[HN Gopher] By default, Signal doesn't recall
___________________________________________________________________
By default, Signal doesn't recall
Author : feross
Score : 345 points
Date : 2025-05-21 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (signal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (signal.org)
| contact9879 wrote:
| it is absolutely insane that we're forced to DRM our own
| applications to protect ourselves from our own computers
| baby_souffle wrote:
| Agreed. Reading this makes my head explode a little.
|
| 15 years ago, DRM was all about the DVD restricting where and
| when it could be played. Now it seems like we're using DRM to
| reassert our own rights?
|
| This timeline is cursed.
| gruez wrote:
| It's not even real DRM in any meaningful sense. It's just
| asking the OS really nicely to not allow the window to be
| screenshotted.
| contextfree wrote:
| I think there was always a similarity or homology between DRM
| and many privacy scenarios that people care about:
|
| Party A sends information to party B intended for use in a
| specific context, but wants to limit the risk of it being
| stored or forwarded for use by other parties or in other
| contexts.
|
| DRM typically connotes that party A is a media company and
| the information is a movie or something, but - as in the case
| the article is about - party A could also just be a regular
| person and the information could be private personal info.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Well, it's not so much our own computers we need to worry
| about, it's more computers we think of as ours, but we actually
| borrow from our school/work.
|
| Windows Recall would be a pretty good feature if it somehow
| only worked for real personal computers.
| lenkite wrote:
| Go back 10 years and tell people that MS periodically takes
| screenshots of your apps and sends them to MS and there would
| be heavy lawsuits.
|
| AI has made people idiots in more ways than expected.
| xp84 wrote:
| They're "Sending them to MS"? Huh?
| mmcnl wrote:
| No, you can just turn Recall off. You don't need DRM for that.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| It is absolutely insane that FUD and misinformation is the
| default now.
| weird_trousers wrote:
| Forced to DRM for security... And people will still argue that
| Windows (and I will generalize to "Microsoft products") is not
| evil?!
|
| Come on guys, come on...
| k__ wrote:
| What would be the alternative?
|
| Build your whole machine at home?
| weird_trousers wrote:
| Is it a joke?
|
| There are multiple alternatives, for Microsoft Windows or
| other Microsoft products like Office or Azure.
| k__ wrote:
| So, trusting someone else is a solution?
| dsr_ wrote:
| Trusting something you can verify is a solution.
| k__ wrote:
| Which DRM solutions like TEE and FHE are, so I don't see
| the issue.
| debugnik wrote:
| The "DRM" used here by Signal is just a Win32 function
| that keeps a window out of screen capture, not an anti-
| tamper software nor a protected media path.
| k__ wrote:
| Fair.
|
| But it seems to me that's a step in the right direction,
| even if it doesn't go far enough.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Yes?
|
| Isn't that how trust works? You stop trusting those that
| don't deserve it. Unless you're a complete isolationist
| and/or sociopath living off the land in the woods, you
| need some level of trust in others.
| Groxx wrote:
| The tradeoff here is "do you want to trust this repeat
| abuser again, or trust someone else who has not been [as]
| abusive?", not "do you want to trust this repeat abuser
| again, or nobody ever again?"
|
| You're presenting an extreme example of a false
| dichotomy.
| k__ wrote:
| I don't see MS as the problem, but the structure of how
| we, as a society, create and use IT.
|
| Signal uses DRM to protect its users from the OS. This is
| nice, because now they don't have to run to some other
| companies that could do the same thing.
| caned wrote:
| In such a case as this, yes. Not every systems product is
| designed to exfiltrate your data.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Linux is the most obvious
| k__ wrote:
| On the hardware you build yourself? I don't think so.
|
| The OS and the hardware become irrelevant when you run your
| apps behind DRM.
|
| At least one thing we can thank the copyright trolls for.
| hedora wrote:
| I bought an AMD mini-PC. It came with windows 11, but I
| just yanked that NVMe drive out, and installed Linux on
| it. Linux support for such devices is excellent because
| they're basically down to just one SoC package that's
| been tested by AMD. This one also has an Intel
| Wifi/Bluetooth chip, which is exactly as flaky as any
| other Intel product would be with any other OS.
|
| Anyway, there are options to disable TPM in the BIOS if
| you care, but I don't think any of the DRM stuff works by
| default.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| I'm very confused. You know what DRM is right? I'm not
| trying to insult you, but I feel like we're working with
| different definitions or something.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| >To help mitigate this issue, we made the setting easy to disable
| (Signal Settings - Privacy - Screen security), but it's difficult
| to accidentally disable
|
| It's easy to disable, but it's difficult to disable?
| weird_trousers wrote:
| There is a difference between "disable" and "accidentally
| disable".
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Yes but as I understand it, "easy to disable" and "difficult
| to accidentally disable" are opposites.
|
| EDIT: Apparently people have different definitions of easy.
| Fair enough
| qntty wrote:
| Child-proof caps are easy to take off but difficult to
| accidentally take off.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I don't consider those easy to take off but ok
| em-bee wrote:
| not at all. "easy to disable" means you can easily find the
| place where and how to do it. "difficult to accidentally
| disable" means you can't disable it without intentionally
| going to the place and making that choice. of course there
| are cases where easy to change something also means easy to
| accidentally change it, and those are annoying. but they
| don't have to be like that.
| vel0city wrote:
| They aren't opposites though. Its entirely possible to have
| something "easy to disable" and "difficult to accidentally
| disable".
|
| Easy to disable, in that there are some easy to understand
| and find steps to disable it. Difficult to accidentally
| disable, meaning its not something that would be disabled
| as a side effect of some other change, isn't just a single
| click, isn't poorly labeled or described, etc.
|
| In this case, it is first presented as a check box in the
| Privacy Settings area. It is titled "Screen security" and
| says "Prevent screenshots of Signal on this computer for
| added privacy.". Well documented. Click the check box, and
| it presents a modal window. The window then says, "Disable
| screen security? If disabled, this may allow Microsoft
| Windows to capture screenshots of Signal and use them for
| features that may not be private." You then have a Cancel
| or Disable buttons.
|
| Its two steps to change it _after_ navigating to that part
| of the menu. The positions to click are different between
| the two steps. It confirms if you 're really wanting to
| disable it, and tells you things may be able to take
| screenshots of the app.
|
| This reminds me of platforms which require you to type the
| name of a resource to delete something potentially
| important. It's easy to do, but one wouldn't accidentally
| click a button, type the full name of the resource, then
| click the confirm button.
|
| My electric lawn mower is both easy to start the blade and
| difficult to accidentally start. You have to hold a button
| and then pull the start lever. Its two actions that you
| reasonably have to do with two hands in a particular order.
| Both actions are easy to do, doing both of them are easy
| (assuming you have two somewhat functional hands). Once
| going you just need to continue to hold the lever and just
| release that to stop the blade.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| To me, if something is "difficult to disable" in any way,
| accidentally or not, then by definition it can't be "easy
| to disable". You might disagree but that's ok.
| vel0city wrote:
| You're misreading things.
|
| It's not "difficult to disable" && "easy to disable"
|
| Its "difficult to _accidentally_ disable ".
|
| Accidentally. Its another word in the sentence that
| radically changes the meaning of the phrase.
|
| Read the whole sentence. Each word has meaning, you can't
| just ignore some of them.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I did read the whole sentence. I still believe that
| "difficult to accidentally disable" is the opposite of
| "easy to disable".
| vel0city wrote:
| Well then, I guess you're just intentionally misquoting
| it to drive confusion or something. "Difficult to do
| something" and "difficult to _accidentally_ do something
| " are two radically different concepts. Typing in a
| password is easy, accidentally pressing random keys and
| having it be the password is hard. Pressing delete and
| then typing "delete me" and then clicking OK is pretty
| easy, accidentally clicking random spots on your screen
| and jamming random key presses and having it accidentally
| get deleted is hard. You may still have deleted something
| you later decide you shouldn't have, but you absolutely
| intentionally issued the delete.
|
| Putting a cover over a button that can still be flipped
| open is a real-world example of making something
| difficult to accidentally do while still making it easy
| to actually do it. You pretty much have to want to press
| the button, you're not just going to set something down
| and accidentally trigger the button. Do you really
| disagree about that? How is it not making it more
| difficult to do on accident?
|
| Or like my lawn mower example. How would I _accidentally_
| start the mower? You can see it would be difficult for me
| to _accidentally_ start the mower, right? My hand wouldn
| 't just brush against it and have it start going,
| correct? And it has a few other interlocks, such as the
| handle needs to be fully extended and locked at the right
| angle; you can't start it when its folded up. And yet
| this two-stage motion is still really easy to do for most
| people with two hands, right? And it's clearly documented
| on the mower how to do it with obvious glyphs that show
| it will start the blade.
|
| And with the button cover, I wouldn't just end up leaning
| against the console and _accidentally_ pressing the
| button, correct? But one can trivially just flip the
| cover and press the button still, right? But we made it
| more difficult to _accidentally_ press it?
|
| Meanwhile, they could have made it significantly easier
| to accidentally start the lawn mower. They could have
| made it without those interlocks. They could have just
| made the handle capacitive and any light brush with a
| hand would have started it. The button with a cover could
| have been made bigger and more sensitive and placed
| exactly next to where people naturally rest their hands
| or on the corner right at knee level ready to be bumped
| with no cover and unlabeled. So in these cases, its
| _significantly_ harder to _accidentally_ do the action
| than what it could have been, meanwhile still being
| generally pretty easy to do if you 're intending to do
| it.
| danillonunes wrote:
| There are plenty of examples of things that are easy to do
| and at same time difficult to accidentally do. One that
| came to mind is the "slide to unlock" interface from the
| first iPhone.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I strongly disagree as I have accidentally slide-unlocked
| many a phone in my day. Maybe we just have different
| definitions of easy.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Then inputting a pin or most patterns instead! Easy to
| do, but extremely unlikely to happen accidentally.
|
| You're the one that is _looking for_ an example, you
| should be able to make that iteration yourself.
| Peacefulz wrote:
| One of the driving forces of my full windows exodus was Recall. I
| knew they wouldn't seriously scrap the project. Glad to see
| measures are being taken to avoid the spies. Shame it comes to
| DRM though.
| neilv wrote:
| Yours is the real solution. What Signal did is a temporary
| kludge around the underlying problems, which include that
| Microsoft is hostile towards customers and users whenever it
| thinks it can get away with it.
|
| Also, as you get into mechanisms like DRM, which treat the
| owner and user of the device as adversaries, you make it harder
| to detect when the device or something on it is misbehaving
| against the interests of the owner/user (such as for secret
| surveillance).
