These are all things I want to stay informed on, and given the choice would rather read elsewhere. Often I get the same information from secondary sources and manage to avoid that, but even then on controversial things I prefer to check the source directly.
I have an LG I bought around three years ago. The first year-ish it was connected to the internet normally. That's when I first heard about the LG spying issue, and also had noticed that the TV seemed to slow down a bit with every new update it got (what a surprise).
I then isolated it to its own VLAN with no internet access whatsoever. Only other device on the same VLAN is a virtual interface on my Home Assistant server that allows me to keep using the LG webos integration and send Wake on LAN packets to the TV.
Surprisingly most of the slowness seemed to also disappear after cutting the TV from the internet. It's probably not quite as fast as it was when it was brand new, but the most noticeable difference is when turning the TV on. It's almost instant again now, compared to something like 5+ seconds it took when it had internet.
I got fed up with a certain internet-connected appliance at home, and decided to investigate its firmware. Since the vendor claims the product is still in active support and not EOL, my main goal was to find a pre-existing CVE it was vulnerable to and report that so the vendor would need to release an updated firmware, hopefully with other improvements too.The latest build was years old, so...
You can also use ksplice to live patch the vulnerable kernels as a first aid. I'm not an expert but I think there are some limits to what you can accomplish with it. Also guessing that the embargo period allows the big names to roll the patches out gradually enough that you won't see any panic shutdowns.
My mileage was quite different: last time I tried, scrolling too fast with the mouse wheel consistently caused a segfault.
Essentially "povertyware" as you call it when you consider the trillion dollar companies built on top of them? Now that's way easier: SQLite, PostgreSQL, ffmpeg, imagemagick, numpy, pandas, GTK, curl, zlib, libpng, zxing or any other popular qr/barcode library, etc...
Rule of Acquisition #10: A dead customer can't buy as much as a live one.
In ye olden times I had such a horrible time with my cheapo Samsung when trying to upgrade it from Android 1.5 to 2.1 that I swore it'd be my last Samsung, and it was, for well over a decade. During that time I went through some iPhones and a handful of the most popular alternative Android brands.
Since the thread is about Android I'll focus on that. Every manufacturer was hamstrung by one or more of the following issues:
- Subpar hardware
- Difficult and slow RMA process where your device flies around the globe for repairs
- Software bloat, just like Samsung, but from a country I trust even less (China vs SK)
- Very infrequent updates (if you are lucky enough to get them at all), especially once a newer model is out
Now since this thread is about bootloaders this is probably a hot take, but I spend enough of my time troubleshooting stuff at work, so when I use my phone I want it to "just work" and not have to play some stupid anti integrity protection cat and mouse game to access my bank's app. So the last two are not solved with an open bootloader.
Samsung on the other hand has in recent years given me the "just works" experience on decent hardware, paired with frequent updates. And while their authorized repair shop might not be in my city, it is at least in my country and just a train ride away.
That being said, the nerd in me is disappointed in this move, and the recent EU ruling that forces manufacturers to actually support the stuff they sell for a reasonable time even after it's off the shelves might change things for the better w.r.t. other manufacturers.
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> The processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest.
Sometimes it breaks the site so that you can't scroll or something, but that's quite rare. And most of the time it's solved by a refresh. Very infrequently you need to whitelist the site and then deal with the nag screen manually. A bit annoying, but way better than rawdogging it.
Works on desktop & mobile.
- "Please don't track me."
- "But what if we realllly want to?"
A normal response to that would be an even more resounding FCK NO, but somehow the EU came to the completely opposite conclusion.
As a "smart kid" it sometimes felt like waiting for everyone in class to grok something before moving on was a waste of time and that personally I'd learn very little, but ultimately I think it worked very well to ensure that everyone was on common ground.
At some point it was deemed that the current system wasn't inclusive enough so the special education for the troublemakers was gutted and they were put back into regular classrooms. At the same time, due to lack of funding and lack of teachers, class sizes ballooned from <15 to up to 30 or even 40 students per class in larger cities. I think there's some critical point where that system breaks down and now we're past it. The teacher has too many students to make sure everyone is up to speed, and giving too much individual attention in such a large class wastes everyone else's time.
Immigration has also played a role I think. Finland used to be quite monocultural, but that has changed. There are now more and more students who speak Finnish as their second or third language and as such have trouble keeping up. I don't think the solution is to stuff them into their own schools either as that promotes segregation and makes integrating into the society as an immigrant harder, and I don't pretend to know the perfect solution (if one even exists), but one thing's for sure: the Finnish school system was 100% unprepared for it.
That sounds fun, now I really want to try out a keyboard where half press is lowercase and full press is UPPERCASE! No more pinky strain from shift presses.