Your Computer Isn't Yours

Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by pizza234 on Friday November 13, 2020 @01:55AM (#25079719)

Not anymore. Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered, which is something one can experience with a Linux distro on pretty much any machine.

I agree that it's not as much as a polished experience, but that's the point as indicated - trading off polish for ownership.

I'm excluding from the discussion professional documents editing - compatibility with Libreoffice is mediocre (at best) in my experience, but having very good compatibility is not a consumer requirement IMO.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by d3nj4l on Friday November 13, 2020 @02:44AM (#25080007)

> Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered

But it's also just as likely that you're using a browser made by Google, and using other services made by one of the big companies that don't care about your privacy. Where's the difference?

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by sliken on Friday November 13, 2020 @05:10AM (#25080830)

Google's not in control of the CPU, OS, or Desktop. It's not fingerprinting every binary you run, nor locking you into any of the google tools. You could easily use a different email service, different photo service, etc.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by zepto on Friday November 13, 2020 @09:34AM (#25082536)

Sure since but this subthread argues that users actually don’t need binaries other than the browser that’s moot.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by pizza234 on Friday November 13, 2020 @03:36AM (#25080328)

There's some confusion in the thread, in the fact that there's a mixup between operating systems and programs (or classes of programs), however the parent was referring to operating systems:

> The alternatives are still completely unusable by most people.

Otherwise the statement wouldn't make sense.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Friday November 13, 2020 @07:44AM (#25081571)

> Not anymore. Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered, which is something one can experience with a Linux distro on pretty much any machine.

Or their smartphone, which is a hell of a lot smoother experience. So why does Linux Desktop continue to pride itself on being "good enough" for an "average user" [0] that doesn't even use a desktop?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25047042

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by zepto on Friday November 13, 2020 @09:33AM (#25082520)

This is completely conceding the point. Nothing but the browser is up to par, and even that is not as ‘polished’.

If all people need is a browser, they should buy ChromeOS or an iPad.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by pizza234 on Friday November 13, 2020 @12:17PM (#25084607)

"Not as polished" doesn't imply "not up to par".

Ironically, one of your two suggestions is a Linux distribution.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by zepto on Friday November 13, 2020 @01:00PM (#25085278)

Android is a Linux distribution and MacOS is a FreeBSD distribution.

There is nothing ironic about that. Users don’t know and don’t care.

Are you equating the presence of the Linux kernel with some notion of software freedom or independence from corporate control?

If all people want to use is a browser, Linux is irrelevant.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by arvinsim on Friday November 13, 2020 @08:53AM (#25082104)

> Not anymore. Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered, which is something one can experience with a Linux distro on pretty much any machine.

Browser apps need connection. Most of the services are also subscription based.

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Re:Your Computer Isn't Yours by addandsubtract on Friday November 13, 2020 @07:55AM (#25081648)

Ok, suppose I can find an alternative to Adobe & co. on linux. Which laptop features a multi finger touchpad as nice and feature rich as the MacBooks?

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