That’s why you can’t just use the version as a string. You need to use the API which correctly uses string length as a tie breaker.

You can get a pass till July 2025 by creating/setting a registry key that they made for businesses.

Paste this in a .reg file and double click it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome]
"ExtensionManifestV2Availability"=dword:00000002

I’m surprised and happy that SUSE is still doing well. I have fond memories of using SUSE in the enterprise especially around their “perfect guest” campaign for using it in virtualized environments. I thought they had very well-baked integration with large Windows networks—things just worked out of the box that didn’t with RHEL. I’m sure a lot has changed in the last decade but I appreciated their cooperative stance in the enterprise.

I use Adguard, vinegar and baking soda, but wasn’t aware of Wipr. I might give it a try as a replacement for Adguard. Glad you mentioned it.

I’m not an Apple apologist, but I feel there are some things Apple does that are privacy focused.

• The ability to E2EE encrypt iCloud is a very simple privacy feature that is accessible to the technical and non-technical alike.
• Private relay provides a double VPN architecture that doesn’t cause constant captcha hell and again just works for non-technical people.
• Hide my email, while not being perfect, is a pretty straightforward method to make throwaway email addresses.

The things I hate about Apple are generally not privacy related.

• They are a mega-corporation that stifles innovation
• They don’t allow other browsers
• They are puritanical about what is allowed in the App store

I really enjoy Apple products, but this is my biggest peeve. It’s not like I cannot manage without a different browser—certainly about half of americans primarily use Safari—but the flexibility and customization of Firefox or chromium would be very welcome.

I’ve moved to WinPE for its immutability.

Most Apple services can be encrypted including iCloud. Basically email and calendaring are not covered.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651#advanced

If you set it up as “advanced” then only you hold the recovery keys.

If you have an easy way to make emails on the fly like Apple’s hide my email feature then it really isn’t an issue to setup accounts with unique email addresses. Some sites don’t allow throw away emails from some providers, but I’ve never had that issue with Apples version since a ban on icloud.com emails would eliminate too many customers.

I have Server 2022 with a GUI installed on my laptop because it lets me use all the server features, play Windows games that use DRM and not spend time messing around with getting linux to run on a laptop. I have Linux on the laptop, but running inside VMs.

I still don’t want copilot installed. I can confirm it is installed on my Windows Server 2022 laptop. I don’t see any entry points on the desktop or start menu. I haven’t checked Edge yet.

I wonder if copilot is released to all update channels or if it is only on a subset?

I don’t even see a link. Though I guess I should look inside Microsoft Edge.

Edit: I cannot find anyway to get to it in either the desktop or Edge. I do not have a signed in Microsoft account on this machine, so that may be why I don’t see it. I’m not willing to sign in to see.

109 devices per capita? I just walked through the house looking at what my partner and I have that plugs in. We don’t have 109 together. And it isn’t like I we don’t have stuff. Mesh wifi routers, camping gear. Heck we even have a refrigerator. What do people collect?

It could be they are collecting and hiding the data, but what they publicly disclose they have certainly varies. My de-google-fication really started when I used google takeout (like the OP here). Excluding things I wanted backed up (e.g. photos), Google still had more than a GB of textual data (this was 7 years ago or so—my memory may be wrong). I use Apple a lot so I went to their “takeout” page. They had a few MB of data pretty much all of which I considered innocuous. I don’t think they are equivalent.

I do agree Facebook probably collects as much data as Google, but I gave that up long ago.

It’s Google’s name for a service that lets you download all the data Google has on your account. If you google google takeout it should get you to the page.

This is a very nice piece that had so much information I did not know. Toward the top of the article I was wishing for footnotes, references or something that would indicate it was not just your opinion, but as I got further into the piece you provided so many great references. I thought the calculator manuals were particularly accessible and convincing. Thanks for a great read!

The city I live in has two big box stores. One has a retired plumber in the plumbing section. I’ll drive further to go to that one and wait patiently for his advice.

Well if you put it like that I just want it more…

I so wish someone would make a cleaned up version that uses something like Podman and better conventions. Honestly, it needs to be a wiki like document that is slowly updated, improved and even varied. Because when I look at these comments I lose faith in implementing the original post.

Damn, giving me flashbacks of slowly moving through ACLs then hitting domain groups, domain local groups, global groups, then eventually universal groups as AD moved forward in complex situations.

Got to admit it worked well though.

Contemplated it, but dealing with infrastructure bores me. So I think I will just put up with the ad and the lowered expectations.