Mikina @ Mikina @programming.dev

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5

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482

Joined

2 yr. ago

Exactly. To me, this explanation sounds like they'll just magically estimate the numbers without really being able to prove it. And that sucks.

However, we can be sure that developers will have their own analytics, that are probably way more accurate and they know exactly how many people have played or installed their game. And I'm betting that this number will be a lot smaller than the Unity "estimation", and people will get even more angry.

Their CEO is the guy who was leading Electronic Arts when it was voted the worst company of the year, implemented first lootboxes and who was openly suggesting to charge people real money per reload.

You are not wrong.

John Riccitiello is an American business executive who is chief executive officer (CEO) of Unity Technologies. Previously, he served as CEO, chief operating officer and president of Electronic Arts...

I see a lot of people mentioning that you should just switch to Firefox, but if you're doing that because of privacy, you will not be off that much better by doing just that - unless you fiddle with the settings and get a custom user.js, such as this one, that properly hardens it and a few extenstions, such as Decentraleyes, Cookie Auto Delete or ClearURLs.

But it can get annoying, so instead I'd recommend giving LibreWolf a try. From my experience it works pretty much out of the box, and for the few settings that may be annoying to you they have a quick guide about how to disable them.

But even better than that, I'd recommend giving Mullvad Browser a try. It's basically a clear-net version of Tor Browser, and so far I haven't heard anything negative about them. I also really like their idea about pairing a VPN service (that's optional) with a browser, so now you have exactly the same browser fingerprint as any other user using the same VPN (as long as you don't add any extensions), which will make you more resistant even to the more advanced fingerprinting techniques, since there's basically no way how to tell all of the users of the VPN apart. Some more info and reasoning, along with more recommendations, can be found at https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/#mullvad-browser

I've recently started using Mullvad, and was using LibreWolf as my daily browser, so now I'm switching between them randomly. I do run into issued from time to time, mostly because of 3rd party requests or auto-deleted cookies when leaving a domain, which can break some kind of cross-site flows. But whenever there's an issue, I just quickly fire up Brave to do that one task. But all things considered it's an amazing experience, so I do recommend giving some of them a try.

Cries in game dev

No, seriously. I've tried getting Unity to work on Linux once, and gave up after few hours of random crashes, bugs or errors. And I never even got to building the game, which I'm sure would be an entirely different adventure that would still in the end require to reboot to Windows and try the build there.

Also, getting O365 to work on Linux was another reason why I eventually gave up, since our company is simply a Windows-based, and the web apps are just too cubersome to use. And for alternative clients you usually need an app password (disabled in our domain) or another setting that you don't want to enable for 95% of your employees, since it's just a security risk in the wrong hands.

Oh, and then there are VPNs. I never managed to get Checkpoint mobile working on Linux, without it also requiring intervention from IT to enable some obscure configuration or protocol support.

It's a shame, but every attempt I made to switch ended exactly the same - after few days of running into "make sure to enable this config on the server side" or "if you don't see that option in the settings, contact your system administrator" for every tool I need for my job, I just gave up.

But I'm considering it giving it another try, and just go with the Unix + Windows VM for administrative tasks. But knowing myself, just the small hurdle of "having to spin up a VM" would be a reason to postpone and not do it properly, since that's additional effort... And then there's still the gamedev I do part-time, where I simply don't believe it's a good idea - after all, given the states the engines are in, it's a recipe for disaster of "works on my machine but not in build" or "doesn't work on my machine"...

It's one of those tools that can both be used on a resume or as a diagnosis. I love it!

Do I understand it right that what the tool does is include install scripts in all of the other languages, that simply download a portable Deno runtime and then run the rest of the file (which is the original Javascript code) as Javascript?

So, you basically still have an install step, but it was just automated to work cross-platform though what's basically a polyglot install script. Meaning that this could probably be done with almost any other language, assuming it has a portable runtime - such as portable python and similar, is that correct?

Oh, you're right, I've totally forgotten about that. It was one of the (many) reasons why I gave up my last attempt to finally switch away from windows and to Linux.

Who wants to be consistent? The dullard and the doctrinaire, the tedious people who carry out their principles to the bitter end of action, to the reductio ad absurdum of practice. Not I. Like Emerson, I write over the door of my library the word ‘Whim.’

From Intentions, by Oscar Wilde. It's one of my favorite books, all of the essays there are amazing, I definitely recommend anyone giving it a read.

A single razor blade for a safety razor costs like 20 cents, I see no reason why not change it for every shave.

Switching from that disposable expensive trash to a simple safety razor has been one of the best things I've done in my life. The blades are super cheap and really sharp, and using the shaving brush with a shaving soap also saves a lot of money compared to the overpriced shaving cream, while also smelling and feeling way better.

So, I really recommend getting a kit from something like https://maggardrazors.com/collections/kits . Their blade has lasted me for a few years by now, and it's so much better. Cheaper, cleaner and way closer shave than I was ever able to do with disposables.