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > Microsoft is hostile towards customers and users
|
| MSFT is implementing hierarchical control and monitoring on
| their desktop computers. Executive branch, legal and finance
| are the drivers. Users are serfs.
| godelski wrote:
| I mean what else can signal do? You can't win against whoever
| controls the OS or hardware. They have effective absolute
| power. They do have to treat the "owner" as an adversary
| because companies like Microsoft make claim that they are the
| owner, not the user.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| From a security perspective, you shouldn't be using
| anything you don't control from the bottom up. That
| includes Windows and Signal. Full stop.
|
| But in a pragmatic world, we can't have that level of
| security. You're reduced to deciding where you are willing
| to tolerate the security weaknesses. Obviously, no software
| or hardware will be 100% secure. But absent having an
| existential state level need to roll your own, you just
| have to pick from what's out there and accept that none of
| it is fully secure.
| godelski wrote:
| I mean I agree but this also is acting like there's no
| alternative. Apple exists. Hell, Linux exists and is easy
| these days (see main comment).
|
| It's just unclear to me if your comment is implying that
| we should just roll over. If so, I vehemently disagree.
| If not, I'm actually not sure what you're saying and
| sorry if I'm misunderstanding.
| vel0city wrote:
| > you shouldn't be using anything you don't control from
| the bottom up
|
| You absolutely do not control any Apple device from the
| bottom up. It is Apple software running on Apple
| hardware, tons of closed off secret stuff in there.
|
| And even then, _you_ probably don 't really control
| whatever Linux you installed _from the bottom up_. It 's
| filled with code you didn't audit and validate, you're
| probably getting updates delivered on a regular basis by
| people you don't know, etc.
|
| And even then, where are you going to run that? On a
| modern x86 processor running all kinds of UEFI software
| and microcode with security coprocessors you can't
| directly interface in but can see all your memory and
| devices?
| godelski wrote:
| So what's your point? I don't get what you're arguing
| other than giving up. I'm sorry, but if someone wants to
| take a shit on me I'm not just going to submit to that
| fate. I'll try to get out. I don't know about you, but
| I'd rather step in shit than have it forcefully poured
| down by throat.
|
| At least with Linux, I know there are other people
| checking. People with expertise I don't have. People not
| incentivized by their own employer. Certainly this
| creates higher levels of trust than the closed source
| setting. If it doesn't, then your argument applies to
| literally any subject. Medicine, food, whatever. Let's
| not act like this is a binary setting, it is a spectrum.
| There are situations that are better than others even if
| they aren't perfect.
| vel0city wrote:
| My point is, practically speaking normal users have just
| as much "control" over their stuff whether it's running
| Linux or Mac or Windows in the end. It's pretty much
| impossible to truly control the whole stack from the
| bottom up, it's a pretty much impossible standard for
| normal people they created.
|
| > People not incentivized by their own employer.
|
| Tons of FOSS is written by people paid to write it a a
| part of their jobs. And I don't know why I'd trust a
| passion project of an amateur doing it for fun over a
| paid professional doing it. Maybe the guy doing it for
| free is better, maybe he isn't. Do you trust the guy
| giving medical advice over the internet on some random
| blog over the licensed paid specialist doctor you might
| otherwise see? Do you trust the pills made by a
| pharmaceutical company to actually be what it says on the
| box more than a guy handing out pills at a concert? After
| all that guy posting on the internet or handing out pills
| isn't being incentivized by their employer!
|
| And I wouldn't necessarily trust some random open source
| project over a similar closed source project if I'm not
| going to take the time to actually audit it myself. Just
| having the source code over there doesn't do anything for
| you if you don't read it. And besides, you're probably
| going to pull compiled binaries and aren't going to
| actually verify that build are you? And you're building
| it with what, a compiler you downloaded already compiled?
| You definitely validated that, right?
|
| You're right, it's a spectrum of choices one makes. But
| it's not like open source instantly makes something more
| trustworthy or more secure or something. You have _the
| ability_ to do more to trust it, but it isn 't inherently
| more trustworthy by just having the source available.
| thombles wrote:
| Bingo. Furthermore, the annoying things that MS does are
| predictable and usually not directly harmful. Yeah they
| want telemetry, they want to encourage me to use
| expensive autocomplete everywhere, but ultimately the
| range of bad stuff is "oh dear the corporation is trying
| to upsell me nonsense I have to turn off", not "my OS is
| the combination of thousands of distinct software
| packages where I have to trust literally everybody with
| code execution... I sure hope this keeps working out".
| fsflover wrote:
| > I mean what else can signal do?
|
| How about allowing us to run it on hardware that we can
| control: GNU/Linux desktop and phones, without requiring a
| connection from Android?
| jalk wrote:
| Whats wrong with https://signal.org/download/linux/ ?
|
| edit: Oh you mean the registration that requires a phone
| fsflover wrote:
| AFAIK it's not just registration. The Android phone can
| control the Signal app, if I'm not mistaken.
|
| Also:
|
| Apple and Google confirm governments spy on users through
| push notifications (androidauthority.com)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38555810
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Weird way of attacking Microsoft, when this is a feature users
| will soon want everywhere.
|
| The latest Android update already introduced screen sharing with
| Gemini. Their web app has that too.
|
| It wont be long until people complaining here about DRM/Microsoft
| will have an always on AI watching their screen by their own
| choice.
| scubbo wrote:
| > this is a feature users will soon want everywhere
|
| Some users - the less privacy-conscious. Many others (who
| probably frequent this site) actively do (and will) not.
| Firehawke wrote:
| I'm normally not one to attack the messenger and just attack
| the message, but lay off the crack.
|
| 99% of users don't want anything even remotely like this. The
| thought of a single database (even encrypted) that could
| contain random login/password information, personal
| information, etc. and easily exfiltrated by whatever new zero-
| day of the week is NOT pleasant in the slightest.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| If I could run the model locally I would do that, but sending
| screenshots of everything I do + metadata to microsoft is way
| too much for me because, to start, I don't want them selling my
| data to advertisers.
| fwip wrote:
| Recall only runs locally - it doesn't send any data off-
| device, and doesn't work if you don't have an "AI+" chip.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It's still not fully user-controllable, which is a critical
| distinction. It remains local-only until Microsoft decides
| otherwise, and MS can always put in hooks that makes it
| easy for them to exfiltrate specific data that was
| technically harvested locally on a per-user or per-
| demographic basis. The level of trust required is truly
| extraordinary.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > and MS can always put in hooks that makes it easy for
| them to exfiltrate specific data that was technically
| harvested
|
| Just like they always can put hooks into Windows to do
| the same thing. And Google can put hooks into Android.
| And Apple into macOS.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| With AI that processes periodically-captured screenshots,
| the threat is an order of magnitude greater. It's always
| been possible for companies to indiscriminately copy
| data, but cost and risk of detection have made doing so
| an expensive and risky proposition. AI flips that on its
| head and makes it possible to target individuals and
| groups with incredible precision and reduces the volume
| of data that needs to be transmitted to almost nothing.
| vel0city wrote:
| > MS can always put in hooks that makes it easy for them
| to exfiltrate specific data
|
| MS can issue an update any day to just copy all drives
| you currently have attached to Azure, if we're going to
| put on our tin foil hats.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Er, isn't that how onedrive works? It's not a "tin foil
| hat" move to point out that that's exactly what does
| happen to users who aren't paying attention and opting
| out, and it's equally valid to extrapolate that they
| might continue similar behaviors with new features.
| vel0city wrote:
| No, OneDrive doesn't upload all data from all attached
| drives.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You're right, it only started uploading people's _most
| important_ data without clear and deliberate setup, not
| _all_ their data.
|
| That's more than enough to make these worries not tinfoil
| hat.
| fwip wrote:
| It's also opt-in.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| It is fully user controllable and allways was.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Not in the fullest sense. It can be turned off (for now),
| but its behavior once enabled is subject entirely to
| Microsoft's whims.
|
| Full user control is what you'd have if e.g. you were
| running a FOSS Recall analogue powered by the local LLM
| of your choice on some flavor of Linux. That setup will
| only ever do what the user intends it to and barring
| supply chain exploits, cannot go rogue.
| blindriver wrote:
| it doesn't send any data off-device... YET.
|
| "Free cloud storage for your recalls, we will only scan it
| for bad thoughts not for good thoughts, we promise!"
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Oh, is it that lightweight? I'll look forward to the open
| source equivalent then. I try not to rope myself into
| services that may change for the worse later, but I've got
| nothing against the idea.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| As per the aicorp jurisprudence copyright doesn't apply to AI
| usecases, so I'm sure they'll fix the DRM ,,no screenshots" flag
| preventing AI capture -- it's only legally self-consistent. Teams
| probably gets its own private API to exclude itself anyway (all
| Teams content must be privy only to the TeamsAI).
| wmf wrote:
| This isn't a copyright issue.
| hedora wrote:
| From a legal standpoint, it's also not a privacy issue, since
| the US Supreme Court eliminated the right to privacy at the
| same time as Roe v Wade. Certainly, it's not trademark
| related.
|
| So, what legal recourse is left?
| wmf wrote:
| Uninstalling Windows?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| DRM isn't about technical enforcement of copyright?
