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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Ad blockage (by vmc on 2025-01-06 02:30:04 GMT from United States)
I use uBlock Origin to block adds. Also Ghostery.
2 • Re: Filtering ads with a pi-hole (by NewUser on 2025-01-06 02:32:10 GMT from Canada)
It seems the problem with online advertising and dangers to privacy are about to get a lot worse.
See:
https://dailygalaxy.com/2024/12/say-goodbye-to-your-privacy-googles-terrifying-move-will-track-your-devices-like-never-before/
Also, see the following re Apple Siri Spy Lawsuit:
https://apnews.com/article/apple-siri-iphone-lawsuit-settlement-9b8ab3e079ae6962435f38eddb937b39
https://apnews.com/article/apple-iphone-siri-settlement-what-to-know-3a543c8f31256b03897cdeaca4cd9b3f
The problem isn't just on your personal devices. "Smart" refridgerators can reveal a lot about you to advertisors as Iot devices hooked up to the web.
Consider automobiles. Manufacturers such as Tesla and (I think it was) Volkswagon, have been found to track not only your driving patterns (speed, braking, etc.), but also your exact location (via GPS), and possibly even conversations held within the car.
Then you have countrues like China and Russia employing armies of hackers to collect anything and everything about us. While true that Western Nations also "spy" on us, they aren't likely to try and bring down critical infrastructure, and target individuals.
It appears it will take more than a pi-hole and a tin hat to protect us in future.
There are websites such as arstechnica, bleeping computer, etc. that cover these things in more depth.
Meanwhile, I'm off to film my latest horror movie successor to 1984 and Brave new Worlds based on the above. Release expected, oh, about Halloween 2025.
Oh, and don't think I can't see you shuddering in your seat through that (spy)cam that comes supplied on all yor laptops and phones, tablets, etc.
3 • ad blocking (by davew on 2025-01-06 02:40:28 GMT from United States)
The Brave browser does a reasonable job of blocking ads.
4 • God forbid for the first battleships entrapment also acting as it seemed me good people into some (by Madelin Mangersnes on 2025-01-06 02:41:36 GMT from Belgium)
God forbid for the first battleships entrapment also acting as it seemed me good people into some
5 • Ad Blocking (by NewUser2 on 2025-01-06 02:54:15 GMT from Canada)
I believe the only possible response to the information provided by NewUser (see:
https://dailygalaxy.com/2024/12/say-goodbye-to-your-privacy-googles-terrifying-move-will-track-your-devices-like-never-before/
is complete degooglefication. I first began using Google back in 1999 when it had the business motto "Do No Evil" and was in competition with a range of other web search engines.
I think we are witnessing the complete "Enshitification" of the Internet and the present danger is the technopolists actively developing and implementing a technototalitarian "1984".
The only way to prevent this and send a "Do No Evil" message to Google is to avoid the use or purchase of any Google service or device. I am presently doing exactly that which is one of the reasons I have been moving all of my devices to open source to avoid that other great font of "Enshitiifcation" MSFT.
Best wishes to all for the New Year!
6 • @5 NewUser2??? (by NewUser on 2025-01-06 03:56:00 GMT from Canada)
NewUser2 (TWO) ?????
And ALSO in Canada?
I think I've been cloned!
Knew I shouldn't have sent those DNA samples to ancestry.com....
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/hackers-stole-ancestry-data-of-6-9-million-users-23andme-finally-confirmed/
7 • Elementary... (by Plasma-fanatic on 2025-01-06 03:57:10 GMT from United States)
I've always been unimpressed with this distro. I've checked it out a few times over the years and I really don't like anything about it. It's as if someone tried gnome and thought "Linux needs this, but more! Extreme gnome!" As a KDE adherent I find this approach at odds with all that is good about Linux.
I recently tried this latest offering from the alleged humans at Elementary and couldn't even get it to boot once it appeared to install correctly. This on a machine that currently houses a few dozen distros and is extremely Linux-friendly hardware-wise. I could have tried to fix it but prior experience made it easy to simply blow it away and try something else (in this case the latest rawhide KDE, which installed AND booted and seems fine). Life's too short for ElementaryOS taming...
