keverets @keverets@librem.one

website made by someone who describes themself as "a dipshit who doesn't know how to use computers" and hosted on a raspberry pi or some random VPS: loads instantly, well designed, easy to navigate

website made by fortune 500 company, with teams of designers, programmers, and servers in 8 countries: takes a full minute to load, layout shifting around the whole time, breaks if you have 1 browser add-on, the page you want can only be accessed via a third party search engine, gets worse every year

Happy to announce that the new version 2.10.2 of our Android app landed in F-Droid and Google Play over the weekend 🎉

This one brings in a lot of fixes and improvements from Conversations, and adds a new in-call dialpad feature.

The dialpad will be valuable for people who use the app with XMPP gateways such as https://cheogram.com/ and need to navigate automated phone systems.

Watch this space for upcoming releases of the Snikket iOS app and server software too 🙂

RT Lock (with permission):

Ok so, I just read through all 173 pages of the unredacted Google antitrust filing and I have to say that either Google is screwed or society is screwed, we'll find out which.

Unordered list of fun things I learned:

- google has a secret deal with facebook called "Jedi Blue" that they knew was so illegal that it has a whole section describing how they'll cover for each other if anyone finds out
- google appears to have a team called gTrade that is wholly dedicated to ad market manipulation
- Google had a plan called "Project NERA" to turn the web into a walled garden they called "Not Owned But Operated". A core component of this was the forced logins to the chrome browser you've probably experienced (surprise!)
- Google is willing to do almost everything to prevent people from circumventing their ad exchanges
- This is what AMP is about
- Google habitually insider trades on their ad exchanges in every way you can think of and every way you can't. Too many ways to list here.
- The exchanges are also rigged so that google wins on bids where they aren't the highest bidder.
- A large amount of people inside google are aware of all of this
- If Google ever tells you some change will increase your ad yield, run. In fact anything they tell you is a lie
- Google has worked with Facebook and Microsoft to discourage them from increasing user privacy, lamenting occasions where they prioritized their reputation over their collective business interest

You can read the full unredacted document for yourself here:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.0_1.pdf

I'm sure you've all signed already the #10YearPhone campaign by repair.eu, right?

https://10yearphone.com/

Thank you!

#RightToRepair

Vizio's free ride is over. The nonprofit Software Freedom Conservancy has filed suit against Vizio to force it to comply with the GPL - and this legal challenge has the potential to change the game for GPL enforcement in a profound way.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

You see, the Conservancy isn't suing on behalf of the copyright holders whose code Vizio is illegally using - it's suing on behalf of the *users* of free software who are injured by Vizio's attack on the commons.

8/

Me, 1991:

Woaaa! Robots are cool! 🤖 👍

Me, 2021:

Figuring out that I am asked by a robot (a web server) to prove that I am NOT a robot, and that I can't as it would imply to execute javascript code from a company (Google) that I block because -among others- it helps guide US killer-robots to their targets (project Maven), it owns dozens of drone companies and the patent portfolio of Boston Dynamics... 💣 💥 🤯

Study reveals scale of data-sharing from Android mobile phones:

Even when minimally configured and the handset is idle, with the notable exception of e/OS, these vendor-customized Android variants transmit substantial amounts of information to the OS developer and to third parties such as Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook that have pre-installed system apps. There is no opt-out from this data collection.

I happen to be using /e/ OS for the last ~2 years on all my #android phones and quite pleased to read it.

Wow, Firefox 93+ supports viewing and filling in PDFs with 'XFA' forms (as used by the Canadian government), making it one of the few good options for doing this on Linux (or with anything besides Adobe tools on Windows and macOS). This is great news for anyone who has to deal with these annoyances.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/10/implementing-form-filling-and-accessibility-in-the-firefox-pdf-viewer/

my flatmate got himself a 3d printer so, ofc I asked him to print me a #pinephone stand. Used a rainbow filament.

not my design, here is the thingiverse link.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4829608

Remember our toot about Nextcloud synchronisation? 🎉 Seems we have a winner!
🔄 With the merging of https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/pull/5243#issuecomment-937046643 it will be possible to sync AntennaPod with a gPodder 'server' in your own Nextcloud instance.

Will be available in AntennaPod 2.5!

@Beowulf @KopfKrieg

@danyork Their recent overview of the state of the market is here: https://www.ifixit.com/News/35377/which-wireless-earbuds-are-the-least-evil

... and that settles the question for me.

We pay to Steam, Netflix, Amazon prime, Spotify. But not to Wikipedia, Archive.org, Librivox, Project Gutenberg, for our favourite Linux distro.

The huge asymmetry between corporate and community has not emerged naturally. It is a product of our choices of not supporting community oriented projects.

The short conveniences vs the long-term good. We always chose the former.

In face of surveillance capitalism, we must and must change.

It's my book-birthday! Today marks publication of the Tor (US/Canada) paperback edition of ATTACK SURFACE, a standalone adult Little Brother book.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757517/attacksurface

Little Brother and its sequel Homeland were young adult novels that told the tale of Marcus Yallow, a bright young activist in San Francisco who works with his peers to organize resistance to both state- and private-sector surveillance and control.

1/

"But second, and far more disturbing, is the notion that web developers should be continually testing their websites against early releases of major browsers."

"That's actually why there are web standards – so developers don't have to do ridiculous things like continually test their websites to make sure they're still working."

"That someone of considerable stature in the Chrome project would think otherwise should be a red flag."

https://theregister.com/2021/10/04/chrome_breaks_web/

@loke https://idiomdrottning.org/perfect Signal is the perfect example of what we should avoid, of the type of “good” that’s an enemy of perfect.

The improvement over FB etc isn’t big enough since we are still beholden to one corporation, and
getting people to switch to Signal will make it harder to get them to switch to something else in the future. You only get so many “you should switch to such-and-such” per lifetime.

We’re painting ourselves into a corner by recommending Signal, Telegram, Discord. It breaks my heart every time I see them recommended.

#WhatsApp is currently down. This is your regular reminder that centralized platforms are centralized: a single point of failure and control.

Help spread the word about open decentralized networks.

If you want to migrate your family or other social group away from proprietary apps but don't know how, that's what we're here for. You can self-host Snikket or sign up for our hosted platform. After setup, invite your contacts with a simple link and you're done.

https://snikket.org/service/quickstart/

Good luck!

Element and Movim Messengers Comparison Made Simple

Sharing is very appreciated so your non-techie friends and family can quickly adopt #Matrix or #XMPP.

https://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2021/09/element-and-movim-messengers-comparison-made-simple.html

📞 📹 🗨️ ✉️ 👥

#FreeSoftware #Telecommunication #Chat #Decentralization #E2EE #Messengers

#activitypub #money #funding #eu #dapsi

From mail:

“The Data Portability and Services Incubator (DAPSI) has launched its third and last open call for internet innovators.

A total budget of €2.5 million is available to support the best proposals. Participants will get:
• Grants up to €150k (equity-free)
• Free business and technical training
• Free access to top infrastructure

Apply by 23 November 2021, at 05:00pm CET!

Info: https://dapsi.ngi.eu/apply

Open call webinar: https://www.f6s.com/dapsi-open-call-3-webinar-1-guide-for-applicants

Apply via: https://www.f6s.com/dapsi-open-call-3/apply