Very few people are actually buying retail software these days. All the retail software is getting Web-ified or Fuck-ified, or SaaS-ified... take your pick. Only specialized industries - movies, VFX, Audio, BioInformatics, Biotechnology, Manufacturing, etc are buying specialized software. Most of the time (except the amateurs) , they can afford to dedicate a specially configured machine just for that. I work in the biotech/automation industry and often times we get the hardware along with the software - which costs thousands and thousands of dollars. The vendor can pick whatever OS they need to get the software working.
People who want them to change are misguided, and should make their own choices, and then it won't matter what anybody else does for them, too.
How are they misguided? They are simply stating their opinion, as are you. What is the point of posting on a public forum if you don't want people to respond.
I'd wager that the people who want, and would benefit from, a unified experience, vastly outnumber the people who voice their discontent.
Its not only that, its also that the dependency a piece of software takes can get in the way and block other software from updating. The problem is that the repository maintainer has to maintain a NxM matrix of software and dependencies, both of which are constantly changing.
As a software developer, my release cycle might be one release in 6 months, but it may be that a faster rev-cycle of other piece of software causes my software to be incompatible with the current state of the repository.
Well, there are a lot of lessons. Sustained browser development costs tens of millions. And only a few companies can pay for market share like Google and Microsoft did/do. If only two companies make cars, you can't expect someone to start a brand new car company if you're not already swimming in cash (Musk). All governments are arbitrary entities we made up to serve our needs. If we want more competition, we'll have to lower the barrier in some fashion. The cliche of "make a better product" might have worked a few centuries ago (when capitalist greed wasn't as rampant), but is only a nice statement of platitude in 2019.
Logical arguments are not necessarily the only means to reach the truth. The world, including people actions, are not solely governed by logic because our model is incomplete. Which is why we have Experimental Physics in addition to Theoretical Physics:)
I work on embedded systems and system level software for a living and I prefer the C++ tooling on Windows over Linux. Specifically I feel that my productivity using Visual Studio + Visual Assist is greater than when I'm developing/debugging on Linux. Its fine to like or prefer a particular OS for any reason or no reason at all, but its important to also recognize that people _choose_ Windows for rational and pragmatic reasons and not simply because they're forced or are stupid or just don't know any better.
Heh, thats pretty much the first thing that came to my mind too. But I chuckle everytime I see a blue screen on a giant public facing screen. Regardless of whose fault it is, its like "... and someone got paid for THAT piece of quality engineering"
How is it a simple fact? I get months of uptime on all of my windows workstations (desktop + laptop). This alone downgrades your so called "fact" to "opinion", or perhaps "facts" that only exist inside your own mind.
Someone put in the minimum amount of effort into this display and it shows
Both Apple and Google continue to follow dark patterns to trick the user into subscribing for their shitty services. Nearly everytime I start up youtube or itunes on my phone, I get the nagscreen popup for itunes radio or YT "premium" that does not have the "No, and don't ask me ever again" option.
The problem is the creation of silos. Following this trajectory, we're going to end up with CompuServe all over again. Google wants you trapped inside their walled garden. When they started out with "Organizing the worlds information" - They went "hey we're like a library" that makes it easy to find information. Increasingly, they don't want you actually checking out that book or leaving their site. Now, they want you to capitalize on content that they don't create, and copy-paste it with their ads inserted for your kind viewing pleasure.
Publishers and businesses are encouraged to prioritize internal links over external links that may boost the competition in Google's rankings.
Its rather hilarious that Google does this exact same thing. All Google search results are internal google links. That's millions and millions of internal links.
Tinworth explains that Google tries to minimize the effect of these 'unnatural linking patterns', which includes comment spam and 'guest posts', but it remains part of "how the shadier side of the SEO industry operates."
I guess when Google does it, its not considered "unnatural".
So in your mind, the Chinese government has no say over how iPhone is made _IN CHINA_? If they wanted to, they could introduce the malware at the source in Foxcon's factory itself.
Are the consumers gonna blame the dodgy Chinese company who put in the bug when it comes out they've all been duped and the reason their device feels like its gonna melt is its been turned into a bitcoin miner? Nope they are gonna blame the OEM,
And if a repair shop replaces a battery, and then the wifi chip dies, the customer is going to blame the repair shop. Yeah, people are dummies. So what? It cuts both ways...