I liked this review a lot - the point about which distros get used by their developers was one I hadn't ever really considered but makes a lot of sense. There needs to be more dog food-ing if you ask me. Corporations are inherently evil, yet in this country have the same rights as people in too many ways. Plus they have big gobs of cash to throw at "problems" rather than actually fix or prevent them.
8 • pi-hole useful for restrictive devices (by J.D. Laub on 2025-01-06 04:24:36 GMT from United States)
Having a router point to pi-hole for the network's DNS helps when you aren't given the ability to set DNS on individual devices. E.g. I can definitely tell the difference between the Roku running at my home - which has a router that uses pi-hole - vs unfiltered locations.
9 • Why-Hole? (by IKnowOnlyOnePersonWithAPi-Hole on 2025-01-06 05:38:47 GMT from United States)
What is the benefit of a pi-hole compared to a custom /etc/hosts file and an ad blocker like uBlock Origin?
It requires dedicated hardware, even if only a SBC, at great cost. It needs to be constantly powered and turned on, at additional cost and risk of fire. And it is a much bigger pain to edit the filter list and hunt down the guilty rule, whenever a website you actually need, gets blocked or broken by it again.
Seems like a huge pain that will inevitable cause issues. But then I've never tried it myself, and know only a single person who has.
10 • Re: Ad Blocking (by NewUser2 on 2025-01-06 02:54:15 GMT from Canada) (by Pumpino on 2025-01-06 05:45:35 GMT from Australia)
@5. How does avoiding Google work on your phone?
I once experimented with using my android phone within being logged into my Google account. I only installed opensource apps from F-droid, etc. It starts off feeling good until you find limitations with the opensource apps or you can no longer use your phone for banking, to access your solar inverter or to see the game schedule for your kid's basketball. The opensource map app I used didn't compare to Maps or Waze, so one is left with the dilemma of privacy vs. reduced functionality.
11 • Absolute (by grindstone on 2025-01-06 06:01:53 GMT from United States)
Thanks to Mr. Paul Sherman (very good example of a man who ate his own dogfood) for all the years of Absolute and thanks to Jesse for mentioning it.
12 • The benefit of a single Pi-Hole (by UdoB on 2025-01-06 07:16:14 GMT from Germany)
@9 "What is the benefit of a pi-hole compared to a custom /etc/hosts file and an ad blocker like uBlock Origin?"
You install it ONCE, tell your already present gateway with the LAN-wide, "upstream" resolver setting to use it and then... ALL fourtytwo devices in your home use it. Without individual configuration of those devices - which would be tedious and error prone.
:-)
13 • Pihole (by Weg on 2025-01-06 07:22:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ran pihole for at least five years. Works great.
14 • RE:@5. How does avoiding Google work on your phone? (by NewUser2 on 2025-01-06 07:31:05 GMT from Canada)
One word - Huawei
15 • @14, Avoiding Google? (by Tasio on 2025-01-06 09:19:37 GMT from Philippines)
"One word - Huawei" Don't know how that works. Huawei was on its way to passing Samsung and was stopped on its tracks by "degooglefication' along with denial of 5g chips. So, to be useful outside China, there's an app in the Huawei App Gallery to install Google Play. Then you need to sign in to both. So now you're handing over your data to one corporation in China and another in the US. That's not what I'd call an improvement. I wear a Huawei watch, and have their App Gallery installed on my phone so I can pair. Their gallery does not have any of the apps I need, so Google it is for me. They are welcome to all my porn.
16 • Pi-hole (by Barnabyh on 2025-01-06 09:56:25 GMT from South Africa)
Tried that a long time ago and ran into the same issues Jesse did.
In the end it is just easier to run a combination of ABP or uBlock and a hosts file. Even just a good hosts file from one of the trusted sources will do.
On top of that I'm typically running everything through a VPN with malware and ad-blocking enabled. Any of these measures alone would be enough.
The VPN itself is basically doing what Pi-hole would be doing. Install that on your router and you're also done for the entire home.
Shame about Absolute Linux, used it for a while in the 11 and 12 days. It is joining Ultima Linux as a much missed Slackware derivative. However, it's tools didn't always work well for me and one can always install Slackware itself which is better, or antiX for a nice IceWM / JWM desktop.