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| Dumbest announcement. Signal lost it's track...
| WD-42 wrote:
| It's really come to this? As if accepting the 4 different data
| sharing Eulas required to install windows wasn't enough, now apps
| need to DRM themselves...
| k__ wrote:
| I'd presume, this is a logical conclusion of trusting trust.
|
| The moment you don't build your own device, TEE with provable
| encrypted executions or FHE is the only way to run reasonably
| secure apps.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Isn't Windows Recall opt-in?
| fwip wrote:
| Yes.
|
| "To use Recall, you will need to opt-in to saving snapshots,
| which are images of your activity, and enroll in Windows Hello
| to confirm your presence so only you can access your
| snapshots."
| hedora wrote:
| Oh, good. Local activities that used to be anonymous and
| private are now public with non-repudiation.
| ziml77 wrote:
| What's public here?
| jajuuka wrote:
| I understand people not liking Recall. I'm one of them. But
| for something that is opt in now and even if opt later can
| still be disabled. So changing OS's because of that seems
| like an overreaction.
| mrmuagi wrote:
| It's the straw that breaks the camel's back I think for
| most people.
|
| Constant nagging by the operating system for Windows
| products (I have enabled onedrive personally, but for some
| reason it installed two file explorer quick access links,
| and the workarounds online fail to persist reboots) --
| hijacking file extensions, hijacking program aliases (I
| just had to remove a windows store alias in my env
| variables for "python" despite having it already installed
| months prior), the constant cat and mouse to have local
| account-only possible, inability to remove edge/stop being
| pestered about it, and now recall (which is not truely opt-
| in since it gets installed whether you want it or not).
| elaus wrote:
| I'm not sure, but in recent years, Microsoft has made a lot of
| negative headlines by silently re-enabling settings after
| updates, so this doesn't seem like something you should trust.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| For now
|
| We're only a single Windows Update from silently changing that
| WD-42 wrote:
| Does it really matter? They'll assault users with "Enable
| recall to access this feature, yada yada" and 99% of people
| will just do it. Just like every other spyware feature they
| provide.
| godelski wrote:
| I wonder if 2025 will be the year of Linux.
|
| Windows has turned itself into spyware. Apple is too expensive
| and going the same way.
|
| Meanwhile the user experience of Linux has dramatically
| increased. Put on a good skin and most people wouldn't notice the
| difference. You don't need to reply that you can, I know you can.
| You're on HN. But most people just use their computer for the
| browser and most people can't tell Chrome from Firefox. Most
| people get their lockin by their tech friend or child. Really,
| Microsoft's only lockin remains Office.
|
| It won't be a complete shift but the signs of growing userbase is
| there. Would be a huge win for open source! If you haven't tried
| Linux in a few years try giving something like PopOS a go or if
| you want to say you use Arch then try EndeavourOS. Both are very
| stable, latter slightly less.
|
| Edit: enfuse was right, I should have suggested EndeavourOS
| instead of Manjaro.
| x0xrx wrote:
| Scammers successfully sell reskinned Android phones as iPhones
| to unsuspecting marks, I'm sure you're right that many people
| wouldn't notice.
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| just saying, the comment you just wrote could have appeared,
| word for word, on any HN discussion in the last 20 years. The
| only words that would have to change are "PopOS" / "Arch" /
| "Manjaro" for more timely distros. (and Chrome didn't exist
| until ~2009)
| fsflover wrote:
| This has been indeed more or less true for a long time, if
| you speak of preinstalled GNU/Linux, not using a "Windows-
| certified" hardware.
| godelski wrote:
| I really don't think so. We didn't have GUI installers 20
| years ago. I think you're undermining the advances linux has
| made. I think it is harder for us on the techy side to see
| but having been getting people to switch to linux over the
| last 10 years I can say that the last 5 have been
| significantly easier.
| vel0city wrote:
| There were GUI installers for a few distros 19 years ago. I
| remember using a graphical installer for Ubuntu 6.06.
|
| But even then back in the day I remember Windows
| applications that would partition and install a Linux
| distro for dual boot from within Windows.
| okanat wrote:
| We did have GUI installers in 2005. At least SUSE did.
| Linux hasn't made much significant changes to its core
| architecture. There are better implementations for many
| things like Pulseaudio and Pipewire or Wayland compositors
| are a bit more streamlined than X11.
|
| The core issues existed in 2005 still exist in exact form:
| how do you make money for the software devs on Linux, how
| to bring good closed-source software support for decades.
| If Linux cannot solve those two problems, it will not
| replace Windows. I think, without changing the software
| architecture to look more Windows-like, the latter problem
| cannot be feasibly solved.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I'd like this to be true, but Windows has been getting
| incrementally more user-hostile for a long time now. I'm not
| sure this change is going to mark any particular tipping point.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I just want to vent here about the recent experience I had
| buying and installing MS Office 365 for my wife's small
| business. I had assumed since the competition is effortless
| and free, MS would at least make Office for Desktop
| relatively easy to pay for. Instead I got suckered into
| paying for "Basic", which doesn't support desktop apps. The
| "supports desktop apps" version costs more, but the big
| problem is it's not explained within the apps what you need
| to upgrade to (there are many plans.) Then once you finally
| figure out how to upgrade, the subscription and payment sites
| repeatedly error out. Once you force through an immediate
| upgrade, it turns out that it's not immediate and takes an
| hour to go through.
|
| This is mostly just venting, but if the "please take my
| money" pathways of MS's most popular product work this badly,
| I don't even want to think about ever going back to Windows.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| What many have yet to notice is that Microsoft now makes
| more money from Cloud than they do from Windows, so the
| purpose of Windows is now as the funnel for Microsoft's
| cloud services. It's like using an operating system made by
| GoDaddy.
| godelski wrote:
| I think it can be true, but we have to make it happen. One of
| the biggest problems I see is that we complain about things
| like Linux in these comparative settings, as if we don't have
| to make a choice. It's like saying you don't want to eat a
| cookie because the chef sneezed in it and instead giving you
| a cookie the chef took a shit in. Sure, I'd rather have
| neither, but if I have to eat a cookie I know which one I'd
| choose.
| neogodless wrote:
| Average computer users could probably switch... but it would
| require one of two things:
|
| Some way to make it ridiculously low friction for existing
| hardware owners to get into Linux. Like, less friction than
| downloading an ISO, mounting it, and installing it on your
| computer.
|
| Or make computers come with it when people buy them. (This is
| still vanishingly rare.)
|
| **
|
| As a power user... I still have a few issues, some that might
| be common, and some that might be quite rare/unique to me. For
| example, post-concussion I really can't stand low refresh
| rates, and screen brightness is important to me. During my last
| 2-month Linux experiment, I had issues with controlling those
| things which was a mix of hardware, drivers, Linux kernel, GPU
| modes, etc. These sort of issues seem to be less and less
| common in Linux, and I'm optimistic, but I also am hesitant to
| sacrifice my own health to make a switch away from Windows.
| (Mental health aside.)
|
| And some games still don't work right, at least not on launch.
| Which can make me sad as someone who plays games socially.
|
| As a photographer, I bought and use DxO PhotoLab. I've compared
| alternatives, and I like it much better. It doesn't mean I
| couldn't use _darktable_ but I definitely don 't like it
| anywhere near as much. (And no, DxO does not support Linux.)
| twosdai wrote:
| System 76 makes a great product in this space honestly. I
| always recommend them to people who are interested in trying
| linux. They ship with linux pre-installed, its exactly like
| buying a dell with windows.
|
| https://system76.com/
|
| I am not affliated with them, I am a customer and I like
| their products.
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| I concur. I own a System 76 laptop, and it runs PopOS. It's
| been stable for years (taking the regular updates). They
| make a variety of hardware products ranging from
| portable/lightweight laptop to beefy engineering
| workstation.
|
| (also not affiliated with them, just want to support good
| products/company)
| astrolx wrote:
| This. I bought a System76 laptop in 2011 which is still
| working very well with lubuntu for office and browser and
| such, it's now the laptop of my neighbourhood association.
| I could without problem upgrade RAM and drive to SSD, I
| could even swap the keyboard after I broke it.
|
| I bought a new one from them this year, still incredible
| hardware.
|
| My only issue with them, which is a big one, is that they
| ship only from USA. So as EU customer I have to pay VAT on
| top!
| godelski wrote:
| I agree making ISOs is too cumbersome now. But I think the
| install is 90% there. Realistically hiding options under an
| advanced menu would make it no different than when you first
| get a windows or Mac.
|
| Fwiw, you can get it preinstalled on System 76, makers of
| Pop. I'm a bit surprised Framework doesn't do it. But this
| seems easy to expand **
|
| Maybe I or someone else can help out. What's your distro,
| GPU, Linux kernel, and driver? Sometimes that interplay can
| create weird mismatches but I have rarely experienced them in
| the last 5 years (but extremely common prior to that!). Pop
| and EndeavourOS specifically target NVIDIA GPUs and can be
| the easiest "fix". Pop being more Ubuntu like and EndeavourOS
| being more Archy. Being power user I'd suggest the latter as
| it has a lot less bloat. Fwiw I daily drive EndeavourOS with
| a 4080S (previously 3080Ti) without too many problems. Only
| getting HDR at 60fps when trying to use my TV as a display.
| Other then that two issues where a kernel driver mismatch
| happened, solved by a rollback and avoidable by using stable
| releases.
|
| I'm not much of a gamer but will play some AAA and a handful
| of indie games. Occasional issues like Steam not loading the
| GUI (right click menu bar and directly open library fixes),
| and occasionally sync issues because VPN, or minor like
| needing to launch a game twice. But FWIW, past 3 years I've
| never needed to touch proton. I'm really hoping SteamOS gets
| a broader release soon. I'm not sure if I can help much here
| but I do know graphics cards which might help?
|
| I'll definitely agree UI/UX in many apps needs major
| improvements. I've seen a trend in the right direction
| though. Alongside the same improvements in OS. We need people
| to realize that your backend doesn't matter if people can't
| use it. Design is hard. The magic is the interaction between
| awesome backend and awesome design. I think this philosophy
| is growing. Hopefully. Momentum appears to be building
| neogodless wrote:
| Appreciate it but this was like 18 months ago, on a Lenovo
| Legion 5 which I've since sold to my niece. Main issue was
| brightness - basically having to reboot Linux twice to get
| it to work. Once to switch GPU mode and once to select a
| kernel because it would often fail to boot for some reason
| until I went through that. I don't remember the details too
| well - I documented some here:
| https://retorch.com/blog/linux-mint.htm
|
| Linux Mint w/ KDE for most of the two month period.
|
| Nowadays like 95% of my gaming is Digital Board Games on
| Steam which I'm mostly quite sure would run fine on Linux.
| Anno 1800 was one of the rare instances of LAN multiplayer
| which is rare in games these days and poorly supported.
