Absolutely. Companies have every right to control what tools are authorized to use on their hardware, and what touches their data or users data. It could be as complex as security or as simple as don’t use a competing service, but it all makes sense. Don’t tell me how use my stuff and I won’t tell you how to use yours.
If it’s BYOD then that’s another multiple layers of cans of worms not worth getting into.
I don’t know. I’m sure it only transmits when active, but that doesn’t mean its not collecting data at all times. If you’re on windows you can turn it off with a script, but it might turn back on after major updates.
I would probably argue they are the same in terms of security and privacy. Privacy communities tend to disfavor Proton because its all eggs in one basket, and also for political reasons. Both of those are subjective to your personal threat/privacy profile.
Its true that a single point of failure is more risk than separate services, but that fact doesn’t undermine their security on a technical level, and has nothing to do with privacy. As for the political, yes it’s something to watch but nothing wrong has been done. They are set up as a non profit with checks and measures in place to prevent corruption from happening. I’m OK with different points of view and having different points of view on a board is a good thing.
Steam has telemetry. They gather a ton of data on you. What details, how they use it, and how secure it is I can’t answer, but it’s clear that it’s happening.
I’m no ghost, not even close. Be careful though, “what’s the point?” Is essentially the question everybody asks at every phase of that iceberg diagram.
A possible answer to your question though, is that even if the state doesn’t know or care about him today that might change tomorrow.
That’s not my threat profile but it’s a valid one.
Moving to GrapheneOS doesn’t have to be full bore. While it obviously wouldn’t be as private, you could run google services sandboxed. That restricts google quite a bit rather than giving it full rights to everything on your phone. Other features you can take advantage of are granular permissions per app and the ability to easily turn things on and off (such as mic, camera, location), restrictions to contacts, restriction to files/folders, etc… Youd be amazed how much you can clean up your exposure even with google services running. But yes, you’d need to give up using google apps like calendar for any of it to do any good.
Absolutely this. I like mint because I no longer like fiddle farting around with my PC. It just works out of the box. An overlooked bonus is when I need to learn how to do something the Mint forums usually have the answer, and its catered to Mint defaults. It’s not the end of the world, but when answers match your file explorer, text editor, system editor etc…it just makes it easier. Compared to finding answers elsewhere that are for Debian and then having to wonder if it’ll work or not based on the family lineage of the OS is just unnecessary for most people.
I’m fully in support of LibreOffice and the fact that it can do a lot for free. However it is far from an enterprise product.
I’m still waiting for anybody to make a true competitor to Excel. There’s some decrnt spreadsheet software but there’s really no comparison to the functionality of Excel. Even Google sheets is a distant second.
My point is, when there are power users involved LibreOffice just won’t cut it.
OK thanks for confirming. I’ll stick with Affinity for now. I didn’t know abit kdenlive, something to check out. I’m still getting use to davinci resolve as it is.
You have a good point in needing to try other things, but there’s also a reasonable need to stick with the workflow that works for you.
One of their pledges when they were bought was to always have a standalone product to buy so people don’t have to do subscriptions.
That’s what I do. There’s few programs I still need windows for so I just spin up a VM for them.
How’s the gimp/krita/inkscape transition going? I’ve used Gimp and Inkscape, and they are fine tools, but I don’t think they are Affinity level yet. Though admittedly it’s been a few years since I last touched them.
Question, are you running it? I got really hopeful about it but feedback I read said it wasn’t very good. It worked, technically, but was buggy making it less than ideal. I forget all the details but it was enough to make me not want to even try it.
Well, considering all the tobacco companies entrenched themselves in food companies you’re basically right.
It’s why foods are addictive, and have very little nutritional value. It’s beyond “oh no its full of sugar” it the fact that everything is processed and is full of fake sugar (as an example).
There’s something about simplicity that is underated.
Technically my first ditro was SuSE a loooong time ago but I didn’t stick with it. Then back when Ubuntu became he new hit thing I tried that, but again didn’t stick with it.
I have now loaded up Mint and that’s the one I’m running with. Mind you, all distros have come a long way since my prior Linux dealings but Mint is the one to make me permanently switch.
I agree with you, but there’s two sides of the coin.
I would rather pay for a finished product that is good. Sure I can download Linux for free, but I’d rather pay for it. I’d rather support teams that are putting out a product to ensure it is the best it can be and be continually maintained.
FOSS doesn’t have to be free. Nor should it be.
However when projects get organized like that they become organizations. Organizations become businesses. And that’s fine. Let’s support them so they can eat and feed their kids.
So it begs the question, if I feel that way about them is it fine to support non open source orgs and software? Of course it is.
So it basically comes down to the complaining that the software is not good enough.
Of course “good enough” isn’t binary, so if its on the threshold of usability I use it and if its severely lacking then I don’t. No big deal.
If its free, then there is no reason to complain regardless. If you’re paying for it, I think your opinion has a bit more weight. Of course there’s still a scale. If it’s so far removed from usability then I just don’t buy it. Windows is a good example of that. But if its close, voicing your opinion that you want certain features is more than fine. It doesn’t remove your support. Wanting Affinity on Linux is a fine desire. If they haven’t said they aren’t going to then asking isn’t a complaint. It’s a want.
I use Affinity because its the best solution I can find. I would love to have it on Linux. Maybe one day it will happen, but I’m not holding my breath. Supporting Affinity in hopes that they make it better for me (for my preferred platform) is OK, because I’m finding a way to use the product that suits me today. If that way becomes too much hassle tomorrow, I’ll move on. But if they make it easy for me to stay with them then I won’t. But either way, supporting Gimp won’t make it Affinity. It’ll just make Gimp a better Gimp.
I guess it boils down to, do you support something that isn’t what you want in hopes it becomes what you want it to be or do you support something that is exactly what you want, hoping it will go to where you want it?
Sorry I rambled on there (I’m tired). I do agree with you but there’s a counter point I also agree with. I don’t think they are exclusive.
When the acquisition happened they made a pledge to keep affinity as a separate product and to have perpetual licenses.
Technically they can always introduced a subscription in addition to perpetual licenses but the implication is that they wouldn’t do that.
For what it’s worth, they understand their user base and were vocal about their plans. Maybe they’ll disappoint, but they haven’t really given reason to doubt so far.
What iffy dealings are you referring to? Because they were acquired? They’ve been established, and restablished after being acquired, as being completely privacy focused.
My only criticism is that they don’t always play nice with VPNs.
But yes, SearXNG is a great way to go too.
I haven’t used DDG in years. I’ve been using Start Page and its fit all my needs (its basically old google before enshitification).
I’ve played with searxng which seems promising but I haven’t given it enough time. But it seems like I might eventually move there.
Despite that people love to talk about Tesla and also cybertrucks, this is reminder to never buy anything for promised features. If you wouldn’t be happy with the existing features just don’t buy it.