17 • To Pi-Hole or not to Pi-Hole (by Mark B on 2025-01-06 10:00:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
It seems an odd choice to evaluate Pi-Hole on something as obscure as a Pinephone when a Pi would have been a more logical choice, bringing with it none of the problems of deleting dependencies etc.
I tried Pi-Hole on a Pi4 and quite liked it. Then I read an article suggesting AdGuard was a better choice so I tried that too. That worked well but I didn't really want to tie up a perfectly good Pi4 just to block ads'. Then I found you can simply set up your router to use AdGuard's DNS servers to block ads network-wide, so that's what I do now - no extra hardware needed. Here is the URL for anyone wanting to give that a try: https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
In use, I've found that when watching some UK TV channels on catch-up with a Fire Stick, the ad breaks are either shorter or non-existent, which is a bonus. Weirdly, I can't seem to rid myself of ads on my old Kindle Fire or my Android phone. Perhaps someone knows why that is. Browsing Distrowatch's site on my Kindle gives me pages festooned with ads which is a PITA.
18 • elementary still not upgradeble (by gr84 on 2025-01-06 10:01:31 GMT from Germany)
I tried elementary a couple of times and I always found it even more limiting than gnome, from the lack of extensions to the way to theme the desktop.
but the deal breaker for me is the inability to upgrade between major versions.
I had a Debian workstation being upgrade for decades between versions (moved to Mint last year to get a more update base for work reasons), and a Fedora laptop upgraded for 4-5 major versions without issues (I reinstalled only when I switched from XFS to BTRFS).
elementary is an ubuntu lts at its core, so upgrading should be part of the ubuntu heritage. it's frustrating.
19 • How about a Tuxedo? (by Mark B on 2025-01-06 10:09:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
@18
Have you had a look at TuxedoOS? I tried it in Virtualbox and thought it was terrific. Based on Ubuntu LTS, KDE Plasma desktop (so highly tweakable) and no snaps in sight. If it was a rolling release, it would be just about perfect. And as an added bonus it's from Germany.
20 • Elementary OS (by Pete B on 2025-01-06 10:39:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Tried this a couple of times as it looks very Mac like. Version 6 and 7 booted fine but 8 wouldn't boot on my old iMac. Installed Spiral Linux and have no regrets.
21 • Pi-Hole (by James on 2025-01-06 10:52:10 GMT from United States)
I tend to keep my pi-hole closed unless I am filling it.
That said I use privacy badger.
22 • Ad Blocking (by Alan on 2025-01-06 10:55:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
MX Linux has the antix Advert Blocker tool built in. Click on settings in the applications menu to set it up. It uses your /etc/hosts file.
I use this in conjunction with adblocking on Firefox.
23 • Blocking Adverts (by picamanic on 2025-01-06 11:26:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Firefox and /etc/hosts: as I understand things, Firefox does not honour /etc/hosts [by default], so uBlock Origin [or similar] is needed to block adverts. If using other web browsers, or on non-desktop computers, /etc/hosts and/or pi-hole may be needed. If the latter, Raspberry Pi5 can be purchased for way less than 100 £ or $. In 25 years, I have never seen an advert that I did not request.
24 • Blazing inferno (by Appalachian on 2025-01-06 11:27:34 GMT from United States)
@9: "...risk of fire"? Can't say that I've ever had a piece of gear go up in flames. That sort of thing happen a lot to you?
25 • Device (by Jesse on 2025-01-06 11:40:12 GMT from Canada)
@17: "It seems an odd choice to evaluate Pi-Hole on something as obscure as a Pinephone when a Pi would have been a more logical choice, bringing with it none of the problems of deleting dependencies etc"
This doesn't make any sense. The hardware won't make any different in how the Pi-hole works. The Pinand PinePhone are both ARM-powered devices running similar operating systems (both members of the Debian family). The removal script would still try to remove the same packages.
The Pi-hole scripts will operate the same,regardless of whether you run them on a spare laptop, a Pi, or other device.
26 • Device (by Mark B on 2025-01-06 11:50:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
@25
It makes perfect sense if you aren't wanting to break something. If you install Pi-Hole on a Pi and find it's not for you, you wipe the SD card. It's that simple. Millions of people have Pis, almost nobody has a PinePhone. What you did was niche in the extreme. You are highly intelligent, you already know this. And show the part in my post where I said Pi-Hole would work differently. I stand by what I wrote.