|
| When I'm really active sometimes as a group we'll start a
| new Survival game together, and it's nice when you can be
| involved. Games like Valheim run awesome on Linux, and I
| had no issues with Conan, ARK, etc. Occasionally a game
| isn't supported and that's when it's a bummer.
| WD-42 wrote:
| The problem is, until laptops sold at Walmart or Best Buy start
| coming with Linux pre-installed as an option, adoption will
| never happen. Installing an aftermarket OS is just an
| incredibly unrealistic expectation from the average user.
|
| Microsoft knows this, and they will do everything they can to
| prevent OEMs from shipping anything other than Windows. Apple
| of course, forget it. Their profit comes from leeching off FOSS
| and selling it, they would never allow distribution of it
| directly.
| CalRobert wrote:
| For what it's worth, it can almost be done (but is still a
| minority) https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-
| laptops/scr/laptops/app...
| fsflover wrote:
| Purism and System76 offer laptops with preinstalled
| GNU/Linux.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Yes and they are great. But you have to already know they
| exist and seek them out.
| mingus88 wrote:
| Until these vendors break into EDU it's an uphill battle.
|
| In WA, every school has Microsoft smart boards and
| laptops running windows. Kids grow up using it and when
| they buy their own computers they aren't going to choose
| a small boutique builder running an unfamiliar OS they
| won't know how to use right away.
|
| Apple has a lock on a lot of EDU as well, and the iPhone
| is so ubiquitous it's an easy sell to get folk using
| other products
|
| Those systems look beautiful but it's a minority of
| people that will make a large purchase on something like
| this.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| I don't know what they're like these days but before they
| were essentially white-label Clevo hardware with PopOS or
| Ubuntu, etc.
| fsflover wrote:
| Why does it matter? They provide the support for
| GNU/Linux and work fine. Also Purism laptops aren't Clevo
| and never were.
| weinzierl wrote:
| Don't forget Tuxedo.
| throitallaway wrote:
| Lenovo currently offers Linux (Ubuntu) as an option
| Thinkpads. Dell used to once upon a time; I don't know if
| they still do.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Dell still does.
|
| https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-
| laptops/scr/laptops/app...
| LexiMax wrote:
| This seems like a worldview borne from an era where the PC
| was _the_ definitive, ubiquitous computing device of choice
| for the layperson. These days, that crown is taken by the
| smartphone.
|
| If you need a PC in 2025, you're probably a fair bit more
| knowledgeable than someone buying one in 2005. You're also
| almost certainly buying one online, possibly even directly
| from the manufacturer or builder, which means the seller can
| simply give you options and doesn't have to worry about
| competing for store shelf space.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> These days, that crown is taken by the smartphone._
|
| Which, if you use Android, is ... _Linux_...
|
| iOS is really just repackaged UINX.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > Microsoft knows this, and they will do everything they can
| to prevent OEMs from shipping anything other than Windows
|
| You're right and they effectively licensed XP to Asus for
| free for use on the Eee PC (which originally only shipped
| with Linux) when it was shaping up to be a hit.
|
| This is a worthwhile watch if you're interested in this
| corner of computing history:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVno8dlM3E
| amatecha wrote:
| Adoption is already happening, as it has been for years, but
| especially now that MS and Apple are producing worse and
| worse OS/software that treats the people who use it worse and
| worse. I'm frequently pleasantly surprised by hearing that
| someone uses a Linux machine with regularity. It used to be a
| really rare, techie-only kind of thing. Pulling people away
| from literal decades of complete personal-computing
| domination with a completely free, near-zero-marketing
| alternative is a very slow, gradual process. It's great that
| those dominant vendors are doing their very best to push
| everyone to the alternatives :)
| godelski wrote:
| > until laptops sold at Walmart or Best Buy start coming with
| Linux pre-installed as an option
|
| This is a circular problem though. They'll do it if Linux
| starts becoming more popular.
|
| If you want to see this, make sure your browser agent is
| broadcasting Linux[0]. Make sure you're using Steam in Linux.
|
| But right now Steam has Linux at <3%[1]. It is more than OSX,
| but not enough. I do think above 5% and it'll start to be
| taken seriously, and 10% we'll start seeing moves. Linux
| doesn't need 90% of the marketshare to dramatically change
| the world. 10% is more than enough. Even 20% would be
| momentous and force both Microsoft and Apple to change
| strategies. Don't feel like there's no hope. Just because it
| is an unrealistic expectation today doesn't mean it will be
| tomorrow. And your actions today change the odds of what
| happens tomorrow. So don't give up.
|
| You don't have to change the world overnight. But you do need
| to make steps in the right direction, even if small, to make
| the world move.
|
| [0] You can even do this while using Windows! Hell, you can
| use Chrome and tell people you're using Firefox on Linux if
| you believe in those things but just are unwilling to make
| the switch yourself. The signaling still does something (it
| is better than nothing).
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-
| Softw...
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > But right now Steam has Linux at <3%[1].
|
| I think the overwhelming majority of this is Steam Deck
| usage. While that's certainly a feather in the cap for
| Linux, I don't think really counts toward Linux momentum as
| we're using the term here. Nobody is going to start
| investing in polished desktop Linux software because there
| are a lot of Steam Deck buyers.
| pona-a wrote:
| KDE has seen plenty of activity related to the Steam
| Desk, I heard. Valve regularly contribute to Wine, which
| is used for desktop Windows software. If the entire stack
| is consistent between the two, how wouldn't it translate
| to better desktop software? It's the same as how server
| investment in the kernel benefits the desktop users, only
| with a much greater intersection.
| 31337Logic wrote:
| Yo. Just came here to say Thanks for the inspiring post. We
| need more you. ;^)
| jayofdoom wrote:
| ChromeOS is the desktop linux you can get installed on Wal-
| Mart PCs. It is linux even if not the linux we want :D
| 90s_dev wrote:
| Most people just don't care that they're being spied on. Most
| people don't care about anything actually, they're in a
| constant state of despair and see no point to anything so
| they just try to make the best of the time they have.
| enfuse wrote:
| > or if you want to say you use Arch then try Manjaro
|
| EndeavourOS preferred over Manjaro.
| jamespo wrote:
| EndeavourOS with the niri window manager is a wonderful
| experience
| godelski wrote:
| You're right. Not sure why I didn't say that. I updated:)
| MeruMeru wrote:
| I am definitely moving to Linux this year. I'm a not a
| developer, but I am willing to tackle the learning curve. I
| have been a Windows user from my very first computer, my first
| internship was at Microsoft. But I am done with the directions
| they have taken these past years!
| WD-42 wrote:
| Enjoy! Keep an open mind and you'll discover computing can
| still be very fun!
| godelski wrote:
| Awesome! Great to hear!
|
| There definitely can be some hurdles depending on what your
| goals are. If you're mainly browser user, don't stress. If
| gamer, go PopOS (if want to be a bit more, EndeavourOS is a
| good recommend).
|
| If you do want to _learn_ linux, then I actually suggest
| doing things "the hard way". That is installing Arch
| (fastest newbie I've seen is install on the 4th attempt) and
| try living in the terminal. The failures lead to a lot of
| learning. But it is a good way to learn because it forces you
| to get your hands dirty and makes you quick to not be afraid
| because well... you will have already experienced fucking up
| and it is less scary once you have haha. It's one of those
| things where you don't feel like you're making progress but
| boy do you learn fast this way.
|
| But this of course is not what everyone _should_ do! I just
| wanted to offer the advice in case you or anyone does. I am
| being serious about it being the hard way. But it pays off.
| immibis wrote:
| Linux still suffers the same flaw as always, though: it's just
| bad. And the projects that claim to make it better end up being
| a lot like Microsoft or Apple.
|
| You or I can use Linux, because we're the same type of people
| who visit Hacker News. It's also completely possible to get
| your great-grandma on Linux, since the web browsers work the
| same and you can install the specific apps they need to use and
| they'll never care about anything else. But the middle user is
| working in an office exchanging Microsoft Office documents all
| day, making video calls through Teams, and using one out of a
| zillion business apps developed specifically for Windows.
|
| We need more free and good projects, and the problem is, that
| costs time, and in between Richard Stallman's heyday and now,
| the rent's quadrupled.
| astrolx wrote:
| I'd like to see stats about that middle user though, I would
| think that this usecase decreases fast as things are moving
| to the browser (Office366, Drive, mail, even corporate apps).
|
| Other types of usecases have gone very Linux-friendly
| recently (e.g video games thanks to Valve).
| palata wrote:
| > Linux still suffers the same flaw as always, though: it's
| just bad.
|
| It's not bad for me. "Bad" is subjective.
|
| Sure, it's not a good fit for "normal people". But as long as
| it's not targetting "normal people", I don't see how this is
| a problem.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Average people nowadays don't really use general-purpose
| computers at home. They use whatever their work provides at the
| office (which will continue to be Windows for most people and
| macOS for prestigious or highly-paid jobs), and use phones at
| home.
| numpad0 wrote:
| > Put on a good skin and most people wouldn't notice the
| difference.
|
| I doubt it. Common people can't interpret GUI and discover
| features unlike developers who'd prefer dynamic "intuitive"
| interfaces. They rely more on dumb fixed rote memorization.
|
| Most recent example of failure of this approach is Windows
| Settings app. Not only a lot of configuration panes started to
| mimic old Control Panel in both features layouts, even
| verbiages, many had become a mere shortcut links to old Control
| Panel applets.
| godelski wrote:
| To be fair, I can't figure out how to use OSX. I'm constantly
| going down the wrong menu paths. Same when someone asks me to
| use Windows, and in a completely different manner.
|
| My point is that it's not like there's an objectively good
| way to do this. That people just get used to doing things one
| way or another. And frankly, with Linux you can copy those
| same structures and that's what I mean by "skin". You really
| can make it feel a lot like Windows or OSX and that really
| reduces the dissonance.
| noman-land wrote:
| Here's one data point. My grandmother and mother now both use
| Raspberry Pis as their primary computers and are 100%
| satisfied. My father is looking to switch as well and he's been
| setting up a GrapheneOS phone I made for him which runs
| flawlessly.
