[HN Gopher] My trust in software, an all time low
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My trust in software, an all time low
Author : lawik
Score : 194 points
Date : 2021-07-09 05:59 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (underjord.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (underjord.io)
| tamlin wrote:
| Disappointing article. The title suggested it might have some
| data rather than being just a non-technical rant.
| andrey_utkin wrote:
| How about "the data" really being how many independent voices
| you see conclude that "Windows is an Adversary of the User" and
| other things?
| tamlin wrote:
| How many "independent" voices you see depends on your bubble.
| How many users are there of these platforms? What fraction
| wrote a rant? Not saying those opinions are wrong, but it's
| not particularly insightful.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| See, a company that is user orientated would be appalled by
| such resonance regardless of numbers and would try to
| alleviate concerns. Microsoft doesn't do any of that. Their
| escalating behavior cannot really be explained away.
|
| Sure, maybe there is a happy island somewhere with
| enthusiastic users, but working in the industry, I doubt
| that very much. Also, many of their forums about their
| frameworks have developed into ghost towns. So if you now
| that happy isle, I would gladly like to see it.
| lawik wrote:
| Unfortunate that you found it disappointing and it wasn't my
| intent for the title to imply data. It was intended to describe
| my experience. I can see how you were primed to think
| otherwise.
|
| This is very much a rant. Hope you find your numbers elsewhere
| :)
| uniqueid wrote:
| I too visited the article expecting to find the results of
| some survey, but I was _not_ disappointed. It was a
| magnificent rant.
| lawik wrote:
| Aww, thank you.
| Animats wrote:
| It's frustrating. I gave up Windows after Windows 7, because
| Windows 10 had ads. I've switched entirely to Ubuntu Linux. I
| still have one Windows 7 desktop, and one subnotebook. I suppose
| I should turn them on to see if they still work.
|
| Even there, Firefox wants me to "log in with my Firefox account"
| so I can use Pocket or give them my passwords or something. They
| also made the local bookmarks feature worse some time back, to
| force the use of Pocket. And Ubuntu keeps updating "snaps" of
| dubious value.
|
| My phone uses F-Droid and Fennec, and when I got the unlocked
| phone, I said no to Google and deleted most of their stuff,
| without ever agreeing to any Google terms. I haven't logged into
| a "Google account" in years, and the only reason I have one is to
| update an add-on.
|
| This is a pain. I'm not fanatical about this. I just don't like
| being pushed around.
| amelius wrote:
| > Firefox wants me to "log in with my Firefox account"
|
| Firefox sync is absolutely wonderful, and would recommend
| anyone to try it out. You get automatic sharing of passwords
| and bookmarks between devices. I don't understand how I ever
| managed without it.
|
| And they don't show ads, if that's what you're worried about.
| coddle-hark wrote:
| Yes that's what they keep telling me.
| deafcalculus wrote:
| Ubuntu Snaps made me switch to CentOS (and now RockyLinux).
| hughrr wrote:
| CentOS has been amazing for me for the last decade on the
| server side of things. I've rolled out 5, 6 and 7 on a large
| scale and it has been nothing short of miraculously stable. I
| hope RockyLinux continues this trend.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Used to be with vanilla Ubuntu but switched in Mint a few years
| ago and haven't looked back.
| turtletontine wrote:
| Firefox is not a problem for me, I find the account useful for
| sending links and syncing the few extensions and settings I use
| between devices. Pocket is annoying but they do not push it
| very hard, I changed my default homepage to be clean of pocket
| articles and that was about it. I use bitwarden for passwords
| and FF gives me no problems.
|
| I think the fatigue of being pressed for new settings/accounts
| can be wise than the thing itself. You see your device pushing
| some new bloat, and even if disabling it is three clicks away,
| the exhaustion of remembering all those frustrating settings
| you COULDN'T disable makes you too tired to find out. But maybe
| that's just me.
|
| I agree with the author about windows through - I have a dual
| boot and only use the windows part for gaming. Even as featured
| as it is, the bloat and ads and Cortana you can never quite
| turn off are too exhausting for me to use it for anything else.
| hughrr wrote:
| I really want to switch to Linux for ideological and control
| reasons but I'm pulled in two other directions.
|
| Firstly there is the comfy prison of Apple I currently reside
| in which is fairly friction free if you stay within the rails
| but costs a kidney to keep going.
|
| Secondly there is the vastly flexible and compatible with weird
| stuff I use Windows which punches you in the face once a day
| and treats you badly.
|
| I am at a loss because I am getting older and lazier. I tried
| to switch to Linux several times over the last 20 years from
| Windows but it never stuck at the end of the day due to the
| missing difficult to define "quality" on the desktop which I
| think (shoot me) that even Microsoft manages to surpass.
|
| The killer though is that I'm using Windows at work on a daily
| basis due to corporate troll enforcement. Switching back and
| forth from that to Apple ecosystem is killing me, especially
| considering the UK keyboard layouts are rather different
| between both platforms. I'm not even sure I'm happy with Apple
| because I'm on ARM everything and I can't even fire up an ad-
| hoc VirtualBox VM like I could on windows and SSH into it to do
| Linux stuff. And the games are shit. Also getting stuff out of
| the Apple ecosystem is painful (Numbers / iPhoto / icloud email
| for example).
|
| Some days I wake up, load a whole custom PC worth of parts into
| a shopping basket and dream of running windows or linux. But I
| don't know which one. I'm not even sure I want to leave the
| comfy prison.
|
| Ugh not sure what the point of that rant was but I'm stuck and
| don't know which way to go but I'm not happy where I am. Help!
|
| Edit: fine example. So I am editing openstreetmap while writing
| this infernal rant and the default editor doesn't work properly
| with safari, nor does it block youtube ads with any adblocker
| I've used. So I've had to install Chrome just to handle that,
| which is a PITA because that doesn't work properly with
| keychain. Then I figure if I use Edge on windows it'll just
| work, which it will. Even firefox will do that.
| fouric wrote:
| I've found my Firefox account to be very useful for syncing my
| history and bookmarks between my 6 devices.
|
| Even so, Mozilla, of _all_ large technology organizations,
| should be the _least_ likely to persistently nag you to get an
| account. That 's user-hostile of them and they should know
| better.
|
| As for snaps - the idea, at least, is to set up a sandboxed
| Linux userspace that can help alleviate the absolutely terrible
| security model that we currently have. The implementation is
| awful, but at least the idea is noble.
|
| But, as to your overarching point - yes, even in the open
| source world, software is _bad_.
| r00fus wrote:
| Firefox offering to login vs. Windows showing Ads are
| completely different levels of invasive crappiness.