Now personally I'm all for letting folks get their stuff fixed from whomever they want, and that anybody should be able to import after market or refurb parts to fix these devices, but OTOH I can also see the OEMs deserving at least a way to let the consumer know if that used device they are picking up on eBay is using genuine OEM parts or Cheapo Chinese Crap, same as how AFAIK you aren't allowed anywhere to take a car out of the junkyard, fix it up and then sell it without a salvage title to let people know its been busted up. To me that is fair to all parties and personally I'd like to know if that device I'm buying used has a real OEM screen and battery or is hacked together from parts on Ali Express or the replacement part I get is the real deal or a fake.
How would you know when buying a used car? Do people check if they swapped the headers out, or the battery, or the turbo or the tranny? Sure you can go to a mechanic and get it checked out for $100, but there is no way they can do a thorough job for that little money - considering it will take them days if not weeks to check every single part.
There exist non-OEM refurbishers that have been doing a quality job on all kinds of products for decades. This is just a money grab from Apple.. plain and simple.
Government has no business legislating this stuff;
The government and its constitution, is a tool that humans created to serve us. If it is no longer doing that, and has flaws, we should change things we don't like about it.
OTOH, it's also a very broad, deep and high-quality set of services, for which users pay nothing, in dollars. The deal is you trade the ability for Google to target ads to your eyeballs in exchange for all of that. If you think that's a bad deal, you're completely free to opt out. Buy an unlockable device, unlock it, remove all the Google apps, use a different search engine, don't use gmail, etc.
Well sure. I do my best. I try to avoid Google products as much as possible. I've switched to FF. Tried switching to bing, buts its terrible for technical searches. I don't use ad blockers because I'd rather just not visit a website than block ads.
Anyway, my point is that your claim is wrong. Google does allow you to encrypt the inbox... Google just doesn't encourage it. A different sort of company would ban it.
Okay but then at that point "Gmail" is just a folder to store mbox data. You cannot decrypt messages using the web client AFAIK.
(Yes, I recognize I'm being a little disingenuous here. Most people couldn't actually do what I describe. But it is possible, and many Google engineers put in a lot of extra work to make sure that it continues being possible.)
At the same time, many other Google engineers put in a lot of extra work to make AOSP useless without Google's closed-source play services. Which is fair, in a business context. But then don't pretend "Google loves open source". Google tends to commoditize the thing that lets them collect data. Anyway, there is no point in rehashing old criticisms. Again, to re-iterate, there is no problem with closed source products or with selling a product for profit. People get turned off when a company pretends to be something its not.
No... we do not consider attackers who exploit vulnerabilities to be in any way "competition". Facebook is competition, as are other app developers who build tools that attract a lot of user data and then advertise to users.
They're don't pose a real threat. But by definition they are competition. Google does not want anyone else snooping except themselves. They don't want ISPs snooping on user data, they don't want routers doing deep packet inspection, etc. HTTPS everywhere == nobody except Google can mine user data. Chrome one one endpoint, google ad scripts on the other endpoint. In cases where Google's interests align with the users interest, obviously everyone supports it.
There actually is a huge amount of altruism at Google. it's not a cloak, it's reality. Of course, it's sometimes in tension with the need to generate profits, but less often than you might think. Generally, if you build something that hundreds of millions or billions of people want to use, there's some way to make it generate revenue -- which is good because running such massive services is expensive.
Yes, that is the business model that Google has chosen. I would have preferred it if people just paid Google a fee for all of their services.
For me, personally, making Android secure is as much about improving the world as it is about getting a paycheck. I could get paid to do a lot of things. Few of them would be as rewarding as what I do.
I don't want to make you feel bad about working for Google. But please understand that people don't like google for legitimate and perfectly rational reasons.
because we think people should be able to do what they want with their devices.
You should add the caveat, - "as long as Google can mine the users data". That is the only thing Google really cares about. In a sense, allowing vulnerabilities means that there's competition to get to the data. It makes sense in other contexts too as to why Google is never going to allow users to encrypt the Inbox.