|
| If year of Linux doesn't arrive by choice, authoritarianism
| will force the issue one way or another.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| My kids have an old Thinkpad T440p that's their
| Scratch/Roblox/Minecraft machine, and _overall_ it works well
| enough running Ubuntu (originally 22.04, then 24.04, now
| 25.04). But it has been far from seamless:
|
| - the built in bluetooth and wifi can't be used at the same
| time; for a while we mitigated this with a USB wifi module,
| but that eventually broke and so now bluetooth is just
| disabled.
|
| - it's hard to figure out what apps and app data are shared
| between users. AFAICT there's one Steam install my kids are
| sharing, but each one installs their own copy of a game,
| which is terrible for disk usage.
|
| - a bunch of games don't work, especially from non-steam
| sources like Epic and Itch.io. I've heard about the Heroic
| Launcher, and I will try it at some point, but it's just...
| one more fiddly thing to have to mess with.
|
| - several Minecraft launchers / mod-managers have been tried,
| but I can't seem to keep my Microsoft account logged in on
| there, so I eventually just put my password on a sticky note
| so they could re-auth it whenever needed (fortunately I don't
| use it for anything else).
|
| - unattended-upgrades pulled a new kernel and the thing just
| panicked on startup until I went into the grub menu to get
| the previous one and reverted.
|
| - until 25.04 the power management story was terrible, the
| machine would chew through the whole (newly replaced) battery
| in less than an hour.
|
| As a competent nerd I've been ~fine with all this, but it's
| honestly right on the edge of acceptable. I expect a normal
| person would immediately give up in the face of most of
| these-- either give up in terms of ditching the machine/OS or
| give up as in accepting a limitation like it just doesn't
| play that game or I just can't use my earbuds.
| test1235 wrote:
| This is a perspective I'd like to hear more often. Too
| often I hear all these supposed ideal solutions without
| mentioning the pitfalls of having to support a non-
| technical family.
|
| Pi hole is a good example. Do all websites (and other
| services) still work perfectly but without ads, or am I
| going to have to endure sighing and eyerolling everytime
| someone asks me why their site isn't loading (again)?
| throitallaway wrote:
| IME the tradeoffs (reduction of ads + malware) are well
| worth the very occasional exception that needs to be
| made.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| GP here and yes I've experienced that too-- I run a
| pihole-style blocklist on my OpenWRT router and never got
| a good workflow together for adding exemptions to it.
|
| On a phone it's not a huge deal as you can just
| momentarily switch to data, click through, and then
| switch back. But it's more annoying on a computer where
| you have to figure out where that link was going to go
| and then get there by an organic path.
|
| Overall absolutely worth the slight pain though.
| godelski wrote:
| > Do all websites (and other services) still work
| perfectly
|
| Like 99%? I've rarely seen problems running it for years
| > but without ads,
|
| No. It is only a DNS blocker. Most browsers these days
| will bypass that anyways. But it is definitely helpful
| for lots of other things on your network. You can also
| point the browser there to get the same benefits but
| still won't replace an adblocker.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| The main annoying thing about piHole with a non-technical
| family has been that it blocks google shopping.
|
| You know, when you search for a thing you want to buy and
| google shopping shows a list of common stores on top of
| the search results like a bunch of little cards? Yep.
| Clicking one there causes a failure because that link is
| a google ad link. Same thing if you tab into "Shopping".
| All links are broken.
|
| Otherwise, it's been 4 years and no other complaints at
| all.
| LtWorf wrote:
| I have been using thinkpads since forever and bluetooth and
| wifi both work (at the same time, yes). It seems more
| likely to be a broken machine. Which can happen.
|
| I had a faulty keyboard on a thinkpad that was causing a
| lot of seemingly unrelated problems, like freezes or
| suspend not working. Replacing the keyboard resolved
| everything.
|
| Try to switch them to luanti!
| mikepurvis wrote:
| It was kind of a subtle failure, tbh-- like when
| bluetooth was active (game controller, headphones) then
| the wifi would suddenly have huge packet loss resulting
| in a bunch of retransmissions. So it would _kind of_
| still work but be really annoying to use. That said, I
| haven 't fully re-tried it since updating to 25.04, so
| maybe the story is better on the newer kernel.
|
| The keyboard has already been replaced once, though at
| the time I just bought whatever was cheapest on eBay,
| assuming they were all the same, and I think I did get a
| bit burned with a crappy knockoff-- the keys are weirdly
| clicky and several feel like they're about to pop off at
| any moment; I have the LiteOn keyboard standing by which
| I'd like to try out, as that's the one that comes
| recommended most often online.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I used to work on a T440s on Debian from 2013 - 2017. I am
| surprised that your battery life is so poor on Ubuntu. I
| was able to frequently push my 9-cell battery laptop to 12
| hours with careful usage.
|
| If I forgot my charging cable at home, I could do a full
| day at the office with music and internet on battery.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Might be the nature of the task, game playing vs text
| editing, or there was something wrong with a driver or
| background process.
|
| Or another factor is that I think often the "new"
| batteries for old devices are in fact themselves old and
| have just been sitting around on shelves for years.
| Obviously that doesn't wear them as hard as actual
| cycling, but it's not nothing, particularly if they're
| allowed to discharge down to empty.
| vegadw wrote:
| The minecraft thing is a problem regardless of launcher, to
| the point that I actively condone people pay for the game
| then find ways to not require online auth.
|
| Some moron at Microsoft decided that if your password is
| serving its purpose and people aren't able to get in but
| that there are a bunch of attempts that you should need to
| reset your password. Because of this, I have to reset my
| password. Every. Time. I. Want. To. Play.
|
| But that means multiple 2FA codes to both my non-mirosoft
| account email and to my phone. All in all, it usually takes
| about 7 or 8 minutes each time I want to play, which is an
| ABSURD amount of friction for an account I don't want to be
| using to play the game anyway, given when I bought it it
| was a Mojang account without all the associated, creepy TOS
| changes.
|
| Don't be afraid to look around for ways to play without a
| legitimate account if you've paid. If that's the better
| experience, it is what it is.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Give starving person a rotten potato and they will gladly eat
| it. It doesn't make the rotten potato a good source of
| nutrition.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Which models have you given them? Linux has been my computing
| best friend for more than a decade and I have also enjoyed
| using the Raspberry Pi 400.
|
| But the Raspberry Pi 500 (keyboard model) is even better and
| (literally and figuratively) a cool design. You get 8GB RAM,
| boot from NVME, Debian with Wayland (labwc), and the R.Pi
| community.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| >Windows has turned itself into spyware. Apple is too expensive
| and going the same way.
|
| There is nothing too expensive about an M series mac mini.
| godelski wrote:
| They're great little computers but you're kidding if you
| think $400 to _upgrade_ to 1Tb (from 256G) is not priced. I
| can get 2Tb of gen 5 NVMe for under $300. Same issue with
| RAM, but at least at 16Gb most people don 't need to upgrade.
|
| Come on. You can still think they're great while admitting
| they're over priced. Those aren't in contention.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| your typical casual user needs 2TB of local storage
| (outside the cloud)? that's news to me.
|
| I agree it's overpriced, and it bugs me too. But i still
| recommend mac's to my less tech savvy family and friends.
| Why? I'm not interested in being their tech support, and
| also, it's trivial to buy a portable 2TB thunderbolt 4 SSD
| for $200-$300, if the need arises in the future. In fact an
| external SSD is even easier to replace/upgrade than an
| internal ssd (generally speaking). i think we're losing
| sight of the topic here. CASUAL USERS :)
| mingus88 wrote:
| You will need to cite your sources that Apple is going the same
| way.
|
| From what I see, Apple has launched private cloud compute with
| better privacy safeguards than any other big tech firm. In
| fact, their personal assistant is the worst one because it is
| so dumb.
|
| They don't seem to make money from your data because, as you
| say, they have already made huge margins on hardware and apps.
| fsflover wrote:
| > You will need to cite your sources that Apple is going the
| same way.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047952
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43003230
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42014588
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/04/10/apple-makes-it-
| re...
|
| https://sneak.berlin/20231005/apple-operating-system-
| surveil...
|
| > They don't seem to make money from your data
|
| It's changing:
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/19/apple-now-directly-
| sell...
|
| And finally:
|
| Apple's Software Quality Crisis (eliseomartelli.it)
|
| 1196 points by ajdude 79 days ago | 1213 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075
| fsflover wrote:
| Why quiet downvotes? My links demonstrate that Apple is
| collecting a lot of data, not giving an easy choice for the
| opt-out and starting to use that for ads. Also the software
| is getting worse.
| presbyterian wrote:
| > Apple is too expensive
|
| Is it? You can get an M1 MacBook Air at Walmart for $699 now.
| That's more than many of the bottom-of-the-barrel Windows
| machines out there, but it's not an unreasonable price at all.
| It'll keep away the lowest-end users, but most of those users
| 1) are not going to care about the security issues, because
| they don't know anything about computers beyond base utility,
| and 2) have mostly switched to doing everything on their
| phone/tablet, and aren't as big of the computer demographic
| these days anyway.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| $699 for a computer that will stop getting updates in just a
| few years
| copperx wrote:
| That's about 6 years. Plenty enough for a laptop that's not
| upgradeable.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| For some perspective: Computer Shopper 1993 GW2K 386SX at
| $1300. Today that is $2800. That $699 Mac is getting you a
| machine that would have been a TOP500 supercomputer in the
| 90s.
| lxgr wrote:
| And your credit card has a more powerful computer than
| the Apollo lunar lander.
|
| But software development (for both OS and applications)
| is continuing in parallel with hardware improvements, so
| there's a strong implicit demand of you to also continue
| upgrading, at least if you need to interoperate with any
| other computer in the world.
| throitallaway wrote:
| If my Grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.
| Yes, things change over time. I cringe to think of what
| some of the original 42" flat screen displays cost
| relative to the huge (much better looking) OLED panels of
| today.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The $699 MacBook Air has 8GB of RAM. That's hardly enough
| _now_ , much less if you plan to keep it for a few years.
| Which hardly matters when you can get 64GB of DDR5 to put in
| it for less than $100. Except that it isn't upgradable.
| jonfw wrote:
| 8GB of RAM w/ swap on SSD is just fine for most use cases
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| No it isn't, and doing that will chew up your SSD. Which
| on that MacBook Air is soldered.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| The answer is it depends i think...