|
| One is optional, the other is forced on you.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| For instance, when you search for an app in the Start Menu in
| Windows 10 and the menu doesn't find the app despite briefly
| showing it to you and instead opens Edge to do a Bing Search
| for the term you were searching for instead of just opening
| the dang app that is already installed on your computer.
|
| So incredibly frustrating and a deep, deep antipattern.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| This article describes my feelings exactly. I trust almost none
| of the tools I use on a daily basis very far. Every piece of
| software I use is liable fall prey at some point or another (and
| sometimes constantly) to some combination of the following:
|
| * Continuous mandatory updates which make various things worse or
| introduce new "features" I don't want
|
| * Continuous mandatory updates which break things without warning
| that I was reliant on
|
| * Integrated advertising or dark-pattern behavior I have to
| frequently circumvent
|
| * Unreasonable levels of lack of security or security theatre
|
| * Getting retired or crippled because the company which makes it
| goes out of business or gets acquired with no transition plan
|
| The fundamental issue, it seems to me, is that nobody cares about
| users except in abstract anymore. They care about funding,
| brands, growth, the Hustle, not making something that is in any
| way good or usable long-term. And anything that _is_ good can be
| summarily ruined in the pursuit of the above goals, with no
| warning.
|
| It's exhausting.
| tlarkworthy wrote:
| This is a topic close to my heart and I am trying my best to
| create a serverside platform that can only run open source
| software. My hope is making digital services transparent half the
| shenanigans will go away. For two reasons 1. bad
| actors can't hide B.S. 2. good actors have something they
| can point to that has 3rd party validation.
|
| So for digital services where the source code is always
| available, my runtime dynamically loads the source code indicated
| in the URL each request. So you are free to go to the URL
| directly, and you can figure all the routing out in advance of
| data leaving your device (in theory).
|
| For the sake of moving fast, the 1st supported code repository
| the runtime can run serverside code from is Observablehq, which
| has the additional property of being a code IDE which simplifies
| greatly how you actually upload code to a public location.
|
| The core building block:
| https://observablehq.com/@endpointservices/serverless-cells
|
| Some blogspam: https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/towards-a-better-
| serverless...
|
| I built the IndiaAuth provider using this transparent technique,
| so you can see _exactly_ how it works.
|
| https://observablehq.com/@endpointservices/auth
| zwieback wrote:
| The sad part is that it's totally possible to run Windows without
| any of the snooping and annoying extras: our corporate Windows
| PCs run great, no distracting anything.
|
| It's just the consumer that gets screwed and, let's be honest,
| who is willing to pay the actual price of a SW license anymore? I
| remember paying hundreds of dollars for SW in the pre-internet
| era. So instead of paying in dollars you now pay with your data.
| The fact that Linux is still underrepresented on the desktop just
| shows that we're willing to put up with it to get the shiny
| thing.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > The fact that Linux is still underrepresented on the desktop
| just shows that we're willing to put up with it to get the
| shiny thing.
|
| Alternatively, it just shows that the Linux Desktop experience
| is still so terrible that people put up with Windows's
| bullshit. I know I'm in that camp. In theory I'd love to be
| running an open source OS, but in practice Linux Desktop just
| annoys me with its completely backwards way of doing just about
| everything I want to do with a computer.
|
| And before you start: no, this isn't a hold over opinion from
| 2008. I have used Linux Desktops on and off since 2000, have
| contributed to FOSS software, put together my own distro once,
| and was once president of a LUG. I speak from experience: The
| problems I have with Linux Desktop are deeply rooted and
| systemic and show no signs whatsoever of improving.
| monoideism wrote:
| That's why you focus on command line. Much more productive
| anyway. Only need X for browser and maybe 1 or 2 other apps.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| That assumes my use case for a PC is the same as yours,
| which it isn't since I need more than just a terminal and a
| browser.
| Orou wrote:
| The command line is much more productive _for programmers_.
| The entire issue with open source OS adoption is that these
| systems are not being designed with non-technical users in
| mind, and their GUIs are lackluster to say the least.
|
| I really don't understand this attitude. It's like a
| woodworker talking about how much better handcrafted
| furniture is than the mass-produced stuff you'd buy online.
| Of course it's better! But does that really mean the answer
| is for everyone to spend years learning furniture-making?
| Same goes for computer systems: most people are not, don't
| want to be, and never will be technical users.
|
| If we want open-source systems to beat closed-source,
| consent-engineered spyware from dominating people's online
| lives then we need to meet them where they are.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I don't even think it caters particularly well to
| technical users, since I am one. I think it caters mostly
| to C programmers who don't use GUIs and web developers.
| Anyone else is encouraged to change their use case to
| match if they want to use a Linux Desktop.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| My opinion is that until the Linux Desktop Experience is
| redone from the ground up to cater to the "It Just Works"
| crowd, the people who don't want to search the internet
| for 45 minutes to get the one line of code they need to
| type into the terminal to get the app they want to use to
| work correctly before realizing that the app doesn't fit
| their use case and they now need to search for another
| one, that Linux will always remain the OS equivalent of a
| tank when people want to drive cars.
|
| Sure, it will get you there, and practically nothing can
| stop it, but it's never going to reach the "climb in, sit
| down and go" ease of a sedan.
| entropy1111 wrote:
| >it's totally possible to run Windows without any of the
| snooping
|
| Researchers found that even Enterprise with special "baselines"
| installed was still sending data. Is this not the case anymore?
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| > The fact that Linux is still underrepresented on the desktop
| just shows that we're willing to put up with it to get the
| shiny thing.
|
| I don't know if I would call Windows a "shiny thing." It's
| cemented as the standard because of years of backwards
| compatibility.
| insulanus wrote:
| Yeah, in this case the compatible applications are the shiny
| thing.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| A computer is nothing to most people without compatible
| applications
| temac wrote:
| > who is willing to pay the actual price of a SW license
| anymore?
|
| Windows 10 Pro is $200. Pro for Workstation (mandatory for some
| computers) $309 -- and it includes the same shit as Home and
| Pro, I think.
|
| Granted OEM costs less than retail, but that always has been
| the case, _and_ OEMs do not necessarily pass the savings to the
| consumers, sometimes on the contrary (esp on pro hardware)...
| Would be interesting to know the typical OEM pricing of Windows
| 7 and Windows 8+, though.
|
| Anyway, Retail price actually _is_ somehow less than the price
| during the Windows XP /Vista/7 era (it went down to the current
| levels with Windows 8). However there has been for example
| uninterrupted growth for Windows revenues since 2015 including
| historical records since 2017 (edit: source:
| https://dazeinfo.com/2019/11/12/microsoft-windows-revenue-by...
