This combo even got rid of something that was ADB blocked in Android 14.

So one of the gotchas about stopped/disabled apps is that other apps can still call and launch them. I frequently saw my apps pop back up even after being disabled, since I used SuperFreezZ to monitor them. https://f-droid.org/packages/superfreeze.tool.android/

The alternative to that would be an ADB disable. IIRC it takes the app away from userspace completely. It doesn’t touch the system-level though, so a factory reset will bring it back.

If you can’t handle setting up ADB and it’s hoops, there is an app combo that can set up a bridge and run the ADB disable for you: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.samolego.canta/

The real fun started with Android 12. Google introduced the ability for some preloaded apps to avoid being disabled and prevent ADB shell disable.

This is such bad news. I’m sympathetic to content creators who have to step on eggshells to please the algorithm/advertisers… But this?

Yeah, this is not that. We all know who this is for.

That’s the fun part. They come preinstalled!

No, after Brave installed a service level running VPN without my consent, and continued to reinstall it silently every background update even after removal, it’s a bad browser. That’s what malware does.

Comparing two companies with poor track records doesn’t make them good companies when compared to each other.

exactly. Thank you.

Back in 2012 an affordable $40 flash drive was 1GB. Now $40 gets you a 512GB.

$90 would have netted you a 2GB full-size SD card. Now you get a 1TB MicroSD with adapter

$80 would get you 1TB in spinning rust in 2012… now, with $80 you get… 1TB or if you stretch the budget a little, 2TB. But what if you own a bunch of games like Ark Survival Evolved that take up 435GB of space? Shell out $649

Back when I bought the 1TB, I installed the entire steam library I owned onto it. Now I can’t get more than 6-7 new titles installed. I’m ignoring how insanely fast drives have gotten over the years, but my complaint is storage.

EDIT: For the sake of comparison outside my complaint of SSD sizing, spinning rust at $80 today is just 4TB at a lower 5400rpm instead of 7200rpm.

fair point, even the MicroSD market would target the mobile user and not so much a desktop.

One step above what I had back in 2012? What exactly does that say about progress in capacity?

I refuse to believe there isn’t much demand for it when we have MicroSD cards approaching 2TB.

I just want bigger drives… I feel like we’ve been stuck at 1TB for at least a decade.

How else can you pretend you are ordering the Hulk around?

apt update

apt upgrade

…actually, now I want to see if I can set up an alias like that.

hulk smash firefox

It doesn’t even mention when Brave silently installed their VPN as a service on your system. Which doesn’t get removed when you uninstall Brave. And if you do manually remove it, gets reinstalled on Brave silent automatic update, because that’s also a background running service.

I’d take that deal. My touch screen died in my car and guess what can’t control it? The steering wheel buttons, despite having full directional/enter/return.

Correct me if I’m wrong but- manually configuring your DNS in the OS would still enable traffic monitoring, wouldn’t it? I always thought DNS traffic is not encrypted by default.

I made the mistake of trying Debian on a new system. While I will eventually transition to Debian for it’s stability, it’s glacial speed of change means that new hardware isn’t very compatible. I tried the half-step that was LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and even that was missing some support for my hardware. Not until I moved to Ubuntu-based Linux Mint did I finally have everything working, after some poking and prodding. I’m guessing once Debian Trixie comes out, I can test again.

You have to have more mature hardware if you go Debian. It’s not something I’d tell anyone to install on a new build.

All I can offer is anecdotal evidence. I have had two enterprise issued Lenovo laptops, which are/were rock solid for 11/6 years now. Both times I had to replace the battery were easy to do, with rock solid documentation and demonstration videos.

The Dell on the other hand, corrupted it’s UEFI bitlocker key causing complete data loss, BSOD for no reason (and happens to my coworkers too) and overall has a shabbier feeling build quality. It’s not even been 2 years and the keys are peeling off. I’ve not really had to delve into repair documentation, but I don’t think it’d beat what Lenovo offered.

But that still beats dealing with HP. HP had the worst reliability and documentation, providing stuff that looked like an 11th generation fax scan. I ended up buying the wrong parts simply because their diagrams were so ambiguous.

My company just switched from Lenovo to Dell. A downgrade for sure, but I feel like I dodged a bullet.

They were one of the few, if only, remaining manufacturers in the US that produced a subcompact car. Yet they are getting rid of both the Versa and Altima.

I hate how everybody bloated up their fleets with crossovers and SUVs…

I haven’t followed Kotaku for years. Did they give up on covering video games? Car manufacturing isn’t even adjacent.