27 • Fire hazard? (by uz64 on 2025-01-06 11:52:59 GMT from United States)
You're really citing risk of fire as a reason to *not* set up a second computer to act as network proxy/filtering device? Do you also traditionally cut out the router and run just a modem, because having that one additional computer lying around acting as a NAT firewall and providing you with Wi-Fi would be too likely to set your house on fire?
I'm curious of your statistics. How many people do you know whose houses have burned to the ground specifically due to a runaway computer server powered on in a closet that got to hot? How many of your own houses have burned down as a result of the same thing?
28 • @17, Android ads (by Tasio on 2025-01-06 11:59:11 GMT from Philippines)
"I can't seem to rid myself of ads on my old Kindle Fire or my Android phone." Don't know about the Kindle, but on my Android phones and tablets I use Firefox with uBlock Origin enabled. Ghostery, AdGuard, Privacy Badger and other extensions can also be added. Work as well as in desktop.
29 • Absolute Linux (by rhtoras on 2025-01-06 12:02:07 GMT from Greece)
Sad news in the nonsystemD community the loss of absolute linux. I was not using this distribution however i always checked it's status. It was a lightweight distro good for old computers. The alternative could be Austrumi linux which is also Slackware based. A very nice and light Slackware linux distribution from Latvia. People could also check Milis Linux which btw is not based on Slackware but on a user friendly version of LFS with too many guis. Right now documentation is mostly on Turkish but sooner or later English is coming.
As for firewalls: thankfully in my #2 computer i use Openbsd...
30 • Your suggestions (by Mark B on 2025-01-06 12:03:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
@28 Thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated.
31 • @3 davew: (by dragonmouth on 2025-01-06 12:16:00 GMT from United States)
"Reasonable enough" IS NOT good enough when it comes to security.
32 • Re 29/Absolute (by uz64 on 2025-01-06 12:18:51 GMT from United States)
The weird thing about Absolute Linux is that I haven't been able to get it to install for many years. It fails to "find" the CD drive it's supposed to be installing from, so the installer just will not install it. It's probably been a decade since I saw a properly functioning, installing version. I have not noticed this kind of failure on Slackware itself or any other Slackware derivative.
That said, IMO Salix is probably the best Slackware-based system designed for simplicity and lightweight. Too bad I can no longer put Zenwalk anywhere near that category. But at least Salix has remained true to form over the years.
33 • elementary OS (by dragonmouth on 2025-01-06 12:24:31 GMT from United States)
Seems like elementary is another step closer to the Window-ification of Linux.
34 • @31 • ad blocking, @3 davew (by Tasio on 2025-01-06 12:24:44 GMT from Philippines)
""Reasonable enough" IS NOT good enough when it comes to security." Ad blocking is for convenience and nuisance-free browsing, not for security.
35 • @10 Pumpino: (by dragonmouth on 2025-01-06 12:42:52 GMT from United States)
The price of convenience is security and privacy.
We seem to be giving up both bit by bit as we get more conveniences. If you want all that information at your fingertips 24/7/365, you must "pay" something. As the bumper sticker from the hippy days proclaimed "Gas, grass or ass - nobody rides for free."
36 • Elementary (by RetiredIT on 2025-01-06 12:51:08 GMT from United States)
Because of its low rating of 4.99 on DW I never had an inclination to test this distro. After nearly 14 yrs. of development it still does not have a forum. I also want nothing to do with any distro that relies on Flatpaks or Snaps. Jesse said it right with the phrase, "It feels like a somewhat streamlined (one might unkindly say "dumbed down") Linux desktop experience." The introduction of Flatpaks and Snaps IS the dumbing down of Linux!
Also, DW lists elementary's location as a USA origin. However, elementary's domain suffix of .io is for the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is identified as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia.
All in all, there are many other MUCH better distros to choose from other than one with so many negatives.
37 • Better Than Pi-Hole (by Edan Osborne on 2025-01-06 12:59:08 GMT from Denmark)
I've been using NextDNS for a couple of years now, and I've found it far superior to Pi-Hole.
