and thus didn't load post-data bucket depletion. m.us.yahoo.com also used to work, but that was plugged in 2014.
TCP port 53 used to also be wide open, but from what I gathered on various forums, that was patched during the last major VoLTE outage. Two other users commented elsewhere on this story that this port (and it's UDP counterpart) as apparently still open on Verizon Wireless. However, I'm unable to confirm this paragraph.
Well, from a customer-facing perspective, speed tests on unactivated SIMs would be useful for determining what one can realistically expect for network speeds at a given location/time. A very minute "try before you buy".
Due to the way GSM/UMTS/LTE networks perform, there's no performance gains to be had in unconditional whitelisting of speedtests, since the air interface (wireless last mile) will ALWAYS be the primary bottleneck.
That's because they initially launched on the Sprint network. Guess what, if you've ever used Verizon Wireless, the calls sound just as bad because they're using the exact same codecs and network protocols (3GPP2 CDMA2000 1xRTT). FreedomPop has partnered with a GSM operator as of late (I think T-Mobile), which provides a far superior quality of service.
That whitelisting for speedtests also applies to unactivated SIMs and prepaid SIMs without active service (e.g. due to nonpayment or zero balance.)
I used to keep a spare phone lying about with an unactivated SIM while I had a prepaid SIM, and discovered the speedtest whitelisting was unconditional. I never thought to dig any deeper into it, although I suspected this type of thing was possible all along.
Glad to have my suspicions confirmed without having to risk my ass.
I run the insider preview, disabling telemetry would be nonsensical. I want Microsoft to see every colossal fuck up fucking up on my end before it gets pushed to your machine. One thing I've learned with 10 years of writing software, you can never have enough debugging feedback.
You should probably look into what you agreed to send Microsoft in the EULA
Surprise! I did. And maybe I'm not as paranoid as you, but seriously, this is fairly standard stuff for any software that has built-in telemetry. Do you know why telemetry is important? Because it shouldn't take four years to fix the next Windows Vista. If Microsoft fucks up a UI decision, they need to know quickly and have the changes rolled back or fixed in the next update. Not four years later.
Even if you want to push the "but Stallman said it's 1984!" argument...
Stallman needs to lay off the drugs
Your PC is literally the last thing the government's going after if they're going after you. Far easier to go after your communications than the device used to make said communications, with exceptions being in E2E encrypted comms.
If Microsoft was really snooping all the interactions on your PC, backbone operators would notice a few gigs of traffic coming from every Windows 10 PC that wasn't there before. You think capturing just the keystrokes is enough useful data? No, you also include metadata such as typing speed, where it was typed, screenshots, etc., and that turns a few kilobytes of typed text info a few megabytes of metadata to make sense of it all. Somebody would notice something if it really was as bad as people like yourself try to argue it is.
And most importantly Hanlon's razor applies to all human interaction. Never attribute to malice that which is easily explained by stupidity. And, let me tell you, people (governments included) are pretty damned stupid.
Now, run along now, and make sure to refit your tinfoil hat because Wi-Fi's giving you brain cancer that can send your throughts to the NSA or whatever paranoid conspiracy crap you're buying into.
Having used both OSes for several decades... Both OSes are great for what they do. Linux detractors can go fuck themselves a la loopback.jpg. and Windows haters can do the same, in case it's over fake "security concerns" w.r.t. Windows 10, in which case, they need a one-way trip to Guantanamo Bay in order to learn what REAL invasion of privacy is. Fucking children.
Doesn't match the experience of real-world users? My tablet ran out of data, look at this advisory text message... Now you have info less than an hour old that supports the GP.
Opera Mini, Opera Max, and Google Chrome Data Saver do help a bit for this. The last two are available on PC (well, Opera Turbo in lieu of Opera Max, but still.)
I went over my tablet data plan a few days ago (11 August 2016). Guess what, the text message I got said I was being throttled to 128kbit/s. Oh, and it really was throttled to 128kbit/s.
Nope, it's 0b tethering limit before 128kbit/s! That's right, once you hit zero bytes of tethering usage, your tethering speeds will be reduced to 128kbit/s!
The entire US mainstream political spectrum, including the entire mainstream Democratic party, is right of Hitler. Dude was dead center and absolute authoritarian.
Because all that shit works great for people with a General American/newscaster/Iowan accent. Have any other accent, and watch that tech fail spectacularly. Say any new words that came into existence since the tech came out, and watch it fail spectacularly. Handling a myriad of accents requires a lot more computational power. Handling a rapidly-changing lexicon requires continuous updating.
A quality smartphone is $600 and is meant to be replaced every two years. A regular no-frills prepaid service plan runs you about $40/month. This is slightly less than $70/month overall.
If this is too much, you are either lying about your income class, or are incredibly fiscally irresponsible.
I've never signed my card. The only time this was ever an issue was at the post office, who interprets a lack of signature as "check against government-issued identity", if you try to run the card as "credit" (signature) and not "debit" (PIN).
Wait for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update launching 2 August 2016. It includes an updated Edge with support for browser extensions.
Browser extensions, however, will be distributed via Windows Store. For example, here's AdBlock Plus for Edge.