We don't mind you guys fixing vulnerabilities, or even employing dark patterns across your products, or even trying to trick people to use your products - Hey, its a tough world out there. Its only when you cloak your actions under altruism that we find it reprehensible.
Well it is the problem in general with protesting modern tech. Nobody wants to inconvenience themselves. They just want an external entity to force the company to do what they want.
Because it is not cost effective for a company to make a driver efficient AND work on every platform.
I don't agree with such a broad claim. We have the same binaries that run efficiently on a Xeon, a Pentium 4 and a Core i5. Those are vastly different platforms, that only look similar because of a common virtual interface (x86 ISA). In a similar fashion, the OS presents an file-system abstraction to the software you use, be it a NVMe or a Spinning Disk HDD or a network based storage device. A device driver essentially ferries data back and forth from a device (modulo obvious caveats and simplifications). If the device is the same, say a mouse or a VR headset, or a network card, then its good if the OS vendor can provide a common interface for developers to develop against. Sure every abstraction has a cost. But development/productivity on multiple platform also has costs.
If I'm selling RAID controller chips, I don't want to write separate drivers for HP UX, IBM OS/360, RHEL, NetBSD, etc etc. Or worse, have drivers for one OS lag behind in features compared to others.
Maybe if I was a wall street trading firm and I needed to store/access data in sub millisecond timeframes - then sure optimize away. Obviously for some use-cases time is literally money. Most modern driver-model abstractions allow an escape hatch where you can deal directly with the lower level API.
Check out the demo scene if you are not familiar with what can actually be done in 64K or even 4K of code
I don't think people want to run software that only runs on a fixed hardware platform like a C64 or an Amiga. It takes people months and sometimes years to develop those 1-2 minute intros.
Slashdot Mirror
Very few people are actually buying retail software these days. All the retail software is getting Web-ified or Fuck-ified, or SaaS-ified... take your pick. Only specialized industries - movies, VFX, Audio, BioInformatics, Biotechnology, Manufacturing, etc are buying specialized software. Most of the time (except the amateurs) , they can afford to dedicate a specially configured machine just for that. I work in the biotech/automation industry and often times we get the hardware along with the software - which costs thousands and thousands of dollars. The vendor can pick whatever OS they need to get the software working.
People who want them to change are misguided, and should make their own choices, and then it won't matter what anybody else does for them, too.
How are they misguided? They are simply stating their opinion, as are you. What is the point of posting on a public forum if you don't want people to respond.
I'd wager that the people who want, and would benefit from, a unified experience, vastly outnumber the people who voice their discontent.
Its not only that, its also that the dependency a piece of software takes can get in the way and block other software from updating. The problem is that the repository maintainer has to maintain a NxM matrix of software and dependencies, both of which are constantly changing.
As a software developer, my release cycle might be one release in 6 months, but it may be that a faster rev-cycle of other piece of software causes my software to be incompatible with the current state of the repository.
Well, the bottom line is nobody wants to pay for QA.
We're also slaughtering, killing and oppressing fewer and fewer people each passing year.. Coincidence?
Well, there are a lot of lessons. Sustained browser development costs tens of millions. And only a few companies can pay for market share like Google and Microsoft did/do. If only two companies make cars, you can't expect someone to start a brand new car company if you're not already swimming in cash (Musk). All governments are arbitrary entities we made up to serve our needs. If we want more competition, we'll have to lower the barrier in some fashion. The cliche of "make a better product" might have worked a few centuries ago (when capitalist greed wasn't as rampant), but is only a nice statement of platitude in 2019.
Logical arguments are not necessarily the only means to reach the truth. The world, including people actions, are not solely governed by logic because our model is incomplete. Which is why we have Experimental Physics in addition to Theoretical Physics :)
I work on embedded systems and system level software for a living and I prefer the C++ tooling on Windows over Linux. Specifically I feel that my productivity using Visual Studio + Visual Assist is greater than when I'm developing/debugging on Linux. Its fine to like or prefer a particular OS for any reason or no reason at all, but its important to also recognize that people _choose_ Windows for rational and pragmatic reasons and not simply because they're forced or are stupid or just don't know any better.