| ). And I think that does _not_ count the ancillary revenues of
| MS selling our asses to random other companies.
|
| So could they do without that crap? Probably. Will they?
| Probably not. On the contrary they will require an online
| account for Windows 11 Home, for example :/ (and given the
| ridiculous hardware requirements, I'm sure they expect _at the
| same time_ pretty neat licensing revenues)
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| I'm happy that I pay for my macOS software license each time I
| buy a computer. I was happy paying for Windows in the past too.
| I was happy to accept free software from Canonical for my
| little Ubuntu Eee PC and I think I once donated $10 or
| something like that.
|
| I don't mind paying software developers for great software. But
| if they start pumping it full of antipatterns and trackers I'm
| out.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| FWIW, it's rarely developers who establish the incentives for
| "antipatterns and trackers".
|
| There's a very, _very_ strong sentiment out there about what
| does and doesn 't qualify as a "fundable business" with
| respect to both business models and shapes of products. This
| backdrop creates very strong incentives to make one's
| business and associated products conform to those archetypes.
| Right now "antipatterns and trackers" one of the allowable
| archetypes. For better or worse, depending on the
| perspective.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I don't fully agree either.
|
| Developers can usually choose whom they work for. If the
| boss brings in trackers and such they can usually leave for
| another job. I know there are employment visas that
| complicate things, but broad strokes it is true.
|
| I have empathy for the developers of Windows at Microsoft.
| They really do have high stakes, real impact work and it is
| hard to differentiate "gal who stopped the whole global
| economy from grinding to a halt" from "guy who wrote the
| tracker tech" but at the end of the day I'm not paying for
| an OS that tracks me. I won't pirate it either, but I won't
| pay. I am sick and tired of this model and for some things
| it's just a bridge too far for me to accept.
|
| I accept that I'm a bit of a hypocrite here. I use Google
| Chrome and I use Google Search and I know they're not
| perfect, but at least I know that it is confined to "web
| stuff" and not buried in the OS. Call it old fashioned but
| if Canonical didn't let me uninstall Amazon bloatware I
| would not have used Ubuntu, and thankfully that dark
| chapter in their history is over.
| draw_down wrote:
| Displacing all this onto "software" is not credible in my
| opinion. Companies build these things, people with incentives and
| motivations inside the companies make the decisions that lead to
| the outcomes we see.
|
| Take the next step and look at how these things happen and why.
| Nobody should "trust software" to begin with. That's a
| meaningless phrase and idea, like "trusting information" - where
| did the information come from, whose purposes does it serve, what
| have they omitted?
|
| Time to put on our big boy and big girl pants and stop with the
| utopian stuff. Ask why, to what specific end, does Microsoft put
| ads and tracking in their products? Not, why did they crap up the
| nice good software with things I don't like?
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| This resonated with me a lot. Windows 10 is a bit of a mess but
| mostly still tolerable. Once it's EOL I'll replace my current PC
| (from '09) but I'll try to avoid Windows 11. The MS account
| requirement really annoys me. I'm currently playing with Pop!_os
| in a VM and like it so far. I also like that I can pay for it,
| which I plan to. Developing a quality desktop needs resources,
| paying directly is far preferable to me than paying indirectly
| through ads or data collection.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Mostly riffing on the title more than the content (which is about
| Win 11),
|
| I've noticed a massive degradation in how software is managed (as
| in bug fixes, quality designs etc) over the years and it straight
| frightens me that cars, planes, financial apps etc are all being
| "disrupted" by this new software. It seems to me the future is
| going to be so full of edge bugs that if one is an outlier you're
| going to basically be smashed back into the mean by the
| bureaucracy.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Windows 10 is incredibly nosey and endlessly demanding. I would
| be happier to stick with Window 7, but it makes more sense to use
| the same OS most of my customers are on.
| pabs3 wrote:
| There is a solution* to this: open source
|
| *not a solution for everyone (lots of proprietary things have no
| open equivalent), nor for all open source software (Audacity etc
| have telemetry)
| groby_b wrote:
| It's not even a solution for software that isn't Audacity :)
|
| I run a good chunk of OSS software, and I pray to the gods
| every day that somebody somewhere actually read all the three
| bazillion packages I need to install as dependencies. (Why does
| ffmpeg require a DNS resolver again?)
|
| Yes, _theoretically_ all that is out in the open and would be
| found by somebody. Practically, nobody has time to verify all
| software they run, and the smaller /less interesting packages
| are basically completely taken on trust.
|
| There is no solution outside of trust. You are running things
| that vastly exceed the complexity you could fully understand in
| several lifetimes. You have to trust somebody it does what it
| says on the tin. I'm fairly certain that OSS has survived so
| far because exploits there would mostly target small groups of
| people. (In the end-user scenario. The server/commercial user
| scenario is different, and often gets attention from several
| companies for each package)
| zekica wrote:
| Audacity's telemetry is (for now) just:
|
| - OS/IP/Audacity version when checking for updates (opt out) -
| should be opt-in if you ask me
|
| - Crash reports if you choose to send the individual one which
| can include personal data
| oytis wrote:
| You can disable telemetry in Audacity on build time AFAIK.
| Having source code is empowering even if you don't agree with
| all developers' choices.
| nix23 wrote:
| I say i again and again, Microsoft your Windows is one of the
| best Application run-times on the Planet, why try to platform it?
| You are not good at this, you will once again loose against apple
| and google, focus on a clean and lean OS, make Windows the number
| one Dev/Office/Game Machine, and stop that
| OneDrive/Cortana/Marketplace/Different Windows-Edition
| BS...that's not what your Customers want and that's NOT what your
| good at.
|
| BTW: The presentation of Win11 was a big second hand
| embarrassment.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Unfortunately Microsoft is unlikely to listen to this. Their
| moves this past decade have signaled quite clearly that they
| _hate_ personal computing and want the Desktop OS to die so
| they can sell you their version of a walled garden and /or some
| cloud-based-dumb-terminal bullshit.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| This only matters if people are otherwise willing to fork over
| cash for what is currently ad supported. So what if Windows is
| not trusted? Are you willing to spend any meaningful amount of
| money/time on an alternatives? Most are not.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I would pay good money for an alternative that was at least
| close to Windows for my needs, if one existed. Sadly making a
| new operating system today is a gigantic undertaking thanks to
| the proliferation of hardware and the non-universality of
| drivers. Rump kernels seem to be (very slowly) making this a
| little better.
| swiley wrote:
| At this point keeping Windows working costs more time and money
| than just installing something like Pop!_OS.