|
| If your SSD is near its max-capacity, then any extra wear
| has a bad affect on its longevity. But modern SSD's
| handle excess writes very well if they are not near
| capacity.
|
| A few extra GB written to disk daily is a drop in the
| bucket in an SSD'd TBW rating, no??
|
| I'd say for a casual user with low storage needs, it's
| perfectly fine. Otherwise it's a bad idea imo.
| throitallaway wrote:
| I have not used swap for about 10 years and I'm not about
| to start.
| throitallaway wrote:
| Yeah, Apple's bottom barrel pricing isn't terrible, but as
| soon as you start upping specs the price goes out of
| control (disproportionally from the underlying costs.)
| Looking at pricing for the current Macbook Air, it's $400
| to upgrade from 16GB to 32GB. A 16GB SODIMM costs ~$40
| retail.
| rpgbr wrote:
| I've been using 8 GB of RAM MacBook since 2015, and by then
| this "8 GB isn't enough" chorus was strong. Nowadays I use
| a M1 Air, 8 GB of RAM, zero complains, really.
|
| For most people that just browse the web, write some stuff
| and do their email, 8 GB is still enough.
| presbyterian wrote:
| I've been using an M1 MBP with 8GB of RAM since 2020 for
| video editing, Blender, music production, and web
| development, and it's fine. It's not perfect, but it's
| totally serviceable and I rarely think about it, which
| tells me that 8GB is enough for the average computer user
| who's doing much less intense work.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| many people in this thread are saying average users are
| just using their web browser, so they are "served fine with
| linux". But apparently 8GB is unacceptable to run a web
| browser on mac os.
|
| So which is it? lol.
|
| And FYI 8GB is more than enough for a casual desktop/laptop
| user, at least on the M series macs. I used my wife's M1
| macbook air with 8GB of ram for a week while my new laptop
| was shipping in the mail. Even if I pushed it with 1 or 2
| heavy apps, such as IntelliJ IDE (java development), it
| performs pretty well, albeit with some paging to disk on
| large projects. Barely noticeable and the system remained
| very responsive. For casual usage (zoom, google docs,
| gmail, instagram) it didn't fill up the ram.
| wyager wrote:
| > Apple is too expensive
|
| On literally what metric? Even if you do the most naive
| comparison of compute and storage, Apple now comes out ahead
| much of the time, to say nothing of differences around quality,
| display, controls, etc.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| On the metric that people see PCs as disposable appliances
| and don't consider a small format box like a Mac Mini to be a
| real computing device. They don't give a crap about
| "compute," they care if they can open their web browser,
| outlook, and play their little slot machine game. You're not
| gonna get Meemaw who spent her entire career as a secretary
| working with Windows machines to go to Mac just because you
| like the specs. Hell, my mom has owned the same PC for 15
| years now and I can't get her to move away from THAT.
| fsflover wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44055640
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I cannot recommend Linux to my parents simply because they're
| too attached to MS Office.
|
| Anyway, I wonder to what distribution should I switch to.
| throitallaway wrote:
| Do they use MS Office for work, or just simple hobby stuff?
| If it's work stuff - leave them alone. For hobby stuff
| LibreOffice is a good replacement that you can trial on
| Windows. As far as distros go, I don't like some of the
| decisions that Canonical has made with Ubuntu, but it's hard
| to argue with how simple, reliable, and complete it is. I
| don't want to run it for myself, but it's great for some
| people.
| oweiler wrote:
| I have read almost the same thing 5yrs ago. And 5yrs before
| that. And so on.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I remember posting basically their comment on /. something
| like 20 years ago.
| amatecha wrote:
| A couple years ago was "the year of" open source OSes for me. I
| only have one remaining machine running Windows, and it just
| sits there doing nothing because I don't actually use it
| anymore. Same with my one remaining Apple machine. Well, I mean
| I have a couple retro machines that aren't in everyday use of
| course. Everything else is running Linux or BSD.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Apple is too expensive and going the same way._
|
| Apple would have had near 100% OS market share if they'd have
| tossed their hardware restrictions.
| lxgr wrote:
| The time of Linux on the desktop is now, but the era of
| desktops itself has passed.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| This is the crucial point that makes the whole question
| somewhat moot. Only one other of the 20-odd peers in this
| thread acknowledges it. Once again I'm disappointed by how
| out of touch the techies here seem to be.
| dokyun wrote:
| > Windows has turned itself into spyware
|
| Has?
| chronid wrote:
| I have plenty of hard disagreements on the "user experience
| improvements" in Linux. "Adding a skin" is not easy and making
| the experience somewhat coherent is extremely hard (GNOME is
| sort of successful at an extreme cost and plenty of
| limitations, KDE is still an incoherent mess with plenty of bad
| defaults starting from the base CDDM skin). It's full of things
| like the missing icon view in the GNOME/GTK file chooser [1]
| and while it's true that Windows11 is atrocious, all those
| little things add up.
|
| I actually recovered a laptop my family was using to launch
| firefox by installing linux on it (soldered ram went bad, linux
| is the only OS I could use to tell it to skip the bad blocks
| through kernel command line) but I hold no illusion about its
| level of "user experience". Just look at the comments in this
| recent thread [2]. And as a power user I am baffled by some of
| the choices at the kernel level (which I mentioned in that
| thread) and others closer to the user by distros (ubuntu and
| snaps, name an iconic duo), or things like flatpak not being
| close to ready and still shoved down user's throats...
|
| I spent years when I was younger submitting bug reports for the
| papercuts I noticed - some ignored for years, some closed and
| forgotten forever when some project decided to move on from
| bugzilla - and I have no more time or energy to continue doing
| so. The maintainers after all write the code, I'm just a user
| and get no voice :)
|
| I've been reading about the "year of linux" for years now, it's
| a meme for a reason. People that are not "prosumer" will keep
| using the preinstalled OS even if it's garbage - assuming they
| buy a laptop or desktop at all - and the prosumer will probably
| keep an OSX or a Windows machine close by anyway. Linux is
| _usable_ as a browser kiosk sure but there is still plenty of
| friction on everything else. Enshittification will continue,
| and possibly infect also linux.
|
| [1] https://www.omglinux.com/gnome-thumbnails-file-picker/
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43945373
| godelski wrote:
| > "Adding a skin" is not easy and making the experience
| somewhat coherent is extremely hard
|
| I don't mean to imply this is easy. But I _also_ do know that
| these efforts have been in the works for quite some time.
| They can get more dedication if that 's the direction we need
| to go.
|
| Quick Google - 3 free Linux distros that look
| and feel like Windows:
| https://www.pcworld.com/article/2532994/3-free-linux-distros-
| that-look-and-feel-like-windows.html - 5 Linux
| Distributions That are Inspired by the Look and Feel of
| macOS: https://itsfoss.com/macos-like-linux-distros/
| > soldered ram went bad, linux is the only OS I could use to
| tell it to skip the bad blocks through kernel command line
|
| IDK how to tell you this, but for 90% of people this is
| "throw the machine out, buy a new one." I'm really not sure
| what the critique is here. Even if running with more problems
| seems unsurprising given what you described. And you're
| talking about the kernel.
|
| I don't deny that there are problems with Linux, nor that
| things need to improve to get better mass appeal. But I do
| think you should look at your own words. They're highly
| technical. And we should not forget how this would compare
| when discussing Windows or OSX. That's the choice! It's that
| these conversations of "Linux sucks" are not just complaints
| about Linux, they are _also_ suggestions of using Windows or
| OSX. The context of our conversation is about choosing
| between these systems, not the existence of problems.
|
| I want to be very clear Linux is a dumpster
| fire. This does not mean Windows isn't! This does
| not mean OSX isn't!
|
| The argument I'm making is that this doesn't matter for the
| general user. Fuck, it generally doesn't matter for the
| technical user. But there is a good reason why
| technical/power users have a strong bias towards using Linux.
| Because at least it is a dumpster fire they can fix. It is
| absurd to have the framing that we should not encourage
| people to use Linux in favor of them using systems that are
| user hostile and destroying all sense of personal privacy!
|
| These arguments become equivalent to: "You don't want to eat
| that, the chef sneezed in it. Here, eat this cake instead.
| The chef only took a shit in it."
|
| Idk about you, but _give the choice_ , I'd rather take the
| sneeze than the shit. I'd (strongly) prefer neither, but
| frankly that isn't an option now, is it?
|
| And let's be honest, if you want to get more resources to put
| out more fires, the only way that's going to happen is if
| there are more users.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| Has anyone had success setting up a Linux machine and handing
| it off to a less tech savvy friend? I've had some people asking
| about it but I have techie brain and I don't know what's usable
| to normal people.
| fsflover wrote:
| Debian with Xfce has been flawless for my non-tech-savy
| relatives for years.
| acaloiar wrote:
| I love linux. It's been my primary OS nearly my whole life.
| It's not the year of linux.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Would be a huge win for open source!
|
| Just keep in mind that widespread Linux adoption means it will
| lose something special it has had from being relatively small
| on the desktop. This would be another Eternal September ...
| including a massive influx of entitled users and all that.
|
| Because of that effect, I think there needs to be one or more
| for-profit Linux OS vendors prepared to absorb all the support
| and feedback needs (and contribute upstream, of course), and
| OEMs should only use it/them for anyone besides "advanced users
| and developers" or similar verbage.
|
| SteamOS maybe?
| nan60 wrote:
| I've never understood why Red Hat never tried breaking into
| this space. People clearly don't mind paying for an OS and
| RHEL is pretty much as polished and well supported as you can
| get. A fork of RHEL geared towards home use would be
| fantastic. I know Fedora exists but it isn't backed by RH the
| way RHEL is.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Getting people to pay for an OS when the mainstream
| alternatives come bundled with hardware seems like a big
| lift.
|
| If they could work with system 76 or something maybe yeah
| 360MustangScope wrote:
| Just like other companies, home users do not make much
| money compared to enterprises. No home user will pay
| $10,000 annually for example and think nothing of it.
|
| Enterprises is where the money is, that is also why a
| company like Cisco do not make consumer devices
| em-bee wrote:
| they were. before RHEL, red hat linux was sold as desktop
| operating system to consumers. as was SUSE and a few
| others.