Heh, thats pretty much the first thing that came to my mind too. But I chuckle everytime I see a blue screen on a giant public facing screen. Regardless of whose fault it is, its like "... and someone got paid for THAT piece of quality engineering"
How is it a simple fact? I get months of uptime on all of my windows workstations (desktop + laptop). This alone downgrades your so called "fact" to "opinion", or perhaps "facts" that only exist inside your own mind.
Someone put in the minimum amount of effort into this display and it shows
Looks like someone took your advice ..
https://imgur.com/a/Nbq0Yzz
Oh, I know, its anything but a Linux issue... :)
Both Apple and Google continue to follow dark patterns to trick the user into subscribing for their shitty services. Nearly everytime I start up youtube or itunes on my phone, I get the nagscreen popup for itunes radio or YT "premium" that does not have the "No, and don't ask me ever again" option.
The problem is the creation of silos. Following this trajectory, we're going to end up with CompuServe all over again. Google wants you trapped inside their walled garden. When they started out with "Organizing the worlds information" - They went "hey we're like a library" that makes it easy to find information. Increasingly, they don't want you actually checking out that book or leaving their site. Now, they want you to capitalize on content that they don't create, and copy-paste it with their ads inserted for your kind viewing pleasure.
Publishers and businesses are encouraged to prioritize internal links over external links that may boost the competition in Google's rankings.
Its rather hilarious that Google does this exact same thing. All Google search results are internal google links. That's millions and millions of internal links.
Tinworth explains that Google tries to minimize the effect of these 'unnatural linking patterns', which includes comment spam and 'guest posts', but it remains part of "how the shadier side of the SEO industry operates."
I guess when Google does it, its not considered "unnatural".
It probably means that they were not sure of the exact count. Happens when you have to get your article out on a deadline..
So in your mind, the Chinese government has no say over how iPhone is made _IN CHINA_? If they wanted to, they could introduce the malware at the source in Foxcon's factory itself.
Are the consumers gonna blame the dodgy Chinese company who put in the bug when it comes out they've all been duped and the reason their device feels like its gonna melt is its been turned into a bitcoin miner? Nope they are gonna blame the OEM,
And if a repair shop replaces a battery, and then the wifi chip dies, the customer is going to blame the repair shop. Yeah, people are dummies. So what? It cuts both ways...
Now personally I'm all for letting folks get their stuff fixed from whomever they want, and that anybody should be able to import after market or refurb parts to fix these devices, but OTOH I can also see the OEMs deserving at least a way to let the consumer know if that used device they are picking up on eBay is using genuine OEM parts or Cheapo Chinese Crap, same as how AFAIK you aren't allowed anywhere to take a car out of the junkyard, fix it up and then sell it without a salvage title to let people know its been busted up. To me that is fair to all parties and personally I'd like to know if that device I'm buying used has a real OEM screen and battery or is hacked together from parts on Ali Express or the replacement part I get is the real deal or a fake.
How would you know when buying a used car? Do people check if they swapped the headers out, or the battery, or the turbo or the tranny? Sure you can go to a mechanic and get it checked out for $100, but there is no way they can do a thorough job for that little money - considering it will take them days if not weeks to check every single part.
There exist non-OEM refurbishers that have been doing a quality job on all kinds of products for decades. This is just a money grab from Apple .. plain and simple.
Government has no business legislating this stuff;
The government and its constitution, is a tool that humans created to serve us. If it is no longer doing that, and has flaws, we should change things we don't like about it.
I was referring to their antivirus software in general. If the WebSheild part isn't a kernel component, I stand corrected..
They probably want a general solution for all HTTPS traffic.
The software is already running in the kernel. If the software was malicious, you're already screwed. MITM doesn't make it worse IMO.
It's an assumption either way. People can change their mind too. Nobody knows anything for sure.
It would be nice if Glassdoor would do some vetting..
The problem is, the only entity with money (and who is willing to pay) is the business.
OTOH, it's also a very broad, deep and high-quality set of services, for which users pay nothing, in dollars. The deal is you trade the ability for Google to target ads to your eyeballs in exchange for all of that. If you think that's a bad deal, you're completely free to opt out. Buy an unlockable device, unlock it, remove all the Google apps, use a different search engine, don't use gmail, etc.
Well sure. I do my best. I try to avoid Google products as much as possible. I've switched to FF. Tried switching to bing, buts its terrible for technical searches. I don't use ad blockers because I'd rather just not visit a website than block ads.