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| > This only matters if people are otherwise willing to fork
| over cash for what is currently ad supported.
|
| People were paying for Windows when it wasn't ad supported.
| People are still paying for Windows now that it is ad
| supported. Its completely clear that the only thing that
| matters is whether software businesses want to betray user
| trust or not - users don't really have much of a say in the
| matter. They do everything right, but user growth slows down,
| business growth needs to continue, so they try to extract extra
| value from each user instead of trying to add extra value that
| users happily pay more for.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| But windows is paid software? In fact most microsoft software
| is. If not paid for by you, it's paid for by your OEM or
| organization.
| EGreg wrote:
| Except in smart contracts on blockchains
|
| Billions in total value locked
| nix23 wrote:
| There is no value locked, the money (the real one) is where you
| got your coins.
| justbored123 wrote:
| I feel your pain. I don't have adds on my Windows 10 version but
| I still can't stand that It needs an email account and that it
| harasses me about dumb irrelevant sh*t and that It was incredible
| hard to disable those notifications and unsolicited apps like the
| "xbox bar" because of the mess they did with the control panels.
|
| But lets face it, the alternatives are not much better. Yesterday
| I spend half an hour trying to update a free opensource software
| called Amass on my Debian based distro, a dependency was
| corrupted and I had to uninstall that dependency with apt, re-
| install it with snap and then I was able to finally update the
| app with apt. And, of course, the config file wasn't updated and
| it didn't even warned me that it needed to. I had to go to github
| and check by hand. I can't ask my grandma to do that.
| quanticle wrote:
| I've flagged the post because I found the headline misleading.
| The headline is, "Trust in Software At an All Time Low", which
| implies that it's some kind of survey of software users or
| something. Instead, the post is just about how the author's own
| trust in software is at an all time low. Headline should read,
| "My Trust In Software Is At An All Time Low", or maybe "I Trust
| Software Less Than Ever".
| Cybotron5000 wrote:
| The trust of the author, in a survey of one software user, is
| obviously at an all-time low, the trust of seemingly a large
| number of people reading it, judging by the comments, is
| similarly low, eg. Apple seems keen on marketing privacy, so
| maybe Apple at least feels that a certain segment of their
| customer base's trust in software is at an all-time low (or
| should be)? That's at least some 'my's and 'their's... How
| would you quantify feelings of trust quanticle? What would be
| sufficient proof to make a general claim about a nebulous
| emotional quality like 'trust'? Perhaps it is poorly phrased as
| a headline/not the most accurate title ever, but how do you
| feel about what the article says? Do you agree? Should people
| not be allowed to write/post articles based on qualia?
| lawik wrote:
| I can see that interpretation, did not have it in mind while
| writing it and I tend to post what I write here with the title
| I gave it as HN asks.
|
| I apologize if it felt misleading. That was unintentional. I
| don't believe I can edit it.
| dang wrote:
| I've added "My" to the title to make clear that it's the
| author's (your!) perspective. I hope that's ok.
| lawik wrote:
| Absolutely fine by me :)
| [deleted]
| fmajid wrote:
| Even before that, installing additional software increases
| instability on your system. That's why, despite being a power
| user, I refuse to install mouse drivers and buy only basic mice
| like the Logitech B100 that don't require them to function.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| At least MS makes it pretty obvious when they are being
| predatory. Of course they dont need to know your email , yet they
| even have a huge telemetry control panel. Meanwhile author is
| being hush about apple that you could never use without them
| having your email and credit card. Trust is not just low, it has
| been hacked and become a marketing term.
| majewsky wrote:
| > Meanwhile author is being hush about apple
|
| I take it he just doesn't use any Apple stuff.
|
| > you could never use without them having your [...] credit
| card
|
| This is provably wrong. I have an iPhone and iPad. I never
| entered any credit card information. If I were to purchase
| apps, I would do so by buying a gift card at a retail store.
| lawik wrote:
| I've mostly transitioned off of Apple stuff. So I didn't dwell
| on them. My thoughts on them have also been on here a good
| while back.
|
| https://underjord.io/the-mac-is-losing-me.html
|
| In the end I use them all. The point is mostly that they are
| all disappointing. I haven't recently suffered additional
| annoyances from Apple, so this post speaks to recent
| frustrations.
|
| edit: In addition, I don't feel like I need to address every
| actor in my rants. I would never get past LinkedIn.
| jfengel wrote:
| Congratulations on catching up with the old joke.
|
| Tech enthusiasts: My entire house is smart.
|
| Tech workers: The only piece of technology in my house is a
| printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes
| a noise I don't recognize.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Anything that is eating the world shouldn't be trusted.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Like humans?
| chaps wrote:
| Just putting this out there, since the post mentions he basically
| can't switch to Linux because of gaming: gaming on Linux is
| pretty great right now. 6mo ago, I could play maybe 80% of games.
| Today, all single player* games work flawlessly (through
| steam+proton, I can't comment much on others). So if gaming is
| what's stopping you from going to Linux full time... it's not a
| bad time to really consider switching.
|
| *That said, there are some games do extremely invasive windows
| kernel level anti-cheat stuff.. so, some games' multiplayer won't
| work. Apex legends and doom eternal's multiplayer are two I've
| tried and failed to play in the past 3mo. Though doom eternal
| single player works swimmingly.
| the_cramer wrote:
| Is there any collector site that states what titles are Linux
| compatible and what are not? I'd like switching and gaming is
| keeping me from it.
|
| Browsing to all developer studios websites for my favourite 50
| steam titles is a bit tedious... in other words... I'm lazy.
| b0afc375b5 wrote:
| Perhaps protondb fits your needs?
|
| https://www.protondb.com/
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| With steam+proton you can almost just buy whatever; but it
| does help to check the db before you pay.
|
| For those who are not (always) on steam there's also the
| original wine:
|
| https://appdb.winehq.org/
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > With steam+proton you can almost just buy whatever
|
| Unless you don't have a magically compatible hardware
| setup. On my laptop like half my Steam library won't
| start, only shows a black screen or crashes instantly.
| Not even all official Linux releases reliably work. The
| last time I tried Ubuntu I couldn't even install Steam
| out of the box. Yes, Steam+Proton has improved the
| situation immensely. It's still a different kind of
| experience than on Windows, though.
|
| I just went the console route. Not perfect, but I like
| that it basically guarantees the hardware will be
| compatible with new games for 5+ years. The slightly
| better visuals aren't worth it to me, most games look
| good enough nowadays (or rather, the best-looking games
| tend to not be the most enjoyable ones on average).