38 • Pi vs PinePhone (by Jesse on 2025-01-06 13:22:42 GMT from Canada)
@26: "It makes perfect sense if you aren't wanting to break something. If you install Pi-Hole on a Pi and find it's not for you, you wipe the SD card. It's that simple."
You can do the same thing with a PinePhone. If something gets messed up you can re-write the SD card and plug it back in. The process is identical to that of the Pi.
" Millions of people have Pis, almost nobody has a PinePhone."
Yes, and? They are both ARM boards, both low-spec, single-board computers. They have almost exactly the same stats, the same architecture, and they're both running Debian-based distributions. It won't matter if I;m running Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi, an Orange, a PinePhone, a laptop, etc. The process is the same.
"What you did was niche in the extreme. You are highly intelligent, you already know this."
Except that it wasn't, at all. If you install Pi-hole on a generic desktop computer the process and steps are the same.
"And show the part in my post where I said Pi-Hole would work differently."
Seems weird to me that you can't read your own post at @17. But, sure, here you go: "a Pi would have been a more logical choice, bringing with it none of the problems of deleting dependencies etc." Which is false. It's the same package manager and the same packages on the Pi as on the PinePhone.
39 • Ads blockage (by Annibale on 2025-01-06 14:58:25 GMT from Italy)
I use Ublock Origin to block ads (with the addition of: I still don't care about cookies, Duck Duck Go Privacy Essentials, Privacy Badger and Disable WebRTC).
40 • ad blocking (by Tuxedoar on 2025-01-06 16:13:23 GMT from Argentina)
I mostly use Firefox as my default daily web browser (Chromium, when compatibility issues arise). I like to keep my Firefox installation as pristine and clean as possible. This means that I avoid installing extensions, plugins, etc. As for ads, from my experience, adjusting the privacy and security settings on Firefox (check cookies management) does a decent job for ads filtering.
Also, using some DoH (DNS over HTTPS) public provider (Firefox offers this), also helps a bit.
If none of the above is enough for you, I recommend giving "Firejail DNS" (https://github.com/netblue30/fdns) a try. It's mostly designed to be a local proxy which serves requests from one of several public DoH providers. One advantage of this is that most of the times, you'll use a different provider each time, so you don't concentrate your browsing activites to a single provider. It runs as a service and you can customize the list of DoH providers you want to use.
Have a nice week!.
Cheers.
41 • Pihole (by Patrick on 2025-01-06 16:54:09 GMT from Luxembourg)
I used Pihole (as a docker container on my home "server") for a few years and while it did generally work well, the update process on docker specifically was not always seamless (as in "buggy"). At some point I decided to give AdGuard Home a try, also on docker, and it has been excellent for a few years now. 10/10 would recommend.
I also run AdGuard in my browsers for when I am not at home, and in order to be complete you'd also have to filter DoH or DoT traffic via a firewall - I'll do that the day I am forced to use a smart TV if AGH is not effective enough. In the meantime I'll cling to my current kind-of-dumb TV as long as I can.
I did use uBlock origin but I've dumped Firefox after their latest shenanigans. I also tried NextDNS and while I cannot say anything negative about it, it just didn't resonate well with my homelabber's heart. But it's probably a great solution if you're not interested in homelabbing.
42 • BEWARE, Removal may produce headaches... (by tom joad on 2025-01-06 17:19:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
I read Jesse's review of Pi Hole. Yeah, I read the whole think like always when Jesse put something up. Well, When I got to part about removing it I read Jesse's warning about removing dependencies.
Yikes! Removal might remove 'sudo" along with a lot of other stuff?
Reminds me of 'your mileage may vary', buyer beware', 'read the fine print', 'closed course. professional driver' among others.
And no thanks. I just ignore the ad unless there are 'pop ups.'
43 • Ads/Privacy (by Landor on 2025-01-06 18:50:36 GMT from Canada)
I personally believe everyone is responsible for the current state of ads, tracking, etc. More for those in the FOSS community who have a larger and better understanding of freedoms than most others.
I haven't cared for Google and a few other companies for a very long time, I've even considered the Google Summer of Code akin to sleeping with the enemy while I watched many getting excited about it for years. But like others I've purchased devices that are based on Android and/or actual products from Google running it(the legendary Nexus 5 comes to mind here).