From how I understand it, in Veilid everyone is both and entry, relay and an exit node - there's no distinction. Because you have to have exit nodes - the communication has to go though somewhere, so the receiving server will always know the IP of the last node (the exit one). It just has to go through somewhere. The whole main point of TOR (and Veiled, which seems based on the same thing) is that since you go through three nodes, each node can tell where is the request coming from, and where to send it. So the server doesn't know where did the request came from, but knows the IP of the exit node.

The issue is that if they bust someone for doing illegal shit, your IP may be investigated. They don't know what communication came from you, but something may have, since just by using veiled, you become an exit node. Or I'm misunderstanding it, but that's what I understood from the description.

I've never had any issues, it's pretty well optimized and it's miles ahead of TeamViewer. So, in my experience, it is pretty fast - if your net can handle it. And if you have lower bandwidth then it's pretty good at optimizing for speed instead of quality, if that's what you want.

Someone will most likely create a fork to remove this or an option to disable it will probably be baked into about:config.

But that's the issue - if WEI passes, EVERY webpage will be able to use DRM. So, just like you have to switch to Chromium for DRMed media content, you will now have to switch for every website that has decided to implement it. So, your bank (because google is pushing it as a security feature), Youtube, Gmail... Just like you are not able to play DRM media, you won't be able to visit DRMed websites without WEI API supported. It's not something you turn off.

Mozilla won’t implement WEI

They are going to fight against WEI. Tooth and nails, for our sakes!

Just like they did with EME, the closed source video DRM in 2014. By being deeply concerned with the direction the web is going, and definitely against it, but...

We face a choice between a feature our users want and the degree to which that feature can be built to embody user control and privacy.

With most competing browsers and the content industry embracing the W3C EME specification, Mozilla has little choice but to implement EME as well so our users can continue to access all content they want to enjoy.

Despite our dislike of DRM, we have come to believe Firefox needs to provide a mechanism for people to watch DRM-controlled content.

DRM requires closed systems to operate as currently required and is designed to remove user control, so Mozilla is taking steps to find alternative solutions to DRM. But Mozilla also believes that until an alternative system is in place, Firefox users should be able to choose whether to interact with DRM in order to watch streaming videos in the browser.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/drm-and-the-challenge-of-serving-users/

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/

Add-ons are a pretty huge security risk, though. Someone was just posting an article about how tempting it is to sell out with your extension, and how many offers you actually get.

And I've already been burned once, and it's not pretty. Also nothing you can do against this.

The best solution is actually not Firefox, but Mullvad. No need for extensions, based on Tor Browser and can be bundled with a VPN that's full of other people using the same browser - so you have exactly the same fingerprint, and they can't tell you apart. Not by extensions, not by IP.

Unfortunately, if you have properly set up Firefox, i.e with arkenfox user.js or by using Librewolf, it doesn't work :/ It still blocks adds without issues, but it's not visiting them.

Or if you're running PiHole - same issue. Is there a way how to make PiHole actually go though all those clicks? I guess it would be hard to figure out what's an ad and what's telemetry.

That's why I'm avoiding any extension I know I really don't need.

I've already burned myself once, when Nano Defender sold out and turned into a cookie-stealing malware. By the time it was one of few adblockers that were not being blocked by adblock killers. They've pushed a malware update through the Chrome web store, and started exploiting stolen cookies immediately.

It was a difficult day, where I had to explain to few of my exes that someone hacked their Instagram account due to an ad-blocker I've set up for them when we were dating few years ago.

I love this quote, it exactly sums up my sentiments.

I'm actually looking forward to it, because it will finally force me to go cold turkey on so many bullshit websites I don't need in my life anyway, which I was never able to do on my own, because the addiction simply is there. But not as strong ans my hatred of fingerprinting and advertisements.

We know how it will impact Firefox. They will be deeply concerned with WEI and extremely opposing it, but will implement it anyway because they are forced to do it.

It's going to go exactly like this. Again.

With most competing browsers and the content industry embracing the W3C EME WEI specification, Mozilla has little choice but to implement EME WEI as well so our users can continue to access all content they want to enjoy.

And that is almost a direct quote.

Been there, done that. Spoiler alert, it ends with even more people switching to chromium, Mozilla crying that it's deeply concerned with and extremely opposing WEI and will work on figuring out a better solution, because WEI is not what Open Web should be, but is being forced to implement it, because people are switching to other browsers because their shit ain't working.

I wager the post on Mozilla's blog is going to read something like this blog-post about EME (the closed-source video DRM) from few years back. I mean, you can just replace EME with WEI and be done with it. Because this has already happened once before, and we know how exactly it will end.

With most competing browsers and the content industry embracing the W3C EME WEI specification, Mozilla has little choice but to implement EME WEI as well so our users can continue to access all content they want to enjoy.