They don’t care, but also they can point to AOSP being around. So “Android” is still “open”, just making it harder and harder for it to be used without the Google Services (in addition to drivers needed for the crucial hardware bits OEMs use which are their own problems).

Conspiracy theory kind of rant/headspace. I am kind of shocked that the Pixel devices still have easy boot loader unlocking and drivers to install AOSP or Linux based ROMs. Guessing they will lock those down like the OEMs at some point, and make “must have” features for the hardware not work if an “unverified” ROM is installed. Could also see them selling “dev unlocked” versions of the devices that are more expensive, and require the people buying them to get verified for apps at time of purchase (even if the person isn’t planning on actually making apps).

I also agree that court would unfortunately be the route they would rather take it (with their money and lawyers’ time). Turning off the updates being an option is better than nothing regarding risks, but really sucks that even knowing the risks (possible with updates for anything) isn’t something a average owner/user thinks about (and really shouldn’t be expected to).

The more I hear about all the extra levels of data collecting and issues that get shifted onto the owners like this case. The more I am kind of glad to have an older model that their app/updates and features related to them hasn’t supported for a while. Would be nice to be able to use the infotainment unit with my phone for displaying GPS instead of my phone on a mount that covers the screen (I think Android Auto was an option for the model the year after). I can still do calls and show blue-tooth media, and the backup camera works fine (would be pissed if the cam was tied to updates or plans that aren’t an option anymore).

They should have to cover the costs if a OTA update is pushed even if the normal warranty is up. Not saying as fact, but it should be. They are the ones that push the updates and the owners of the cars are just doing what makes sense if they see an update is ready to install.

I would guess that it isn’t trespassing in the normal sense since they own the house/building. Since the contract sounds like it allows them access inside and outside based on the kitchen stuff. Still would be good to see what legal protections you have for privacy as a renter in your area. If they are closing the window from the outside, it might not be legally trespassing (again in the normal sense of the law) as they could argue it is a facilities issue or something.

Agreed, my mom uses spreadsheets for things. Eventually just ended up paying for Office Home and Student 2024 because Calc confused her. Though when I helped her install Office, I did notice that she hadn’t updated LibreOffice in over two years. Wish I had noticed before she paid for Office to see if the updates for Calc might have fixed her issue. Also wish I had installed OnlyOffice to see if it might have matched the “feel” of Excel better before giving MS money.

I tend to find most of their larger changes to be fine as long as I can relatively quickly adjust to locating things. It for sure will get backlash like a lot of their efforts to evolve and try things out.

Nice to know it shouldn’t need compiling. Still might be fun to eventually try doing that just to say I could follow instructions.

I hope the user agent does contribute something. We need as many statistics as possible to chip away at the Chromium engine monopoly (just like the old IE Trident). Really hate all the fake “please update you browser or try Chromium” messages for random sites that are basically hard coded.

Certainly don’t want to spoof the Chrome agent and give reinforcing stats that Chromium is the only thing that should be coded for. I imagine in a lot of cases the issue is more about them using DRM which FF and forks don’t add out of principle. Even when DRM is supported, they still nerf FF for basically no reason (Netflix being the longest well known example). Really wish there was a way to fully switch Android’s Chromium Web-view to Gecko instead of all apps defaulting to Chromium inside them while I’m ranting about it. lol

I used to try “doing my part” by installing FF on PCs I was setting up for people as a second option (left Edge as default to not completely be an asshole) and just mention it could be helpful for seeing if a site was just not working or if there was an issue with Edge/Chrome. But out of all the stuff people just somehow not “notice” just installing out of nowhere (so many will just accept those scammy drive-by Chromium browsers like Swift or Web-Discover showing up). Saying they just though it was from Microsoft updates like they did with the screen filling IE toolbars. They really noticed Firefox and be like “is this malware?” or otherwise be weirded out. So I stopped though I still add uBlock Origin and the Lite version on all browsers, and show how to white list sites when needed. So I still get to “do my part” on that front.

I really need to catch-up on it. Only annoying thing (normally) with their major changes is muscle memory with the old UI. But using Zen with all the changes they have made more frequently reminded me of how excited I would get for big things FF did over time. I loved how much better the Quantum refresh made speed and memory usage noticeably better. Less excited about the trend of apps and other software making things “rounded” to look “modern” or whatever (though I do like the “floating” tab look from Proton refresh). Just feels like things are larger/taking up too much space, but I am guessing touchscreens are the reason. Aside from the block on unsigned extensions, I hope the functional changes lead to a decent successor to the gains Quantum brought.

Could be useful to try that out to at least see how the process works. Thanks!

Awesome! I could always just change the icon if it bugged me for some reason. Would be helpful to know what stuff gets moved around before running into it when working on someone’s PC. The latest layout change in settings really tripped me out when I first started seeing it on their PCs. They haven’t done such a massive UI change for settings in a while.

Didn’t think about that at all. I might play with that option at some point since I haven’t tried compiling a browser before. Would just like to periodically contribute to the ever shrinking percent of FF share of the browser space (which I believe forks and would guess the unbranded version don’t count towards). Really lame reasoning on my part, but do like to think their percentage needs to stop falling against the flood of Chrome/Chromium stuff. Maybe there is a extension that can spoof the specific telemetry used for that kind of statistic. Wouldn’t mind sending that while benefiting from others that are removed in different forks.

Since I mostly use the extension to download videos from various sites (currently YT is broken but I use yt-dlp with SponsorBlock for that). It might be fine to just load it with the debugging option as needed. I already use the Zen fork a lot, so another fork may just be overkill (though I am glad you shared one I wasn’t aware of). Thanks for the info!