A lot of times when something like this has occurred and became so rampant in our daily lives for this long one can only learn to live with it now. Early compliance in many areas and a continuation of such has only shown they can do whatever they choose because the greater vast majority of people are willing to (think of other operating systems here) accept a deal with the devil for convenience and ease of use, as I have been own an android phone.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
44 • ElementaryOS (by waltff on 2025-01-06 21:27:35 GMT from United States)
This was once a very popular distro and had some interesting features and they didn't care if you didn't like them. I tried the latest version on several different laptops and couldn't boot to any of them after it was installed. Virtualbox worked with no issue. Even after saying something about it not booting, nothing was done about it even tho a lot of people had the same issue. I was waiting for this version to come out for a long time and am totally disapointed
45 • ads we see, tracking… (by Otis on 2025-01-06 21:35:14 GMT from United States)
@43 Perhaps, "Users can be somewhat responsible for ad content each sees" or some such. But "…everyone is responsible for the current state of ads, tracking, etc.." makes only guilt-mongering sense.
Marketers have their own energy, their own engines. They will be running those things when the rest of capitalistic society collapses, just with a different wrapping, no matter our exposure or input.
46 • Privacy and security? (by Tasio on 2025-01-07 01:50:33 GMT from Philippines)
The animosity towards Google and others puzzle me. I have 3 Gmail accounts, always signed in. None have personal information in the profiles. So, Google knows that someone in this neighborhood using x and y machines goes here and there in the web, and they use that information to tailor ads. Do I really care? Does it violate my privacy? Really? When I want to be private, I go private. It ain't difficult!
So who has my personal info? Until recently, I could buy sim cards anonymously. No more. And to get fiber internet I need to give particulars to the provider. The local government has no control over Google, but they certainly can control the ISPs. I'd worry about that more. The Cuban government kept pretty close tabs on the population since the takeover in 1959 quite effectively. They used the biggest threat to privacy there is: neighbors. So did the Soviets, East Germans, Chicoms, et al. No need for internet.
Convenience? One example: I do some banking outside this country. Should I receive a check, I scan it with an app and it's immediately deposited. Otherwise I'd have to find a local bank to take is a a deposit (Only some do.) and wait a month or more. Meanwhile, I'd be sharing my personal info including overseas account numbers with some strangers here. This kind of conveniences repeat themselves too many times to count here. Do I value the convenience? You're damn right! Do I care that I have to trade some unimportant info to Google in exchange? Not at all.
On the other hand, some unfortunate young man blew himself up in Las Vegas using a Cybertruck. Tesla came in to help. It seems they had lots of personal information, all gathered in the time the man had the rental. Imagine how much they know about owners? (This is also possible with many newer vehicles.) Maybe with their AI they can get to a point like the TV series "A Person of Interest", where they can stop you before you commit the crime. Considering that Tesla's CEO seems to have illusions, delusions or maybe well-founded hopes of becoming king of the world, that would worry me more.
47 • @46 Privacy and Security (by NewUser on 2025-01-07 03:48:11 GMT from Canada)
You are trying to rationalize this. While for many, your points may be valid, there are some of us who value our privacy. Your personal data SHOULD be private, and only YOU should have say on how this data is used. If you don't guard this data, it can fall into the wrong hands. If you have ever suffred from "identity theft" and had to clean up after the resulting mess, maybe you would care more.
Foreign governments collect this type of data, and target specific individuals who may be of strategic value, or used as unwitting moles, or converted into "sympathisors".
Crimminal groups collect personal data, and can clean out bank accounts, take out mortgages on your home without your knowledge (creating the need for "Title Insurance"), and create fake identities with your data. The list of possibilities is endless; and don't think it couldn't happen to YOU!
Much as banks and governements would like to eliminate it, cash is still king. Try making a purchase with crypto currency when the power is down.
Rather than ranting on with a long list of real life worries, consider this:
As some of us grow old and decrepit and need to depend on others for support, young "whippersnappers" like you who try to rationalize security concerns, pose an additional concern.
Go back to post #5 by NewUser 2. While I was obviously joking about NewUser 2 being a clone, what happens when the day comes that YOU are actually cloned without your permission? Think what havoc a doppleganger could have on YOUR life!