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Hilariously, NixOS actually gets steam set up perfectly
| every time, all the time.
|
| Of course this presupposes you got NixOS set up at all in
| the first place. And I'm not ENTIRELY sure I'd recommend
| it for your daily driver. But a friend of mine talked me
| into it all; and despite the warts at times it just seems
| like it's the least worst distro (to praise it with faint
| damns)
| [deleted]
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Tracking "Linux" compatibility is difficult because there's
| no standard "Linux", just a bunch of separate hodgepodges
| that become incompatible with themselves after 2 years. It's
| been a problem with distributing software on Linux since the
| beginning.
| blooalien wrote:
| Yep. ProtonDB and WINEHQ mentioned in other replies here are
| both excellent sites for that sort of information. For native
| Linux games, sites like Steam, and Itch.io both have little
| icons (often a little "Tux" the penguin, tho on Steam it's
| the SteamOS icon) you can look for which labels those games
| as bein' natively Linux. Obviously any game or program you
| install directly from your Linux distribution's package
| manager (app store, basically) will be native to Linux.
|
| For _non-game_ software (and even some games),
| https://alternativeto.net/ can help you easily find Linux-
| native alternatives to software that you know the name of
| from other platforms. Also great for finding interesting
| software alternatives for your other platforms (iOS, Androin,
| Win, Mac, etc) too.
| ayane_m wrote:
| I don't understand why anti-cheat requires invasive software.
| Encryption can be used to communicate with the server, and the
| server can then authenticate the client's state. The
| application itself can use tokens to prevent the user from
| prying in its address space via a rigged kernel.
| dspillett wrote:
| Not sure why you are being downvoted for not understanding
| and asking a question to fix that, as the matter is relevant
| to the post you replied to...
|
| Essentially anti-cheat code needs that level of access to
| detect/circumvent cheat enabling code that has that level of
| access - it is a protracted arms race. There is money and
| kudos to be made through gaming, so people will cheat by any
| means necessary.
|
| You can't remotely prove the entire state of the client
| unless you entirely control the client, and no current OS can
| offer the level of sandboxing required to offer that
| assurance. If you can't 100% trust the state of the client
| then no transport level encryption and such will fix that -
| you are just guaranteeing the faked data is transported
| safely at that point.
|
| Of course that level of control being required for single
| player games is _much_ more dubious, so there is a grain of
| truth in the more tin-foil-hat sounding theories about
| identity tracking & such on the part of the publishers.
| 0x0 wrote:
| How do you "use tokens" to prevent prying in its address
| space?
| creshal wrote:
| "Thanks" to competitive gaming involving real money
| incentives these days, cheats have reached the level of
| custom PCIe cards directly accessing kernel memory via DMA.
|
| So a kernel rootkit is the bare minimum to try and _detect_
| these attacks, _preventing_ them isn 't even on the table any
| more.
|
| In the distant future, you might be able to bypass it with
| hardware-authenticated homomorphic encryption, but that's
| still way off.
| golergka wrote:
| > server can then authenticate the client's state
|
| I'm sorry, but how exactly would it work? Do you mean that
| the server would authenticate the whole memory of the
| client's process, a few hundred megabytes at least, in order
| to make sure that there's no code that switches alpha of the
| wall textures to 0 every 5th frame, for example?
| creshal wrote:
| That has always be the promise behind Trusted Computing,
| yes. Maybe in another 20 years Intel will actually deliver
| a reliable implementation of it.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Anti cheat is the excuse used to collect saleable or
| exploitable private data, and as a mechanism to perpetuate
| walled gardens. Centralizing accounts and identities to
| enforce ban lists, associate payment methods, target
| advertising, enable microtransactions, and so on are the
| reason for the security theater.
|
| Rent seekers will extract as much cash and time from players
| as can be gotten away with.
|
| Server level ban lists and competent game referees and
| volunteers could be a powerful answer to the problem, but
| there's not a lot of incentive to innovate away from rent
| seeking, as the big studios and stores crush any threats to
| their success.
| hulitu wrote:
| This is true also for other SW. Now everybody has telemetry
| and services running with elevated rights. I think the
| future is to treat these programs as malware.
| somerando7 wrote:
| This is so incredibly wrong, I'm not sure why you come to a
| forum and lie openly like this. Anyone who has reversed
| modern anti-cheats will disagree with this statement.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Server level ban lists and competent game referees could
| perhaps solve this for high level play, but there's no way
| you could scale that out so that the average player of a
| first person shooter doesn't have to deal with cheating.
| That said, I'm not really a fan of things like Vanguard if
| for no other reason than it's not clear that they have
| helped much beyond making cheats somewhat more expensive
| but not enough to be much rarer.
|
| It's also worth noting that multiplayer games without anti-
| cheat have had centralized accounts and microtransactions
| for a long time, so I'm not sure I understand how the anti-
| cheat measures are furthering those.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I wonder if more low tech solutions could work. What if
| you added random short screen blackouts or unexpected
| lags and see if perfect input still comes through.
| Anything that a human would react to but a bot won't.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| If your shooter intentionally drops frames or adds
| network or input lag, nobody is going to want to play it.
| This is the genre that generates most of the consumer
| demand for > 60 Hz refresh rate monitors.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Ideal solution is to make "cheating" impossible by design
| rather than by trying to ensure trust.
|
| Don't send the data player is not supposed to know. Don't
| trust clients to just tell the server what happened. And
| - I realize this is extremely controversial - ideally
| don't design games on pure reaction speed, visual acuity
| and mechanical dexterity where a sophisticated enough
| machine would consistently and unpreventably beat any
| human.
|
| I believe we should be able to compete with bots just
| like we're able to compete with humans - and not because
| bots are handicapped and constantly toss coins deciding
| if they want to let the puny meatbag win.
|
| I'm curious if there are any special tournaments where
| "cheats" are encouraged and even required, not
| prohibited. Would love to see a FPS where you have all
| the software aid you can think of. Texture hacks become
| enhanced vision aids (server may toss a coin and enforce
| camouflaging by not sending any information, though),
| auto-aim is smart munitions (so we don't compete on
| whoever has the faster hands or a better mouse -- see,
| it's already a competition of machinery!), last-seen
| markers and sound source visualization are tactical HUDs,
| and if you want some other feature you're free - as your
| competitors - to implement it. Naturally, if that's based
| on an existing game that would require heavy re-balancing
| of its rules (e.g. nerf of one-shot-kill weapons or buff
| for supports so in a teamplay they can save their
| teammates from such weapons). That would be a whole next
| level e-sports, true to the name.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > And - I realize this is extremely controversial -
| ideally don't design games on pure reaction speed, visual
| acuity and mechanical dexterity where a sophisticated
| enough machine would consistently and unpreventably beat
| any human.
|
| What games, other than turn based strategy games or
| puzzle games, don't have the property you list here? And
| even then, you can absolutely cheat at chess. Like it or
| not, people _want_ to play shooters online.
