I always hear this accusation of people treating politics like sports, but what do you want? It's a FPTP system, which favors entrenching two parties. In order to maintain the backing (funding, importantly) of one of those two parties, candidates can't fall too far out of line. If you can't get your outsider preferred candidate above 50%, considering there is also likely another main-party candidate with significant policy overlap, you get nothing.

If you want to reduce the spectacle, replace FPTP with a better system that eliminates the need for primaries, and get rid of Citizens United. Good luck.

The one that seems to be working is to treat the system as two-round like the French presidential elections and do the work in the primaries. Worked for Mamdani.

Assuming it is "briefly" and not indefinitely. See: cloudflare, excessive js, etc.

Yes, exactly. Google products working worse on Firefox is a problem with Google, not Firefox. I'm not sure why the conflict of interest isn't more obvious.

It doesn't seem to have gone moldy considering how many people have installed it in recent time.

That's a tangential issue.

1. don't force auto-updates

2. still review apps uploaded to Google Play, but don't force users to use Google Play

If the concern is what if users use an alternate source for apps and those have viruses, then.... okay. If the user wants to stay with strictly Google-vetted apps, they can. If desired, you could have an option on setup that users could choose to select that would put the device in a restricted mode that can only use apps installed from Google Play.

But the motivation here isn't just security, it's control. Google doesn't want anyone to have an Android device that is independent of Google services.

> If the concern is what if users use an alternate source for apps and those have viruses, then.... okay. If the user wants to stay with strictly Google-vetted apps, they can. If desired, you could have an option on setup that users could choose to select that would put the device in a restricted mode that can only use apps installed from Google Play.

So this doesn't solve the issue pointed in the OP.

> don't force auto-updates

I'm sure everyone would love non-technical people to stay behind dozens of security patches for apps they may use everyday because they forgot to press update.

> I'm sure everyone would love non-technical people to stay behind dozens of security patches for apps they may use everyday because they forgot to press update.

this is identifying the tension yeah, but if a review process regularly takes weeks or months, then the security patches are still missing

>So this doesn't solve the issue pointed in the OP.

Yes it does. This is their point:

> The fact that we cannot download and install software from the internet onto our phones JUST like we can do with our computers is a symbol of our inept and ineffective politicians.

It should be as easy for me to use an alternate storefront - or download directly from a site - straight to my phone. The googleplay store, which is (somewhat) curated and (generally) "safer" can also exist. I, as a user, get to decide which path I want to take. This is literally no different from my desktop and laptop, we already live this life. MacOS allows me to download .dmg files and install (though they are admittedly getting increasingly annoying/friction-y about it) at my own risk. Why should my phone be any different? It’s a small computer. That’s it.

It’s about user choice. It’s my hardware, so I can do with it what I want so long as I’m not using it to inflict harm on others.

> It’s my hardware

I mean, probably not technically due to some EULA you were forced to sign which says the hardware is actually Google/samsung/etc and not yours. Giving them the right to brick your phone the moment you step out of the bounds they define.

We really need some sort of open firmware legislation that mandates manufacturers of computer components need to opensource their drivers and firmware. There's no "special sauce" in that software that warrants a company being able to keep it secret. It's literally just so they can force you to purchase new devices when they get bored of supporting their old devices.

Agree, what I'm saying is "it is mine and we should treat it as mine, same as my laptop/desktop." We both agree the current status quo is not that, I'm saying what it should be.

I remember using Waterfox in the past, I think because they were keeping an old UI. Is that the draw over Librewolf?

For me the draw is that Waterfox has partnerships in order to provide funding so if/when Mozilla truly loses the thread (which some may argue they have) WF can keep going on its own, whereas the Librewolf devs have stated that if push comes to shove they can't maintain an entire browser themselves.

waterfox is downstream of firefox and can't meaningfully match mozilla's maintenance of the core browser

librewolf devs are just more honest about it

Has WF said as much?

I don't know about that. When I hear people reference "Google" it seems to me they do mean Google. Similar with "Claude".

We’ve got the whole post to parse, though.

The idea is obviously applicable to other search engines.

People still use “Google” as a synonym for “online search.”

Yes, and IME it also is true that "online search" means in fact google.com. And there's no distinction for search results and reading the google AI summary.

>Unplugging the DCM entirely, however, seems to disable to right speaker, which is wired through the DCM for some reason.

I'm cynical, but unnecessarily coupling the ability to send telemetry with some feature people definitely want seems like exactly the sort of thing that would be done intentionally.

I always try to use browser versions of things, but zoom just hasn't worked for me in it for changes. No error messages or anything, just insistence on downloading the app. I assumed they got rid of it but I guess not.

The link is just smaller, and I think the text is now something to the effect of "Can't Download App" or similar.

Why do you say negative? My impression is that it has zero value to them.

"zero value" would be neutral. Eg, if you tell someone, "Try DuskDozerIM, let's message on there! I like this thing where doubletapping the emojis plays a fun random little animation". Then maybe this is "zero value" to them and their response would be "whatever, sure, let's try it".

What I'm saying is if you go, "Try DuskDozerIM, let's message on there! It's private and secure, the government and large ad companies and data brokers can't read your messages and harvest your data" then you evoque a feeling of suspicion (negative value) and their response will be "look, I already have like a thousand apps, I don't really want one more".

One additional way you can confirm this hypothesis is that almost everybody has given WhatsApp access to { all contacts ; all notifications ; all permissions } but if you sell them Signal with the "privacy/security" angle and watch them install it, you will notice they hesitate for a sec and then reply "no" to contacts, notifications and permissions, as if they're suddenly trying to inhabit the conspiracy-theorist-cum-privacy-activist mindset. Which they're uncomfortable with, and don't like. Negative value.