When corporate interests become too powerful, monopolistic, and controlling, it is time to break them up. And they certainly shouldn't be dictating to governments on how to behave. (Sr. moment here - what's that word for legislation to remedy this? Maybe it's "anti-combines" legislation?)
For others, sorry if this sounds like a political rant. This started with a review of the Pi-hole to protect users from excessive advertising; but ultimately, it gets down to privacy. I felt it necessary to address Tasio downplaying these concerns. This is not paranoia. Not looking everywhere in fear. Just an expression of concern about the direction things could go if the public becomes too enamoured with conveniance and their shiny toys. See over there. There's another body walking into a telephone pole with eyeballs glued to their portable screen. And what got their attention? More ads on the latest greatest NEW portable screen.
I will now refrain from more comments and let this space return to regular distro reviewing.
Sponsored by (insert blankety-blank here).
48 • @47, Privacy and Security (by Tasio on 2025-01-07 06:21:27 GMT from Philippines)
"young "whippersnappers" like you" Now that's funny. In about 3 months I will be 79 years old. Not bad for a young whippersnapper, but definitely not decrepit. Sold software back when enterprises were moving from mainframes to minis. Ran a computer shop here for some years before calling it quits. I'm familiar with security and privacy.
Once I had a credit card come up with a bogus charge. This was in Colombia over 20 years ago. I had checked into a hotel and the credit card was swiped on their machine. (Remember when you had to do that? That was definitely a security problem.) Someone copied and used the card numbers to buy airline tickets. Had I not been able to log in remotely, I would not have found out until I got back home. As it is, I was able to call and cancel the charges before they were paid, and the bank sent me a new card immediately. These days, most breaches, identity theft, etc. happen at organizations like banks and government agencies, usually due to some careless employee(s) or some flaw in their security. Anyone is welcome to any of my identities on Google, since they are spurious. Communications between my devices and banks or others are encrypted. Any changes to my bank accounts or credit cards are immediately followed by emails and/or texts informing me. As the man who jumped off the 100 story building said as he passed the 50th floor: So far so good. I'll stick with that.
You seem to expect the government to protect you from the corporations, but corporations are government constructs. I'm more concerned about being protected from governments.
49 • @48 (by NewUser on 2025-01-07 08:49:17 GMT from Canada)
Not a comment (did say I would refrain), but a question:
For someone who seems to have aged remarkably well (meant as a compliment), you left out why the man in your example jumped in the first place; and considering the "impact" of the result at the bottom floor, why you would "stick with that" (seeing as time@floor 50=fractions of a second).
Have you found a way to suspend time?
If anything, they say as you get older, time seems to pass faster!
50 • elogind (by illumos on 2025-01-07 11:30:18 GMT from Japan)
@29 But Slackware makes heavy use of elogind.
Unfortunately, Slackware is no longer a hardcore systemd-free distribution.
In order to avoid systemd, we also need to avoid elogind.
51 • Ads and tracking (by Adam on 2025-01-07 18:22:56 GMT from Canada)
Last year, Walmart announced it was buying Vizio and the deal is now done. An interesting disclouse was that ALL of Vizio's gross profit comes from data collection, and advertising. A TV manufacturer that makes no money on televisions, because the data and advertising influence is worth much more than any profit margin on hardware.
52 • Re: Tuxedo (by gr84 on 2025-01-07 19:18:54 GMT from Germany)
@19: not really. I’m happy with Mint for my work laptop anyway, it check all the boxes for me. Cinnamon is not eye candy as Pantheon, or customisable as Plasma, but it is stable and that’s what I need at work.
53 • security & privacy (by anti-hackmeister on 2025-01-07 22:26:56 GMT from Hong Kong)
A good combo of defences for privacy / security:
* A virus / rootkit scanner - to pick up any infections
* A system cleaner - to clear Potentially Unwanted Apps, caches; and temp, duplicate, junk files
* Browsers - use a VPN for surfing; an ad blocker; and a cleaner to clear cookies, cache, history
* Anti-telemetry software - to prevent the OS and apps from leaking data by calling home (vulnerable to network and tech-insider hacking)
Other defences have limited effectiveness - like firewalls, VMs, sandboxes, jails, kill switches.