| Tistron wrote:
| Has anyone else managed to make a trackpad that is even close
| to as good as what apple makes? I've never tried a non-apple
| trackpad that didn't suck.
| palata wrote:
| > Would be a huge win for open source!
|
| Not sure.
|
| I don't want people who want Windows to come to Linux because
| Windows has become a spyware. The result will be a bunch of
| entitled users asking for Linux to look more like Windows.
|
| Anyone who has maintained an open source project knows how
| consumers of open source suck. "Your free project that you
| develop in your free time sucks" or "I won't make you the
| honour to use your project if you don't spend 2 weeks adding
| this feature I want". A mass influx of Windows people who want
| Windows-without-the-spyware would probably make this worse for
| Linux.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| getting windows users to linux is a pain....
|
| "I want BSplayer, how do I make it work?", and no other
| player will ever be good enough as BSplayer. And sometimes
| it's not even a good piece of software, but some stupid
| windows only thing that not even windows users use anymore.
| asadm wrote:
| Apple is expensive? I can get an refurb M1 for $400, which is
| still worthy (I use it for my main dev work, docker, cmake,
| qemu, nodejs and all)
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| Still blows the doors off a good many x86 machines you can
| buy new today, with twice the battery life.
| palata wrote:
| I feel like we are getting closer to the year of convergence...
| but with Android. Google is apparently working on it.
|
| Many of my friends don't even have a computer: they do
| everything on their phone. If they could plug their phone to a
| dock station for the few times they need a keyboard and a
| bigger screen, they would be fine.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| The year of Linux already happened quite a while ago (check
| your router, Android phone, TV, or countless other smart
| devices).
|
| The year of _desktop_ Linux on the other hand? It will never
| happen. It is a value like [?] that you can never reach.
| steamrolled wrote:
| > I wonder if 2025 will be the year of Linux.
|
| I know it's a running joke, but we had a decade (+) of Linux in
| many other consumer use cases, such as smartphones. The problem
| is that if you're selling a consumer computing platform, you're
| subject to the same exact incentives as Microsoft. You _want_
| to be Microsoft! You want their revenue, their profit margins,
| their nice offices, their talented engineers.
|
| Android is Linux, but your typical Android phone ships with
| invasive AI features, has a locked bootloader, a variety of
| components that collect data about you... and unless you jump
| through hoops, it only lets you install apps from the company
| store.
| vel0city wrote:
| I'm happy to have this setting. It's a great setting and I
| appreciate Signal adding it.
|
| However, if an attacker has the ability to directly query the
| Recall database, they almost certainly have access to read all
| your Signal messages on your device. The locations where Recall
| files live are even more protected and isolated than your
| %APPDATA%\Roaming\Signal directory is.
|
| _Everything_ running as you on your computer has _full control_
| of _all_ your Signal messages and your identity assigned to the
| device. This is untrue of your Recall data, which from last I saw
| required a lot of finagling to get the permissions right for you
| to access it raw.
| advisedwang wrote:
| At least this gives forward secrecy, so if someone takes
| control of your computer they can only spy on signal messages
| AFTER that point, and can't access prior messages that Recall
| has captured.
| vel0city wrote:
| This is only forward secrecy for messages that were deleted
| and would have been captured by Recall and are still within
| the snapshot history which has a maximum number of days.
|
| All the messages you've previously synced to the device exist
| in that Signal AppData directory and can be trivially
| searched and read by any application running as your user
| account. And all attachments are also just sitting there.
|
| For example:
|
| https://vmois.dev/query-signal-desktop-messages-sqlite/
| mmooss wrote:
| I agree with Signal here and love their commitment. Strangely (to
| me) they do 'recall' things in other ways:
|
| * They have a message retention setting, 'Disappearing messages';
| it works on message correspondents' devices too (if Ali sets
| Disappearing messages' to '1 day' for the chat with Barry, and
| then texts Barry, 1 day later Signal deletes the message on both
| Ali's and Barry's devices).
|
| However, 'Disappearing messages' applies only to text messages.
| For every voice and video call, Signal retains a record of the
| date and time and the participants, and Signal saves it on the
| devices of each participant. Beyond a doubt, Signal's developers
| are well aware of the value of such metadata - as valuable as
| call content, in different ways - and the need for
| confidentiality (if you aren't familiar with that particular
| issue, I promise that every security professional is).
|
| I'm shocked that they do it. What about a human rights dissident
| who is arrested - or whose phone is stolen - their phone won't
| show any sign of the text messages but it shows everyone they
| called and when, implicating all those other people and putting
| them at risk, and also evidence against the phone's owner. And
| even if they are disciplined and manually delete each of those
| records - afaik you can delete each call record one at a time -
| the other call participants' phones still retain the records.
| There is nothing someone can do to protect themself.
|
| Better security here doesn't seem hard to implement. Also, I
| think having different settings for text messages and for
| voice/video calls makes retention settings more confusing for
| users. Many will believe they are safe without realizing the risk
| of this metadata - they trust the experts at Signal to understand
| these things and keep them safe - and many will assume everything
| disappears. Just have one setting for all data and metadata in
| the chat.
|
| * Also, afaik if you delete the entire correpondence with someone
| - delete their entire chat history and delete them from the
| Signal address book - Signal retains information on them, such as
| settings for that chat. It seems that an attacker could identify
| all the deleted correspondents; again, there's no way to protect
| yourself.
| lblume wrote:
| > Better security here doesn't seem hard to implement.
|
| You seem to assume it would be very simple to implement this --
| how do you come to this conclusion? My priors would suggest
| that the vast amount of effort that went into the Signal
| protocol renders low-hanging fruit regarding privacy fairly
| unlikely.
| mmooss wrote:
| > vast amount of effort that went into the Signal protocol
|
| If it requires protocol development, I'd agree. I expect -
| knowing no more than Signal's blog posts - that it has two
| components:
|
| * Local database: These records need a retention period
| column, somehow - however they implement it with text
| messages. That seems straightforward.
|
| * 'Distributed retention' - implementing the retention period
| setting on the remote devices of other call participants. I
| expect they would do it the same way they do with text
| messages, and I would guess it's just a field in a packet
| somewhere; e.g., establish a secure connection and then in
| the call's initial packet, time =
| 2025-05-21T22:13:11Z call.from = lblume call.to
| = mmooss retention.period = 1440 minutes
| stavros wrote:
| The GP is actually right here, Signal keeps the call log in
| the message history (deleting the call entry from the message
| history deletes it from the call log), but the disappearing
| messages setting doesn't get applied to the call log.
|
| It's weird to see a bunch of messages, a call, more messages,
| and a day later the messages around are gone, but the call
| remains in the history. They could have just applied the
| disappearing messages settings to the call entries too, as it
| would be natural to do, and this problem wouldn't exist.
|
| I don't think it's malicious, because what the server knows
| is independent of what the UI shows, but it's a very odd UI
| issue that does reduce privacy.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Signal keeps the call log in the message history
|
| Do you mean in the UI or do you mean in the underlying
| database, or in both?
| stavros wrote:
| They keep it in the UI, therefore I assume in the
| database as well. If you delete a call entry in the
| message history (like you delete a message), it gets
| removed from the "call history" tab as well.
| mmooss wrote:
| The UI could combine data from two db tables. Anyway,
| that part is just a curiosity.
| stavros wrote:
| Sure, but that's still "both the UI and the DB".
| kiririn wrote:
| It's nice to see them add an option to disable this behaviour,
| now if only we could get an option to include Signal messages in
| iOS backups...
| hedora wrote:
| Yeah; the lack of backup support is getting really old. I was
| hoping the article meant that you could optionally set it to
| recall your chat history across backup/restore.
|
| iOS <-> Android account migration would also be good.
|
| I last used Windows in the Windows 8 days. That was when they
| added the telemetry "feature" that lets MS engineers copy files
| off your box without your permission (and without notifying
| you).
|
| At the time, they claimed it's only for debugging software
| failures, and even then, only with managerial approval. My
| reading of the US CLOUD Act says they're obligated to let the
| US gov't copy arbitrary data off your machine, regardless of
| what country it's in.
|
| I'm not sure if they still do it. The documentation of this
| stuff is well-buried.
| plingbang wrote:
| Fighting with the OS is futile. The OS is always in control and
| apps can only ask it nicely to do things.
|
| Microsoft can simply change Recall to capture DRM-marked content
| too. And to avoid copyright issues, it will store some kind of
| visual summary (or whaterer the neural network can use) instead
| of plain screenshots like it is doing now.
| bfors wrote:
| My company now blocks signal.org, it must be a nefarious tool
| meant for ill intent.
| habitue wrote:
| Continue to be happy to have deleted windows from all my
| computers, including for gaming. There are issues with closed
| source OSs in general, but microsoft has continually shown that
| they make bad decisions and just aren't trustworthy.
| vladms wrote:
| Gaming on Linux using steam works great for me. There are more
| games than I have time to play and I don't even need to worry
| how they work (emulation vs native) as I had to do many years
| ago.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm surprised that Signal isn't kicked out of the Windows app
| store for abusing DRM like that.
|
| (saying this as a Signal fan)
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Is it abuse? Are there rules about what sorts of media can and
| cannot be protected by DRM?
| contextfree wrote:
| Yeah, technically this seems like exactly a DRM scenario:
| Party A sends information to party B intended for use in a
| specific context, but wants to limit the risk of it being
| stored or forwarded for use by other parties or in other
| contexts.
| contact9879 wrote:
| Signal isn't in a Windows app store to be kicked out of, though
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| > If you're wondering why we're only implementing this on Windows
| right now, it's because the purpose of this setting is to protect
| your Signal messages from Microsoft Recall.
|
| To nitpick, that doesn't tell me why you're only implementing
| this now. That tells me why it's more important now, but it
| doesn't tell me why it wasn't good before now. But the word
| "only" suggests that there was a reason you didn't do this before
| now.
| notable_chuckle wrote:
| I think they mean only Windows as in 'Windows but not other
| platforms yet'. The wording is confusing.
| vel0city wrote:
| They do support this feature on other platforms though. It
| works on my Android phone.
| artimaeis wrote:
| I don't think they meant that 'only' in a temporal sense.
| Rather, they meant why that's the only platform they're
| implementing it on for the time being.