Anyway, my point is that your claim is wrong. Google does allow you to encrypt the inbox... Google just doesn't encourage it. A different sort of company would ban it.
Okay but then at that point "Gmail" is just a folder to store mbox data. You cannot decrypt messages using the web client AFAIK.
(Yes, I recognize I'm being a little disingenuous here. Most people couldn't actually do what I describe. But it is possible, and many Google engineers put in a lot of extra work to make sure that it continues being possible.)
At the same time, many other Google engineers put in a lot of extra work to make AOSP useless without Google's closed-source play services. Which is fair, in a business context. But then don't pretend "Google loves open source". Google tends to commoditize the thing that lets them collect data. Anyway, there is no point in rehashing old criticisms. Again, to re-iterate, there is no problem with closed source products or with selling a product for profit. People get turned off when a company pretends to be something its not.
No... we do not consider attackers who exploit vulnerabilities to be in any way "competition". Facebook is competition, as are other app developers who build tools that attract a lot of user data and then advertise to users.
They're don't pose a real threat. But by definition they are competition. Google does not want anyone else snooping except themselves. They don't want ISPs snooping on user data, they don't want routers doing deep packet inspection, etc. HTTPS everywhere == nobody except Google can mine user data. Chrome one one endpoint, google ad scripts on the other endpoint. In cases where Google's interests align with the users interest, obviously everyone supports it.
There actually is a huge amount of altruism at Google. it's not a cloak, it's reality. Of course, it's sometimes in tension with the need to generate profits, but less often than you might think. Generally, if you build something that hundreds of millions or billions of people want to use, there's some way to make it generate revenue -- which is good because running such massive services is expensive.
Yes, that is the business model that Google has chosen. I would have preferred it if people just paid Google a fee for all of their services.
For me, personally, making Android secure is as much about improving the world as it is about getting a paycheck. I could get paid to do a lot of things. Few of them would be as rewarding as what I do.
I don't want to make you feel bad about working for Google. But please understand that people don't like google for legitimate and perfectly rational reasons.
You make some valid points, but..
because we think people should be able to do what they want with their devices.
You should add the caveat, - "as long as Google can mine the users data". That is the only thing Google really cares about. In a sense, allowing vulnerabilities means that there's competition to get to the data. It makes sense in other contexts too as to why Google is never going to allow users to encrypt the Inbox.
We don't mind you guys fixing vulnerabilities, or even employing dark patterns across your products, or even trying to trick people to use your products - Hey, its a tough world out there. Its only when you cloak your actions under altruism that we find it reprehensible.
Well it is the problem in general with protesting modern tech. Nobody wants to inconvenience themselves. They just want an external entity to force the company to do what they want.
Because it is not cost effective for a company to make a driver efficient AND work on every platform.
I don't agree with such a broad claim. We have the same binaries that run efficiently on a Xeon, a Pentium 4 and a Core i5. Those are vastly different platforms, that only look similar because of a common virtual interface (x86 ISA). In a similar fashion, the OS presents an file-system abstraction to the software you use, be it a NVMe or a Spinning Disk HDD or a network based storage device. A device driver essentially ferries data back and forth from a device (modulo obvious caveats and simplifications). If the device is the same, say a mouse or a VR headset, or a network card, then its good if the OS vendor can provide a common interface for developers to develop against. Sure every abstraction has a cost. But development/productivity on multiple platform also has costs.
If I'm selling RAID controller chips, I don't want to write separate drivers for HP UX, IBM OS/360, RHEL, NetBSD, etc etc. Or worse, have drivers for one OS lag behind in features compared to others.
Maybe if I was a wall street trading firm and I needed to store/access data in sub millisecond timeframes - then sure optimize away. Obviously for some use-cases time is literally money. Most modern driver-model abstractions allow an escape hatch where you can deal directly with the lower level API.
Check out the demo scene if you are not familiar with what can actually be done in 64K or even 4K of code
I don't think people want to run software that only runs on a fixed hardware platform like a C64 or an Amiga. It takes people months and sometimes years to develop those 1-2 minute intros.
Why would the driver be inefficient? Any benchmarks to backup your claim?