I feel you on that. I also have random issues with stuff just not show up. Seems to happen with shows especially if it doesn’t like some seasons that have names that change the title of the show. Sometimes part of each season might show up marked as being in correct seasons, but missing chunks of episodes in each season. Also have it happen with movie series that I want to keep together in a folder for the series (but not be an issue for other stuff using similar series folder).

I don’t see it happen as often as I used to, but does still happen. Can sometimes force things by adding the specific movie/show season to the library as a source location.

I can’t believe it’s not BTRFS!

Agreed. Not kidding myself into thinking it would happen. But would be cool if enough of the FF forks were able to form a collective or some body to work on shared effort to develop the main base of the browser in the event (or when) Mozilla calls it quits. The individual forks obviously have their own goals and ideologies that conflict at various levels (LibreWolf and Zen being two obvious examples). But all of them are able to do amazing work with the current base of FF.

Easy to think about, but so much harder to realistically pull off. I know donations are like drops of mist compared to the real money sources for Mozilla. Which would mean such a collective has less of a chance. Though I know a lot of FF users would be willing to donate if they knew it was going directly to the engine/core and not the non-browser stuff. Mozilla more or less seems to really want to be something more like EFF with various efforts not about the browser.

FF went from forcing some amazing demand for breaking away from the fake “standards” MS created and made extensions and tabs normal. To being overwhelmed by Google’s version of modern IE, and trying to chase features that even normie Chrome users don’t really care about (just really care that the sites they use work). Which aside from conflicting with stated goals, tend to not work with so many sites that now code specifically for Chromium and DRM (not even allowing sites to load if anything but Chromium is detected).

One really great thing FF has going for it is the Android version. Having my extensions (even if some of them need to be side-loaded via activating dev mode) really make browsing on my phones/tablets feel more like my desktop. Not an iPhone user, so I can’t speak to the iOS versions. But at least Safari is able to have uBO Lite and other extensions.

I’m not your AI pal buddy.

I also default to Vivaldi when I need to use a Chromium browser, and I have found that I like the Feeds part of the browser better than Thunderbird. It is for sure the most customizable Chromium based option, so many tweak-able options. Aside from a couple of RSS feeds I check like once or twice a day, Zen and FF are my defaults for basically all browsing. I don’t tend to do things that make use of the AI stuff in FF, but honestly don’t really care if Mozilla has those options as long as they keep them as easy to disable as they currently are.

I have been using Zen as my main for over a year, and it has some random things beyond defaulting to vertical tabs (which was one of the reasons I tried it out since all of the extensions for them always felt wonky to me). Even lets you drag the window around like you do with horizontal tab bar (much easier to find free space to grab without accidentally pulling a tab into a new window for me). Some Chromium browsers also do this. So that does mess with my muscle memory when I switch over to FF and need to move the window and can’t.

One kind of nice thing they have is that their version of “Peek” called “glance” kind of loads a page on top of a page without opening a whole new tab. It is kind of wonky in some links work fine, while others will just continue to the page in the original tab and need to press alt when clicking. Might be kind of a “it’s just a new tab with extra steps” thing for some folks, but has been something that I have found nice to have.

Also had split tabs before they were added to FF if I remember correctly. Along with having “workspaces” that can have their own pinned tabs and and extra higher layer of pinned tabs above those. They look kind of like the boxes that are present if pinning tabs on current FF but did it first.

Outside of that, I think they managed to make the “look” of the browser better (another personal taste thing). Though FF has gotten some of the “look” closer to Zen.

Nothing “ground breaking” if you are already happy with FF. Just a pretty solid fork for people that aren’t looking for something super hardened like Librewolf or even Mullvad. Early days updates had a chance of borking your GUI layout on big releases, but haven’t had any issues with it in like 8 or 9 months. Overall the updates when I first started using it kind of reminded me of how early days of FF would actually excite me with obvious changes (not just GUI/UX) that felt like upgrades. This might be a non-starter for folks that prioritize GUI/UX staying more rigidly the same. Which is very valid.

GIMP is much more memorable for good or bad. I got over the name like 5mins after I first learned about it years ago. WLBR is so bland outside of the spelling. At least Blender kind of sounds like it blends elements to make something, and Plasma sounds like it would look nice. WLBR sounds frumpy/bland (though I would like to know what it will stand for), which is about as bad as trying too hard to sound “fresh/sexy” from a marketing standpoint. Maybe they could have gone with GRIP (GNU Raster Image Program) if the actual concern was about “offending” people while still being easy to remember? Idk, I suck at naming things.

I would love to have an excuse to put that on mine. If the job is tech or imaging related, then they would already be aware of it. For the others, at least it might cause a laugh or confuse them long enough to look it up (which means you might get remembered and taught them something). Just have to own it and not pre-apologize for it, power move, and don’t even act like it is any different when speaking at an interview (just like any of the other stuff you have listed). That or just put “GNU Image Manipulation Program Project” and leave it at that since it sounds “professional”.

That being said, I hate how overly “professional” people try to make every little thing sound much more “impressive” than they are. But I respect that you care more than I do/would, so no hate for you likely being much more likely to land a job. lol

One personal anecdote about wild resume with regards to a video response to questions I listened to while my boss was having to watch to make first picks for real interview. There was a woman that said her name was “Lix Dicks” (I can’t remember how it was actually spelled). I was like “Wait wait wait, did the sound just glitch out??” and my boss also had the same look on her face. We replayed it a few times trying to see if it was our PC or maybe the video. But my boss went back to the text of her resume, and shit was real. The person ended up not making it due to availability listed in a different section (her other previous work and qualifications would have had her much better than most of the others). Best believe we were sad that it meant the in-person interview didn’t happen. We still remember her though. Perfect qualifications AND such a wild name was such a loss for us.