Be sceptical of "security / privacy" distros, as they usually don't have all necessary tools - particularly anti-telemetry
Be sceptical of security / privacy "experts", as they usually don't know the full range of hacking methods.
54 • Debian Trixie Alpha Installer (by Metallica on 2025-01-08 07:16:43 GMT from Cameroon)
Right now beware, nvidia-driver for Debian Trixie is broken.
If you do a clean install using the alpha installer, you will not get a working nvidia-driver.
Better to keep nouveau until closer to release.
ALSO:
Good to see the default /boot upgraded to 1.0G in the Trixie installer. The default in bookworm was too small with the larger kernels now, and especially if you move to systemd-boot-efi.
Still weird to see a dedicated swap partition. I thought Trixie was moving to a swap file instead?
55 • Pop!OS (by penguinx86 on 2025-01-08 16:23:08 GMT from United States)
I gave Pop!OS and Cosmic a try in VirtualBox. I’m not a fan of the Cosmic desktop. It seemed confusing and difficult to find stuff that I use regularly. It seems like they’re trying to be too much like a Mac. Maybe a little better than Ubuntu/Gnome, but not by much.
56 • Pi-hole (by Phil Petit on 2025-01-08 22:32:17 GMT from Australia)
It would be good if there was a simple foolproof way to add a website to the white list.
57 • pihole install and admin (by Rob Rickson on 2025-01-08 22:55:37 GMT from United States)
Pi-Hole is trivial to install and update. I've had numerous installs running for friends and relatives with a few strategic cronjobs doing housekeeping for YEARS, and the only time I've had to manually intervene is to do a dist-upgrade when Raspian falls out of support.
Also, to anyone complaining about the 'significant' price of the hardware, while I run mine on an old Pi 3, I've got a couple of folks running on $15.00 Pi Zero W machines without incident.
58 • Replying to @12 @24 and @27 (by IKnowOnlyOnePersonWithAPi-Hole on 2025-01-10 15:07:41 GMT from United States)
@12
Right, so it's useful if you have lots of different IoT devices, but not so much for someone who only has one or two PCs that connect to the internet but nothing else. Gotcha. Thanks! :)
-
@24
"Can't say that I've ever had a piece of gear go up in flames. That sort of thing happen a lot to you?"
and
@27
"How many people do you know whose houses have burned to the ground specifically due to a runaway computer server powered on in a closet that got to hot?"
To me personally, no. Not yet, at least. *knock on wood* But I've heard plenty of stories about unattended computers, and more especially servers, starting fires.
Coincidentally, the only person I actually know to whom that happened, is exactly the one person I know who uses a pi-hole. And what is more, that fire originated from a powered-on single board computer he kept on a shelf in a closed closet, just as you say... Though I'm not sure if it was being used as a pi-hole at the time, nor whether the fire started by overheating or what.
I have no idea how statistically risky pi-holes are, but it hasn't stopped him from using a pi-hole, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
However, ever since then, the thought of leaving an unattended SBC powered-on gives me the heebie-jeebies. So please don't tell me that a router is just as likely to cause a fire, because that will unlock a new phobia in me.
59 • The aging wippersnapper (by Otis on 2025-01-10 17:01:42 GMT from United States)
@48 ... dude.... same here as to age, 79 coming up in March.. as I proudly march forward with computer savvy and security hopes hand-in-hand.
I did not consider the jump, but did shout something along the lines of "so long suckers" into the 50th floor elevator lobby as I continued my descent from floor 100 feeling cozy on the lift.
I don't trust the security corporate entities any more than I trust the hilarious "anti-virus" companies out there, both of which (whom?) know all your secrets and where they are and how to get to them far better than imagined nefarious souls who have to hack in; these guys have the keys.
60 • elogind slackware and Absolute linux (by rhtoras on 2025-01-10 17:58:39 GMT from Greece)
@50 I think i am certain when saying nosystemD. There is nosystemD some prefer the hardcore some prefer everything. Elogind comes from a piece of systemD but IS NOT systemD. In some computers i use elogind in other i do not use elogind. As for slackware it is possible to use slackware without elogind and superboxon was a real example. You just have to recompile some packages unless there is a hard dependency to elogind but i don't think so.
Number of Comments: 60
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