Slashdot Mirror
...is xhtml.weather.com. A long time ago I had a 30MB data plan and this was one of a few websites that continued to work after running out of data and getting paywalled, although most of the graphical assets were stored on a different domain and thus didn't load post-data bucket depletion. m.us.yahoo.com also used to work, but that was plugged in 2014.
TCP port 53 used to also be wide open, but from what I gathered on various forums, that was patched during the last major VoLTE outage. Two other users commented elsewhere on this story that this port (and it's UDP counterpart) as apparently still open on Verizon Wireless. However, I'm unable to confirm this paragraph.
They may not plug this if it proves to be too awkward to use in real-world usage.
Well, from a customer-facing perspective, speed tests on unactivated SIMs would be useful for determining what one can realistically expect for network speeds at a given location/time. A very minute "try before you buy".
Due to the way GSM/UMTS/LTE networks perform, there's no performance gains to be had in unconditional whitelisting of speedtests, since the air interface (wireless last mile) will ALWAYS be the primary bottleneck.
That's because they initially launched on the Sprint network. Guess what, if you've ever used Verizon Wireless, the calls sound just as bad because they're using the exact same codecs and network protocols (3GPP2 CDMA2000 1xRTT). FreedomPop has partnered with a GSM operator as of late (I think T-Mobile), which provides a far superior quality of service.
That whitelisting for speedtests also applies to unactivated SIMs and prepaid SIMs without active service (e.g. due to nonpayment or zero balance.)
I used to keep a spare phone lying about with an unactivated SIM while I had a prepaid SIM, and discovered the speedtest whitelisting was unconditional. I never thought to dig any deeper into it, although I suspected this type of thing was possible all along.
Glad to have my suspicions confirmed without having to risk my ass.
I run the insider preview, disabling telemetry would be nonsensical. I want Microsoft to see every colossal fuck up fucking up on my end before it gets pushed to your machine. One thing I've learned with 10 years of writing software, you can never have enough debugging feedback.
Surprise! I did. And maybe I'm not as paranoid as you, but seriously, this is fairly standard stuff for any software that has built-in telemetry. Do you know why telemetry is important? Because it shouldn't take four years to fix the next Windows Vista. If Microsoft fucks up a UI decision, they need to know quickly and have the changes rolled back or fixed in the next update. Not four years later.
Even if you want to push the "but Stallman said it's 1984!" argument...
Now, run along now, and make sure to refit your tinfoil hat because Wi-Fi's giving you brain cancer that can send your throughts to the NSA or whatever paranoid conspiracy crap you're buying into.
echo "alias dir='ls -l'" > ~/.profile
Worked fine with XP, or XP x64? And if you say "32-bit XP", then go run them "naked" on Windows 10 32-bit and watch them work just as well.
Having used both OSes for several decades... Both OSes are great for what they do. Linux detractors can go fuck themselves a la loopback.jpg. and Windows haters can do the same, in case it's over fake "security concerns" w.r.t. Windows 10, in which case, they need a one-way trip to Guantanamo Bay in order to learn what REAL invasion of privacy is. Fucking children.
Doesn't match the experience of real-world users? My tablet ran out of data, look at this advisory text message... Now you have info less than an hour old that supports the GP.
Opera Mini, Opera Max, and Google Chrome Data Saver do help a bit for this. The last two are available on PC (well, Opera Turbo in lieu of Opera Max, but still.)
I went over my tablet data plan a few days ago (11 August 2016). Guess what, the text message I got said I was being throttled to 128kbit/s. Oh, and it really was throttled to 128kbit/s.
Nope, it's 0b tethering limit before 128kbit/s! That's right, once you hit zero bytes of tethering usage, your tethering speeds will be reduced to 128kbit/s!
QoS is a bit different than throttling.
T-Mobile has a $25/mo talk-and-text-only plan. They don't give two shits what kind of device you put the SIM in.
The entire US mainstream political spectrum, including the entire mainstream Democratic party, is right of Hitler. Dude was dead center and absolute authoritarian.
Grow up, AC.
Because all that shit works great for people with a General American/newscaster/Iowan accent. Have any other accent, and watch that tech fail spectacularly. Say any new words that came into existence since the tech came out, and watch it fail spectacularly. Handling a myriad of accents requires a lot more computational power. Handling a rapidly-changing lexicon requires continuous updating.
For the same cost of an Xbox One, I can get a PC that performs just as well as an Xbox One. Don't delude yourself, kid.
A quality smartphone is $600 and is meant to be replaced every two years. A regular no-frills prepaid service plan runs you about $40/month. This is slightly less than $70/month overall.
If this is too much, you are either lying about your income class, or are incredibly fiscally irresponsible.
Do people never use debit cash back or something?
Also, some stores (Walmart, for one) have ceased processing my bank card as chip-and-sig, they only allow it to run as chip-and-PIN.
I've never signed my card. The only time this was ever an issue was at the post office, who interprets a lack of signature as "check against government-issued identity", if you try to run the card as "credit" (signature) and not "debit" (PIN).
Walmart and some other retailers process my card as chip-and-PIN, so the whole process isn't entirely for naught.
Wait for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update launching 2 August 2016. It includes an updated Edge with support for browser extensions. Browser extensions, however, will be distributed via Windows Store. For example, here's AdBlock Plus for Edge.