Google: “Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn’t verified.

I’ve been side loading apks since I bought my first Android phones and am much more concerned about malware “safe” apps from Google’s Play store. Google’s quality control is shit.

Many in the FFmpeg community argue, with reason, that it is unreasonable for a trillion-dollar corporation like Google, which heavily relies on FFmpeg in its products, to shift the workload of fixing vulnerabilities to unpaid volunteers.

Google may once have felt an obligation to support the open source software they rely on, but that day’s long gone. They have become nothing more than a skeleton of distilled capitalism, shedding any pretense of being of benefit to society along with their “Don’t be evil” motto.

Google’s behavior makes perfect sense with the understanding that every single move, no matter how small, is only about generating more revenue.

Never forget.

Reflect Orbit 2.0 Hacker Edition:

Move corporate HQ to Russia, place mirrors in orbit to block sunlight, then charge big $$$ to unblocked it. Profit.

Fox News.

OpenWRT is a permanent solution for older TP-Link routers. Their newer routers are locked down and not supported by OpenWRT.

Thanks for that write-up. I’ll continue to ignore the electric company’s marketing efforts and remain blissfully disconnected.

Samsung did something similar with one of their tablets when they remotely removed an app that provided an IR remote function - a primary reason for my purchase. Samsung’s support not so politely told me, “Too fucking bad.” when I objected.

There was something I could do about it though. Even though a replacement 3rd party app was less than $5 I haven’t purchased another Samsung consumer product or service in almost a decade.

If you live in the U.S., you can also help by letting your representatives know about this. Here’s an ActionNetwork page that Fulu set up so that you can easily do so: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/right-to-repair-reform-section-1201-of-the-dmca

Do you still have a representative government where you live? I have a Republican House rep and trying to get him to do anything even remotely consumer friendly is just masochism.

That “Smart Energy” discount has shown up in mailings for the last few years and I’ve considered signing up despite my general dislike of allowing any company more control of my life than they already have.

Why do you say they’re a trap? Did they change your thermostat settings far more than they claim or pull other BS you didn’t expect?

Z-wave thermostats don’t require Internet connectivity to function or control remotely. They do require something like Home Assistant for that remote control.

With Google’s track record of jumping into a market and after they have millions of users shutting it down, I’m surprised they didn’t do this years ago.

How long before Honeywell does the same? The company spun off their residential services division (including thermostats) about 7 years ago and at first things were fine, but in the last couple of years the service has become increasingly unreliable. Their servers have gone down quite a few times and settings changes are sometimes delayed even when the servers are up.

Their Z-Wave thermostat is a nice upgrade without concerns about someone sitting in a corporate America e-suite deciding to pull the plug.

As do smart thermostats that don’t rely on the continued goodwill of any corporation to function.

A friend of mine has a WF account and we have talked about their criminal activity several times. His response? “I’ve never had any problems.”

He’s a smart guy, but there’s no question he’s selectively stupid in this case. IMO selective stupidity is least part of the reason WF still exists.

Google Safe Browsing looks to be have been built without consideration for open-source or self-hosted software.

IMO Google Save Browsing was built with consideration for open-source and self-hosted software, but it has nothing to do with user safety, just like blocking Android apps from 3rd party sites has nothing to do with user safety. The harder they make it to move away from their products by making using alternatives difficult, the more money they make and money is now the only objective. Even if this only adds a fraction of a fraction of a percent to their profit it’s something Google will implement.

The old social contract of businesses being of benefit to the community as a whole in addition to making a profit is long gone.

Exactly. The Canadian versions of Maga imbeciles are regularly demanding their 1st Amendment rights.

The vast majority of people have already activated Windows with an email address. I have several friends who have done so and for them this cost nothing.

Not something I’m willing to do, but it’s not a problem for most users who entered their email address long ago.

How do you figure?

Imagine being such a huge piece of shit that you’re actually banned from a continent.

Queue Maga imbecile outrage about her First Amendment rights.