Just a slight positive spin on this. I mean, I get it. Just like all of you I read this headline and say, no shit.

But its good these articles are out there. Its not for you and me. It’s for the average person who doesn’t think about this and is blissfully unaware.

Yeah, I can argue they should care and all that, but that’s pointless. This is a sign that the average person is becoming more aware, and the status quo can change.

We all have those friends and family that we wish would…just do things differently. Maybe they will now, or soon.

Just think, wouldn’t it be great if your “arguments” with your family are over messaging each other over SimpleX instead of Signal?

Is that what it does? I thought it deleted any profile other than the primary one.

With that in mind, security and privacy are two completely different things.

For instance, I would say that WhatsApp is fairly secure. It just isn’t private at all. Meta can (and does) see and track your meta data.

Why is that important? I liked these 2 examples I read somewhere because they are simple but explain how powerful it is. Your phone calls are private. Your carrier isn’t allowed to listen in on your call to know what you talk about. But they can see that you called a suicide hotline while standing on a bridge. They can see that your doctor’s office called you and then you called an abortion clinic next. The following week your GPS location went to that clinic. Are these things Person A would willingly tell their phone provider? It’s none of their business so I assume not. But they essentially are when they don’t care about their privacy.

Another stance I take is that even if they don’t care about their privacy, can they at least respect mine? I don’t give their phone number out to anybody that asks. But non private apps look at all their contacts so they are doing exactly that to me. Think of the last spam call they got. If they knew it was because of you wouldn’t they be upset?

It’s OK, they changed the headline to say “slurping” instead. Clearly much better.

Me neither. Glad to see it. Of course they still require it for multiplayer games like Helldiver’s, which is what set this whole thing off in the first place.

Yeah…this is absurd beyond belief. The problem is the average consumer out there will not see how this is an issue.

Here’s a perspective you might not have thought of. Younger person is already shamed for even buying condoms (the cashier will see them after all) so they steal the condoms instead of buying them. Store owners are sick of losing money so they naturally lock them up. So yes, it does have something to do with crime.

I’m not here to argue about what you think store owners care about your sex life, I’m just pointing out that there is a valid reason you haven’t considered.

I have a hard time making the connection that DMS is making.

OnlyOffice is a Russian company, so it naturally has “ties” to Russia.

They have not condemned their government for invading Ukraine, which can be for many reasons. Maybe they approve of it as DMS concludes. But maybe they don’t want to get political at all (hell, look at what a single comment from Andy Yen has done to views of Proton). Maybe they don’t want their government making life difficult for them. There could be a multitude of reasons they didn’t say anything.

The way the statement is written is condemning for lack of evidence. Which is fine as an opinion. But that’s all it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I followed your link because I wanted to know and appreciate the heads up. If there’s shady stuff then I’ll avoid them. I have no ties to OnlyOffice for anything.

But being honest with the info doesn’t support the DMS claim. I’m happy to be wrong if there’s other information out there, but their biased statement makes me distrust DMS more than OnlyOffice.

Change your password, and hopefully you don’t use the same password across multiple accounts. Since you’re asking, I assume you do. (Not shaming, just informing)

It would be best practice to use a different email and password for every account you create, and enable MFA. Email aliases work great for this, and use unique randomly generated passwords for everything. A password manager will help you create, remember, and fill these fields for you so its not cumbersome. There are many good ones, I personally recommend Bitwarden. You can get pretty far with their free version, but I recommend paying to get the authenticator built in, so you can auto fill MFA codes.

If you can’t afford this, or want to keep the codes separate (not all your eggs in one basket) then download the Aegis authenticator app. Its free and very good.

Oh for sure. Excel is hot garbage when it comes to UI. I really want a replacement so I don’t have to rely on Microsoft. I use Libre Office for every other office app, and a more sane experience.

It doesn’t have the same level of formulas, VBA, and data set linking.

I agree that winrar is better (or at least historically better since I don’t routinely test like you do).

However the need to compress files is different than it has been. Storage space is always getting bigger and cheaper so I don’t need to store anything compressed.

Compression is best for sharing files, which that has evolved greatly since the creation of rar files. And recently windows has added native 7z support so it’s become the convenient choice.

The app is paid. It’s absurd to me that one would need to pay for a pbs subscription since the you’re paying for the original funding in the first place.

I’m still waiting for a proper excel replacement. No, google sheets and libre office don’t cut it. I literally have a copy of office 2019 that I have to finagle to install only that app and nothing else.

It’s about your rights.

I want to decide if tik tok is a horrible thing that I don’t want to use and then choose not to use it. I don’t need the government telling me what is okay and not okay. I’m a grown up and can make that decision for myself.

Cheat sheet: look at all government policies and politicians this way. Regardless if you agree or disagree with the topic/results look at what idea or concept or precedence it sets forth and decide from there. (I personally hate tik tok for many reasons, both socio and political in nature and think it should be burned from he earth - but I don’t support a ban on it) Second cheat sheet: if after that analysis you decide you support an idea, then ask how it gets paid for (whats the soirce of the financing) and who’s in charge of it (how the money gets spent) and what checks and measures are in place to keep it productive (how it gets regulated).

Oh nice. I’ll have to look into this as it looks like a good solution. Much appreciated

Affinity is on my list of reasons I don’t go 100% Linux. People have gotten it to work (I myself have not tried) but it always seems janky and not a long term solution.

There are alternatives to Affinity, but that’s another discussion. Why you want it, your use cases etc.

I am currently deciding between a dual boot scenario vs a VM of Windows. I’ll probably choose the latter, but your situation might not want to even go down this road.

I think you put too much weight on everything, including your opinion. I am not trying to be insulting, just realistic.

I can equally say that I hate how so many people say, “just switch to Linux, its easy and does everything.” Neither of those is the case because it doesn’t factor in the learning curve nor does Linux do everything.

So if you want more Linux users, focus more on being helpful. Ask what their specific concerns are, or what apps they must have vs would be nice to have. Point people to distros that would fit their use case (it’s mind boggling as a non Linux user to just look up what distro to get). Then point them towards how to find answers to their questions and troubleshooting steps.

Nuture the seeds you plant and they will grow. Yelling at them that they aren’t growing isn’t going to help.

Its in her substack linked in the article. Honestly, THIS is what gets censored? Kind of lame.

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

Pretty much. I’d add one other factor to the mix: The threat is amped up so much that people become overwhelmed and say screw it they can never keep up with the threats so they’ll just take their chances - they’ve been okay so far.