|
| > "If you're wondering why we're [not implementing this on
| other platforms right now] [...]"
| tasuki wrote:
| Yes sure. There isn't much a userland app can actually do if your
| OS wants to spy on you. I wonder why they spend their time on
| this?
|
| Meanwhile, Signal still requires a phone number to register and
| use. It's terrible: phone numbers are easy to lose, and not
| everyone has a phone number.
|
| I like the ideas behind the Session[0] messenger: create an
| account with _no authentication_ (no phone number, no email, no
| nothing), get a list-of-words-to-note-down, which allows you to
| access your account from any device. You get a UUID or something
| as your user id. Share that with a QR code or send a link over an
| existing channel to connect to someone.
|
| To me this seems way ahead of Signal. I'm not affiliated with
| Session and haven't actually persuaded anyone to start using it
| just yet, so I don't really know how it is in practice. But the
| UX of creating an account made me weep tears of joy and hope <3
|
| [0]: https://getsession.org/
| gruez wrote:
| >It's terrible: phone numbers are easy to lose
|
| At least in the US they're nearly impossible to lose because of
| phone number portability.
|
| >and not everyone has a phone number
|
| Most people do, not least because plenty of other services (eg.
| banks) require a phone number.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > At least in the US they're nearly impossible to lose
| because of phone number portability.
|
| If you miss a few payments, you'll be at risk of losing your
| phone number.
| gruez wrote:
| Is this a socioeconomic status thing? Cellphone plans are
| dirt cheap, on the order of $20-30 for a modest plan. I
| guess it's theoretically easier to lose than a free email
| plan, but I don't see either actually occurring.
| jajuuka wrote:
| This requires planning ahead for a disconnection though.
| Porting out your number requires the source number still
| be active.
|
| It's just so weird to require a paid service to access a
| free service. Why not just a free service like email that
| can be accessed via free wifi.
| ikmckenz wrote:
| Except for the fact that the security of Session is drastically
| worse than Signal.
|
| https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/
| https://soatok.blog/2025/01/20/session-round-2/
| DrillShopper wrote:
| > To me this seems way ahead of Signal. I'm not affiliated with
| Session and haven't actually persuaded anyone to start using it
| just yet, so I don't really know how it is in practice.
|
| Begone, fed.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| if signal tried to do something this bad themeselves, we wouldnt
| really be able to for it or switch to another client. Just
| another bad actor bitching about worse actors, huh?
| overgard wrote:
| Microsoft really seems out of control. Yesterday I noticed that
| OneDrive was turned on automatically (I've always been very clear
| about not turning it on). Which was incredibly shocking to me,
| that they'd just turn on uploading my data to the cloud on the
| sly. And of course, it's nearly impossible to turn off Edge
| loading things. I'm really on the verge of switching to Linux,
| it's getting too awful
| throitallaway wrote:
| I absolutely hate how Windows now basically forces you to sign
| in with a Microsoft ID in order to facilitate this kind of
| stuff. I just want a local system; I don't need all this online
| crap built into my desktop OS.
|
| For the last two decades or so I've been running Linux for
| everything (personal and work) except for gaming. I'm to the
| point of being sufficiently annoyed with Windows that I'm going
| to set up a Linux disk for gaming to see how that goes. I've
| used Wine etc. for gaming sporadically throughout the years.
| Recently that landscape has improved quite a bit thanks to
| Valve.
| coldpie wrote:
| Just do it, man. There will be some pains in the first year or
| two, but it's so, so much better on the other side.
| fschuett wrote:
| > "Take a screenshot every few seconds" legitimately sounds like
| a suggestion from a low-parameter LLM that was given a prompt
| like "How do I add an arbitrary AI feature to my operating system
| as quickly as possible in order to make investors happy?"
|
| No, actual AI is smarter than Microsoft managers, it seems:
|
| Here are some ideas for adding an arbitrary AI feature to your
| operating system quickly to make investors happy:
|
| - AI File Search: NLP for file/setting search (search files by
| NLP querying)
|
| - Auto Window Layouts: AI-suggested window organization ("coding
| mode", "research mode" depending on detected usage patterns)
|
| - Smart Notifications: automatic notification condensing to
| reduce clutter
|
| - AI Clipboard: Keeping a categorized clipboard paste based on
| content
|
| - Predictive App Launcher: Suggests apps based on daytime, usage,
| recently opened files
|
| - AI Wallpaper/Theme: Smart visual suggestions, i.e. wallpaper
| based on current weather, mood, etc.
|
| - Voice Quick Commands: AI-based voice OS control ("Open
| browser")
|
| - AI System optimization: for example, content-based disk space
| cleanup
|
| Any of the above are better than this nonsense.
| mmcnl wrote:
| I think this is quite strange, imo this is just virtue signalling
| / activism and much less about privacy. I install Signal on the
| Windows operating system on the computer I trust. If I wouldn't
| trust Windows, why would I install Signal? Also Recall is an opt-
| in feature, it's not spyware, that's simply FUD.
|
| Second, Apple is doing something similar except they send all
| your data to the cloud (yes I know Apple says private cloud, but
| there's no such thing). What's Signal's take on that?
|
| I respect their stance on privacy, but this doesn't feel like a
| rational decision to me.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Apple is doing something similar except they send all your
| data to the cloud
|
| They do? Since when?
| mmcnl wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/
|
| > Draws on your personal context without allowing anyone else
| to access your personal data -- not even Apple.
|
| Personal context === privacy sensitive data.
|
| > Apple Intelligence is designed to protect your privacy at
| every step. It's integrated into the core of your iPhone,
| iPad, and Mac through on-device processing. So it's aware of
| your personal information without collecting your personal
| information. And with groundbreaking Private Cloud Compute,
| Apple Intelligence can draw on larger server-based models,
| running on Apple silicon, to handle more complex requests for
| you while protecting your privacy.
|
| They can use nice sounding words such as "privacy at every
| step" and "protecting your privacy", but that's marketing.
| The facts are that Apple Intelligence is baked into the core
| of your iPhone for analyzing personal data and they send the
| data to the cloud.
| lurk2 wrote:
| Thanks.
| contextfree wrote:
| You might trust Windows and even actively want Recall and
| simply not want private Signal messages, specifically, to be
| captured by it. For the same reason that Recall already tries
| to exclude browsers in incognito mode, as mentioned by the
| article.
| mmcnl wrote:
| Yes, I can see why the feature would be valuable. But the
| blog post is an emotional rant against Recall. Signal is
| lacking a lot of valuable features, I doubt this is high on
| the list of most users, yet time and effort has been spent on
| it. If you don't want Recall, then don't use it.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| If only Recall had the option to configure which windows or
| apps to exclude. Wait. It does. Since announcement.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Unfortunately Apple is in $HN_GOOD_COMPANIES and Microsoft is
| in $HN_BAD_COMPANIES so facts don't matter, but yes Windows
| Recall is objectively more private than Apple Intelligence.
| bcoates wrote:
| Maybe I'm nuts, but I absolutely love timesnapper (the non-LLM
| predecessor of Recall, but the same screenshot every few seconds
| concept).
|
| I originally got it for it's main advertised function--making it
| easy to record hours for contract billing--but once I had it
| running I was hooked.
|
| It's just incredibly useful to be able to pull up what you were
| doing at any given moment, or how you did a particular thing, a
| few months after the fact.
|
| I haven't used Recall yet but hooking it up to a multimodal LLM
| seems like an obviously useful thing.
| j-bos wrote:
| Ha I love that DRM is being turned for protection of actual
| people instead of industry giants.
| DecentShoes wrote:
| No OS or app should be able to stop me taking screenshots. Not my
| phone, not my desktop. It's MY device. I should be able to take
| screenshots of whatever the hell I want.
| palata wrote:
| That's off-topic:
|
| 1. You can disable that feature in the Signal settings (they
| say it in the post)
|
| 2. They don't have another way because of Microsoft (they say
| it in the post)
|
| Did you read the post?
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| Second this. What's the point of this security aspect when
| everyone has their pocket cameras in their phones? This is
| nonsense.
|
| The same is true for spyware installed on employee computers.
| Google laptops will snitch on you if you even attempt to attach
| USB drive. While there is HDMI and KVMs, there is no point of
| having these restrictions.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > What's the point of this security aspect when everyone has
| their pocket cameras in their phones?
|
| It's not to stop the people from screenshotting. It's to stop
| the accidental exposure via some screenshot or some other
| mechanism.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Apps take screenshots all the time, e.g for crash reporting.
| Then they phone home with them. Most apps obviously ask
| politely when this happens but I'm sure there are exceptions.
| Not to mention malicious apps. There is no real security or
| isolation for screenshots that I'm aware of so app one will
| happily snap a picture of app two, without needing special
| permissions. That other app can be your password manager or
| baking browser tab. So apps explicitly opting into being in
| the picture is perhaps not such a bad idea.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| " To help mitigate this issue, we made the setting easy to
| disable (Signal Settings - Privacy - Screen security), but it's
| difficult to accidentally disable. Turning off "Screen
| security" in Signal Desktop on Windows 11 will always display a
| warning and require confirmation in order to continue."
| phildenhoff wrote:
| Are you upset about DRM in general? Or that Signal, by default,
| prevents Windows from capturing the Signal window when it
| screenshots the screen every few seconds?
|
| because it sounds like Windows is the problem here, doing this
| screenshotting at all. And Signal allows you to disable the
| anti-screenshotting measure
| exegete wrote:
| And I have the expectation that my OS not take constant
| screenshots of what I'm doing (Microsoft Recall), which is what
| this Signal feature is trying to prevent. You're welcome to
| turn the feature off so that Microsoft can store screenshots of
| your Signal chats.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| I agree with you, but this particular one seems to be a feature
| you can toggle off. It's a tradeoff between that said freedom
| and privacy.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| Does anyone else feel like Signal is acting like Recall is the
| only app that could record your screen on Windows? It seems like
| this is something they should have been stopping for a long time
| and they are finally addressing this loophole?
| nerdsniper wrote:
| The penetration of other apps that record your whole screen
| 24/7 is pretty low. Whereas this will be close to 100% of
| windows users.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| If you have to have this kind of monitoring on your OS, to
| circumvent spying on your apps, something is really wrong and you
| should probably take the nearest exit.
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