| drdaeman wrote:
| > What games [...] don't have the property you list
| there.
|
| A game of almost any genre doesn't have to be designed
| purely on those neural and mechanical skills.
|
| (And puzzles are actually a bad example, as many can be
| unimaginatively played by a machine, and machine
| typically wins in terms of the computing speed. Unlike a
| complex strategy game where bots don't necessarily
| dominate human players.)
|
| My previous comment had even hinted at how a FPS could be
| designed to not depend on one's eyesight difference,
| sleight of hand or gaming chair performance. If everyone
| has a perfect aimbot by design, tactics and teamplay (if
| that's a team game) becomes a deciding factor in a
| shooter. If everyone has a helper AI that alleviates
| mundane clicking you don't have to put your mouse on fire
| doing that 9000 APM micro - the actual strategic thinking
| and planning ("macro" rather than "micro") makes more
| important in winning a tower defense or RTS game.
|
| I'd wish I could just write a whole implementation idea,
| but I'm no game designer. I just believe that things
| could be designed and balanced in such a way. I can be
| wrong, but I don't think it's proven yet (given the
| modern status quo of "don't you dare think of any aids or
| tools but those game designers have very very explicitly
| allowed").
|
| It's just that most games out there were never designed
| for this so their gameplay becomes extremely unrewarding,
| as there would be a huge imbalance if everyone is
| mechanically perfect. Which is probably why there is no
| cheaters' competitions.
|
| Maybe I'm thinking about a different genre, something
| like first-person-shooter-but-not-FPS?
| golergka wrote:
| This is incredibly wrong. One of the main USPs of the
| service that I'm working on right now, fastcup.net, is a
| third-party anticheat. People use our service exactly
| because they trust our anti-cheat to provide a better value
| than what CS:GO has by default.
| Tenoke wrote:
| Maybe they take advantage of it but no it's not just an
| excuse. 10+ years ago hacking in games was very common and
| annoying.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Doesn't require it. Anticheat for multilayer could all be
| done server-side, by peers (started by vote), on demand or by
| peers on demand; all by just checking the player _could_ do
| what their client claimed to do.
|
| It's just event logging and replay.
|
| But checking drivers and secure connections is easier.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Event logging is irrelevant if you have incorporated
| certain optimizations into your game.
|
| For instance, many forms of netcode necessitate revealing
| slightly more information to players than you otherwise
| would want to. The world coordinates of player footstep
| sounds is almost certainly some information flowing across
| the network.
|
| All you would need to do is intercept this information on
| the network and view it on an entirely decoupled system in
| a 3d coordinate space - potentially one synchronized to
| your player character using similar snooping tactics. Valve
| has done a pretty good job at making this harder with
| asymmetric encryption, but its still something the client
| can ultimately decode or otherwise you wouldn't hear shit
| during a multiplayer match.
|
| Trying to lock down/validate the actual gamer's PC is a
| fool's errand. Just go back to first principles in
| information theory to see what a joke this is. If a certain
| fact made its way to a player's computer (or simply their
| home network), you should assume that they know it in the
| most adversarial way possible and model for that outcome.
| Obfuscation is just playing yourself in the long run.
| majormajor wrote:
| How does checking if the client claimed to do something
| possible answer questions about if the _player_ had the
| _skill_ to actually do what they could have possibly done?
| oliwarner wrote:
| Because many cheaters do things which are impossible.
| This is low hanging fruit that we're told we need a ring0
| driver to have access to EVERYTHING. Stupid things like
| tracking other players through walls. Still common
| because it's so damned easy. You play back their events
| and you see the cheater always knows where to go, where
| to hide. There are also exploits. These can all be unit
| tested away.
|
| But there are cheats like kickback compensation, hitbox
| tracking. You can apply statistical models and find
| _unlikely_ consistency but it 's hard to say for certain.
| bob1029 wrote:
| The client can just lie about its state.
|
| The only solution that is deterministic would be to move all
| rendering server-side. You could guarantee a fair match as
| long as participants are within some reasonable distance to
| the server.
|
| Note that this has other massive benefits if you can build
| for it natively...
| ff86033e-9382 wrote:
| I no longer evangelize for Linux.
|
| The hardware support is good enough that it just works, and has
| been for a decade. In that period I've seen the desktop become
| worse and worse in the name of 'accessibility'. Since I can't
| get the people in RedHat to stop making the desktop worse my
| next best alternative is to make Linux toxic enough that there
| is no financial incentive for them to continue and simply
| leave.
|
| Anyone non-technical who ask about windows alternatives I
| merely tell them that Linux is too hard and they should stick
| to Windows. Gate keeping is a virtue that we need to practice
| more of.
| kaba0 wrote:
| What accessibility? It has never had much support. Linux is
| terrible at that.
| lawik wrote:
| I did say I use Windows for gaming, I don't think I said I
| couldn't switch but you have the right idea. I haven't tried
| Linux gaming in some time (ages). At a base level I don't mind
| having Windows for certain things, such as gaming and using Win
| or Mac for some media workloads.
|
| If they could just stop with the egregious overstepping I'd be
| pretty okay with using Win for gaming, accounting and a few
| other things. I'll likely have Win around for the foreseeable
| future, not just me in the household :)
|
| I appreciate the update on Linux gaming though, haven't really
| looked in a long time.
| creshal wrote:
| It's still a bit rough around the edges, as the best
| compatibility is found in community Proton forks you need to
| install manually, plus the need for out-of-tree drivers and
| non-standard bluetooth module config flags to get game
| controllers to work reliably.
|
| (OTOH, you're stuck with a similar driver mess if you want a
| DualShock or JoyCon on Windows, so w/e)
|
| But it's gotten a lot better than it used to be.
| notemaker wrote:
| > (OTOH, you're stuck with a similar driver mess if you
| want a DualShock or JoyCon on Windows, so w/e)
|
| Recently bought a PS5 controller and while not supported
| natively on either Linux/Windows, Steam does pick it up
| without any configuration (on both OS:es).
|
| It's really leveled up my PC gaming experience: I get the
| same feeling as playing on console with the freedom of PC.
| creshal wrote:
| The last PlayStation I owned was a PS3, so my experience
| is admittedly a bit rusty.
| chaps wrote:
| The need to manually install proton seems to mostly be out
| of the way these days. Their release schedule (within
| steam) has gotten a bit better. Though, I can imagine for
| bleeding-edge games you'd still need to do this for a month
| or two before steam includes that new version of proton.
| spondyl wrote:
| As someone who stuck with Windows begrudingly for game
| support (but was comfortable with Linux), Valve's Proton is
| basically black magic. I ended up running pop_OS! (Ubuntu) as
| my main OS for a solid year or so before selling my desktop.
