A long while starting with the Fenix rewrite in 2020. What's bizarre is they took a very tightly controlled approach to rolling out extensions instead of developing in the open and giving users the option to choose for themselves whether to use less stable features or untested extensions.
It was kind of bizarre; the attitude is more what I'd expect from Apple than an open source project. There was very little communication to the public about their reasoning, and what they did offer was pretty unsatisfying.
I'm not necessarily advising OP to swap keyswitches. I don't think that's a hot-swap keyboard, and they expressed no desire to solder.
I do, however think researching the switches available in factory or built-to-order keyboards could lead to better results. In this case, mimicking the feel of a Thinkpad T60 calls for something with a strong tactile bump and shorter travel than most mechanical keyswitches. O-rings can shorten travel.
I, too like the T60 keyboard enough that I built a Tex Shinobi with Durock Koala switches, which have a strong, early tactile bump that's a lot like the feel of the T60. I don't mind the longer travel or some clacking, so I haven't used any lube or O-rings.
Razer Blackwidow Stealth w/ rubber o-rings added to the base of each key, which I think is as non-clackety as a mechanical gets.
It isn't. A web search says this uses Cherry MX Brown switches, which are pretty average in terms of noise. Here are some switches more focused on minimizing noise:
Outemu Boba U4 - a quiet switch with a strong tactile bump (MX Browns have a weak tactile bump)
Healios v2 - a linear switch (smooth, no bump) designed to be very quiet
Cherry MX Silent Red - a quiet linear switch you might actually find in a factory keyboard rather than something custom or DIY
At least two of the three use rubber pads inside to minimize noise.
I think even something like Drip is not sufficient in this kind of situation. If the police can compel someone to unlock their phone and decrypt data, then being local-only won't stop them. Of course it's a lot easier to ensure that no data exists if it's local-only and something happens that might attract the interest of the police.
Nothing in this comment should be construed as legal advice.
He heard Trump describing migrants as criminals and asylum seekers as frauds and thought that couldn't possibly be describing his workers, who are not criminals or frauds.
He didn't stop to consider that the characterization was a lie.
I suppose the distinctions between the OS and "just an app" are blurred on any OS. One might argue anything that isn't the kernel is just userland software on conventional Linux.
On Android, anything a third party could deliver without system or root privileges is "just an app". That includes keyboards, launchers, messaging apps, image editors, and smarthome device managers, but not direct management of network connections, notifications, or direct interaction with other apps (i.e. outside of intents or over the network).
If you've used an Android device with root access, you've seen things that fail this test. Anything that needs root to work can't be delivered to most Android users unless it's part of the OS or a system app.
I'm not sure what the best answer to that is. I don't think it's forcing Google to improve its search results.
I want it to be the average person gaining a baseline level of computer and media literacy such that they seek out and find apps that cannot send sensitive data to third parties without the user's clear intent, but I don't think we'll ever get there.
If a result like this was found in a swing state, I'd be sure it was malicious. In New York, that seems improbable. Someone clever enough to conduct the attack is unlikely to be stupid enough to employ it in a way that creates an obvious anomaly without changing the result.
The launcher is, but not everything new in Android 16 could be just an app. The new desktop mode, for example likely requires much deeper integration with the OS.
Would the cops come beating my door down claiming I had an abortion? 🤔
I don't think that has happened starting from a period tracking app yet. There was a case involving an unencrypted messaging app used to discuss a criminalized abortion.
They probably don't know about it. If I search "period tracker" on Google Play, Drip is in about 40th place in the results. That's several screens down, past a bunch of search suggestions, and the parts where it's open source, on-device, and optionally encrypted aren't clear until I tap on it and read the description.
And you probably can’t even get drip on iPhones.
There's some irony in a comment dealing with people making decisions that are against their interests because they're insufficiently informed speculating incorrectly about something like this when it's easy to check. Drip is, in fact available for iPhone.
Google is concerned with its own interests and only behaves as if it's concerned with anyone else's when there's a perceived benefit to Google.
There's a chance the preferences of some app developers were a contributing factor for Google, but I'm convinced it was about reigning in OEMs more than anything else. Your comment cites fragmentation, and there were things like Fire Phone from Amazon that didn't ship with Google services. Fire Phone failed because it wasn't good, but if Amazon had iterated on it or someone else had done a better job, it might have taken a big chunk out of Google's Android profits.
excluding legitimate users
I hate this framing.
I'm generally disappointed there wasn't more outcry about Google creating a remote attestation scheme. Microsoft proposed one for PCs a decade earlier and the New York Times called it out as a corporate power grab. I'm not sure if there was a general shift in thinking, if people thought about phones differently from PCs, or if Google had enough of that "don't be evil" glow people didn't question it.
I don't love the term "sideloading". It sounds like something more nerdy and less normal that just installing software from a source of the user's choice.
No, I don't think it's likely Google will try to prevent it. That would violate the DMA in the EU, and several other jurisdictions have moved toward forcing Apple to allow software installation outside its app store. Between that and antitrust lawsuits in the USA, I think it's very unlikely Google wants to attract more scrutiny from regulators.
But for that you have to blame Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Disney, a lot of banks, a lot of games for using what is basically DRM for apps.
I don't think those entities had the leverage to force Google to add remote attestation to Android. Safetynet didn't show up until 2014 when Android was already established enough that not being on Android wasn't a realistic option for any of them.
Instead, I think it was mainly a move by Google to make it so any OEM shipping a fork of Android without Google's blessing would have angry users because some of their apps wouldn't run.
A long while starting with the Fenix rewrite in 2020. What's bizarre is they took a very tightly controlled approach to rolling out extensions instead of developing in the open and giving users the option to choose for themselves whether to use less stable features or untested extensions.
It was kind of bizarre; the attitude is more what I'd expect from Apple than an open source project. There was very little communication to the public about their reasoning, and what they did offer was pretty unsatisfying.