| The fact you can play GTA V at 60 FPS like it's nothing is
| pretty mind blowing. Even more surprising was the ability to
| play Final Fantasy 14. Primarily because I expect anything
| with a custom launcher to be dead on arrival with Linux. If
| you find Windows frustrating, I highly recommend trying out
| pop_OS! just since everything Just Worked out of the box,
| even VR
| alexgmcm wrote:
| Also many developers are creating native Linux versions -
| Paradox Games Studio comes to mind where their Grand Strategy
| games are available native on Linux. Rimworld and Factorio as
| well.
|
| Nowadays I'm very unlikely to buy a game that doesn't have a
| native Linux version.
| lodovic wrote:
| Is it possible to play SteamVR games on Linux?
| eptcyka wrote:
| With a Vive or Valve's Index, yes. The Occulus pricks dropped
| Linux support as soon as they delivered a consumer product.
| samvher wrote:
| Interesting - is performance comparable to Windows or is there
| a significant hit?
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| It depends on the game, but of the ones I've tried so far,
| most are fairly comparable!
|
| Separately; GOG.com has a large selection of games that run
| Linux native; though not necessarily the most popular ones.
| creshal wrote:
| It also depends on your kernel, the FUTEX_WAIT_MULTIPLE
| patch solves a specific Wine/Proton bottleneck that native
| software doesn't care about1, but delivers a significant
| performance improvement if compiled in.
|
| 1: https://lwn.net/Articles/811696/
| swiley wrote:
| Windows is literally just uber for malware at this point.
| II2II wrote:
| It's also worth noting that Steam brings in some of the tactics
| of the untrustworthy world of commercial software. By requiring
| the installation of Steam to install games purchased through
| Steam, they are forcing the installation of a marketing tool.
| While Steam may be mostly benevolent at present and they have
| made enormous contributions to Linux for gamers, it doesn't
| change the fact that they are using their position to sell
| people more games when they go to launch a game. It also
| doesn't diminish the possibility that Steam could integrate
| user-hostile features at any time. (Remember, there was a time
| when Google was considered benevolent.)
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Unfortunately steam also limits library usage to one person
| at a time. For those with hundreds of games, this is very
| limiting nowdays if you have a family. I switched to GoG
| whenever possible.
| shoemakersteve wrote:
| Steam actually has a family share feature, and while you
| "can't" play games if your library is being used by someone
| else, you can just go into offline mode to bypass that. So
| if you want to play single-player games, that works pretty
| well.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I'm aware and that's a bug, not a feature. If you are
| online and go Offline with the explicit button (instead
| of unplug the cable) and actually keep the cable
| connected (not sure if LAN or internet at this point) and
| start a second Steam client and use the library (not sure
| if online or offline for the second one), the offline one
| will not be able to use the library because already in
| use.
|
| The workaround is, indeed, pull the cable or firewall
| steam, go offline, plug the cable.
|
| So the concern becomes "what if the protection becomes
| stronger".
| jandrese wrote:
| This is my #1 complaint with Steam. I have 3 kids in the
| house on the family share thing, and if any one of them
| plays a game it locks everybody else out the entire
| library. I don't think Valve understands what a family
| is.
|
| I think Valve's definition of a family is one guy who
| owns a whole bunch of different computers that he wants
| to flit between. Maybe this is what family is to a Valve
| employee? I don't know.
|
| Most streaming services allow a small but reasonable
| number of concurrent connections. Usually around 5. Why
| does Valve insist on locking out my library of games
| _that I paid for_ when _one_ person has a game open? It
| makes no sense.
|
| I wouldn't complain if the rule was you couldn't have
| more than one copy of a particular game open (maybe have
| an option to buy multiple copies for the library?), but
| if someone is playing L4D2 they shouldn't lock someone
| else out of playing HalfLife 2.
| swiley wrote:
| I used to live somewhere with terrible internet. Offline
| mode seems to work about 10% of the time and your better
| off pretending it doesn't exist.
| traverseda wrote:
| I think you can also use steamcmd to download games? Not sure
| about launching.
| II2II wrote:
| I tried looking into this a couple of years back, and it
| looks like Steam has to run in the background for games
| that link to a library that offers Steam integration. I
| concluded that continuing to research a path that offered
| an uncertain conclusion was too much trouble, then switched
| to purchasing games from DRM-free vendors. The end result
| is saving a lot of money. Alas, that didn't correspond to a
| diminished amount of time spent gaming.
| tuismuggler wrote:
| Linux gaming is fantastic. I couldn't play dragon age origins
| on my windows 10 PC. Was a nightmare just to get it to launch
| and then it would just crash all the time. Tried it on my Linux
| machine and bam it worked no sweat. I should add the hardware
| was different so I can't rule out the game not working on rtx20
| series or 9-10 gen i7. Couldn't believe it. (I also got it
| running on windows 7 before I decided to try my mint is).
| ginko wrote:
| I'm not much of a gamer these days, but aren't consoles pretty
| good these days? I guess it depends on what kind of games you
| like, but afaik the difference in available content for PC vs
| console is a lot smaller than it used to be.
| creshal wrote:
| Small _er_ , yes, relatively speaking. But in absolute terms,
| the gap is still vast, and not exactly closing. (If anything,
| widening, as we keep getting more and more reliable emulators
| on PC that give access to hundreds of older console exclusive
| titles.)
|
| Plus, individual consoles are still randomly cockblocked by
| exclusive contracts, so you'd need 3 consoles to get all
| possible content, vs. a multiple accounts on one machine for
| all the various PC game shops.
| majewsky wrote:
| > all possible content
|
| The path to happiness for me has been realizing that I
| don't have time to consume all possible content anyway,
| especially right now (cf. "Peak Content"). So I just pick
| one platform every few years and choose from the games
| available on the platform.
|
| Over the years, I've gone from PC to PS2 to Wii to PC and
| right now, I'm gaming on a Switch (plus Minecraft on the PC
| that I already have). And if there were ever a PS5 or XSX
| exclusive that I'm interested in, I can always watch a
| let's-play first and see if I'm still interested later.
| (Which has not even happened to me so far because I don't
| actively seek out news for games that are not on the
| platform I own.)
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| You won't get all content on PC though because not every
| game gets ported there.
|
| I think a lot of people are pretty happy with a PC + Switch
| combo, since there's straight up no hope of Nintendo
| porting their games to PC in any time soon. And a Switch is
| relatively inexpensive (especially if you go for the Lite
| model)
|
| Sony also has a lot of exclusives on their systems
| (Bloodborne, Spider-Man, Uncharted, Last of Us, God of War,
| etc)
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Consoles aren't any better than Windows in terms of control.
|
| They are fully controlled by the respective manufacturer, and
| if you're not getting permission dialogues, it's because you
| agreed to them when you first started the console.
| (Disclosure: I don't actually know if modern consoles spam
| permission dialogues or ads.)
| ginko wrote:
| Sure, but you don't need to trust a dedicated gaming
| machine as much because you only use it for entertainment.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Gaming is great as long as GNU/Linux keeps pretending to be
| Windows.
|
| I rather have the original deal without additional layers.
| blooalien wrote:
| As you apparently already know WINE/Proton is just for games
| that are not available in native Linux versions.
|
| My own Steam library is packed with games (thousands of them
| with many thousands more available for purchase at any given
| time), and very few of those require the use of Proton, but
| it sure is nice to have available, since it adds the ability
| to play games which would otherwise bit-rot there in my
| library.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Windows and game consoles raise a couple of thousands more
| and pay to see the cards, if we are playing quantities
| game.
|
| If on the other hand we are playing the quality card, or
| what everyone else is actually paying for, then down Proton
| it goes.
|
| Isn't ironic that while most Android games are NDK based,
| so basically ISO C, ISO C++, OpenGL, OpenSL, Vulkan, they
| don't get ported to GNU/Linux?
|
| Or Stadia ones for that matter (regardless of its possible
| future).
| Tenoke wrote:
| Even for single player games it's never certain everything will
| work and with multi-player there's too many that don't. At any
| rate, I barely game and it's still super disappointing when the
| random thing I want to play turns out to not quite work.
| creshal wrote:
| > Even for single player games it's never certain everything
| will work
|
| 100% compatibility isn't guaranteed for Windows either, you
| can always get screwed by random driver bugs.
|
| For that, you need a console.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Accept/Ask Me Later is particularly irritating, because it shows
| such disrespect. It's not the popup, it's the blatant, shameless
| annoyingness.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Good software behavior decreased staunchly in closed environments
| and especially on mobile. People aren't asked about telemetry,
| data hording is hidden in some lengthy TOS that you have to
| accept in most cases anyway.
|
| Work at any company and want to decline the TOS of MS Word? Good
| luck...
|
| Collecting data might be sensible, but it isn't too hard to ask.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > Collecting data might be sensible, but it isn't too hard to
| ask.
|
| Collecting data might be sensible ... for corporations. But, it
| is rarely for the consumer. That is why it is so hard to ask.
|
| "Can I do this thing that you do not understand but probably
| have the feeling that is only going to be bad for you?". That
| is a hard question to ask, that is why the question is hidden
| behind weird concepts, lists of consent checkbox, or other
| dark-pattern mechanisms.
|
| Collecting data might be sensible.. but only for one side of
| the deal. Data collection is a clear WIN-LOSE situation, a
| situation that is only accepted because there is an
| unsymmetrical amount of power in the relationship.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| I mean, charging for products are a clear win-lose situation
| for customers, created by an asymmetrical power balance.
| There are good arguments for regulating data collection, but
| "customers should be able to pick and choose any aspect about
| using a product they'd rather not have and jettison it" is
| not one of them.
| swiley wrote:
| I'd pay for things if they included the source code.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > charging for products are a clear win-lose situation for
| customers
|
| That is not true. I pay money, I get a product I want. That
| is a win-win situation.
|
| I see TV and the TV channel shows ads is a win-win
| situation.
|
| I see YouTube and YouTube records who I am, where I live,
| my age, my relationship status, my political views.... to
| watch TV for free seems a very bad exchange.
|
| I am not against the advertisement industry, but in its
| current form in conjunction with tech companies it is
| damaging society in very real, very harmful ways.
| hulitu wrote:
| > > charging for products are a clear win-lose situation
| for customers
|
| > That is not true. I pay money, I get a product I want.
| That is a win-win situation.
|
| I get a product which spies on me and I cannot turn it
| off (android, win 10). Win for them, loose for me.
|
| > I see TV and the TV channel shows ads is a win-win
| situation.
|
| I paid for this channel - so win for them , loose for me.
|
| > I see YouTube and YouTube records who I am, where I
| live, my age, my relationship status, my political
| views.... to watch TV for free seems a very bad exchange.
|
| > I am not against the advertisement industry, but in its
| current form in conjunction with tech companies it is
| damaging society in very real, very harmful ways.
|
| Yes. And they also pay politicians and lobbyists.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| No, as the customer does not have to fork over cash for the
| product. That is the benefit.
| cjfd wrote:
| This isn't particularly strange. Give one group of people power
| over another group of people and they will find a way to abuse
| it. The solution is that it should always be possible to
| install a new OS on any computing device that you buy and that
| there should be a way to install software in that OS that does
| need approval of the makers of the OS. Anything less is
| basically an invite to power abuse.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| They're all terrified that if they do ask, they'll be declined,
| or held accountable for misuse, abuse, or leaks. It's much
| better to hide "telemetry" in the fog of tos or eula walls of
| text. Maintain your customer's blissful ignorance at all costs.
|
| Privacy and liberty are inseparable at the highest levels of
| interacting with society. Compromising private personal
| information can only weaken individuals against abuse by
| society at large, whether by mega corporations, governments,
| Twitter hordes, or spam callers.
|
| It's become overwhelmingly apparent that there's no benefit to
| the consumer by allowing telemetry in almost any form. The
| purported advantages are paltry straw men compared to the
| nightmare of identity and surveillance infrastructure.
| Cybotron5000 wrote:
| ...staggering that unchangeable/indelible personal,
| political, financial and even biometric/medical data which
| could potentially be leveraged against users, eg. in an
| aggregate profile by various forms of AI, is often seemingly
| slapdashedly stored/shunted around various shady 'cloud'
| services/data brokers. After all, seemingly 'solid' companies
| may go bust/become desperate, governments may change
| radically/may have radically different values if you plan/are
| forced by circumstances to move around the world, or what's
| to stop eg. insurance policies/mortgages/rental contracts
| etc. etc. unfavourable to various dubiously-defined
| 'categories' of people in future being based on inferences
| made from these profiles/dystopian 'social credit'-like
| schemes being introduced that could be calibrated based on
| all manners of unforeseen criteria...
| blt wrote:
| This article uses the word "psychotic" to describe Facebook's
| user tracking, but they probably meant "psychopathic".
| lawik wrote:
| Probably. I wrote it and I can't decide which would be more
| appropriate.
| uniqueid wrote:
| 'Depraved', 'deviant', 'perverted', 'unhinged',
| 'sociopathic', 'criminal'... the list of adjectives that
| apply to Facebook is very long indeed.
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