coffeedrinker's comments

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

People who have grown to know and love ad blocking will move en masse to Firefox. That would be a good thing.

The attempt to force users into a system they don't want when there are other options available results in a loss of users.

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: Google will shut down Google+ four months early after second data leak

They should modify it so after launch it is based on active users. That will keep good things growing.

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

It's just a thought, not a business plan :)

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

Because if I'm Safeway and I can get elderly people to come to my business (for shopping, prescriptions, etc.) they won't be shopping somewhere else. The business gains/retains the clientele by providing the driving service.

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: Leaving Apple and Google: more devices now supported

Use the ublock origin extension to remove the parts of Reddit that are annoying.

Use the picker to select the problem overlays and create a rule and they will be gone. You have to do this a few times since some seem to be page sensitive.

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: How to Android without Google

I have the Essential Phone and love it.

Here are some notes on building and installing Lineage OS on the Essential PH-1:

https://headthirst.com/building-and-installing-lineageos.htm...

And some notes about setting up a phone without Google Play Services:

https://headthirst.com/life-without-google-apps.html

coffeedrinker | 7 years ago | on: GDPR: Programmatic ad buying plummets in Europe

I hear this argument a lot but I disagree.

While some advertisements can alert you to a product that will be helpful, many have the psychological intent of producing dissatisfaction and are an attempt to compel you to purchase something you do not need and your life probably would be better off without. Advertising is deliberately about producing discontent and it makes people more unhappy and more dissatisfied with their lives.

I would rather see ads that I can immediately dismiss than have ones that make me start desiring that which I don't really need.

coffeedrinker | 8 years ago | on: Zero-Width Characters: Invisibly fingerprinting text

I use LibreOffice and these appear as grey characters (at least some of the characters do). I've wondered what the grey characters were in the past and now I know.

Copy and paste the examples into LibreOffice and you will immediately see them.

coffeedrinker | 8 years ago | on: Don't Buy Anyone an Echo

Almost everyone I know willingly puts themselves under corporate surveillance (credit card?, cell phone?, license plates on car?, web browser?, cable tv?, netflix?, shopper rewards and discounts?).

If you were in my house Amazon wouldn't even know it was you talking.

coffeedrinker | 8 years ago | on: Don't Buy Anyone an Echo

I'm more concerned about people I know taking pictures of me and posting it all over Facebook and the rest of the internet. That is far more invasive than this Amazon device. I have no say in that.

As with most privacy things, there is particular privacy and general privacy. In particular, I don't think amazon or google have any intention of examining me. It is all just computer AI doing its thing. One in a sea of millions.

coffeedrinker | 8 years ago | on: Don't Buy Anyone an Echo

I use mine almost exclusively for playing music. I just bought a second one and found they can sync play (which makes for a nice whole house audio solution for cheap). They also function as in house intercom.

I have no concerns over privacy. My web browsing habits and phone leak far more personal data to google.

coffeedrinker | 10 years ago | on: Google engineer finds USB Type-C cable that’s so bad it fried his Chromebook

Anker.

coffeedrinker | 10 years ago | on: Web Fonts Collateral Damage of Ad Blockers

I use Chrome and a plugin called Font Changer that lets one override fonts on pages. I don't need to have it turned on for all sites but it can be done. Mostly I just have everything set to Arial (I don't like reading any serif fonts on screen). Perhaps there is a plugin for Firefox that does a similar thing.

coffeedrinker | 10 years ago | on: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries

But rudeness in wait staff is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They treat you poorly so how can they expect a generous tip?

coffeedrinker | 10 years ago | on: Apple brings ad-blocker extensions to Safari on iPhones

If extensions like this became ubiquitous, I wonder what Google's response would be? Would they refuse to run their apps on iOS like they do on Windows Phone, or would they still have a sufficient revenue stream to not see this as an attack against them?

How would web site operators respond to this?

coffeedrinker | 10 years ago | on: Adblock Browser for Android

I tried AdBlockPlus last year on my android tablet. It had a bug that didn't close video streams. If you started watching something and closed the app or started another stream, the old stream(s) get coming as well. That burned through a lot of data.

Now I just root my devices and use a hosts file (MoaAB - Mother of all Ad Blocking).

coffeedrinker | 10 years ago | on: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

PayPal has some serious issues with regards to what you say, but I used it last summer to transfer money from USA to Europe for my daughter and the fee was a fraction of what the bank wanted. Banks can be pretty scummy in their own way.

coffeedrinker | 11 years ago | on: Sync 2.0: Skip the Cloud, Share Direct

Ten folders puts me at the limit just on my family LAN with each user having their own folder and me having a couple so I can have a smaller set for syncing to laptop and a larger one for desktops.

I just installed SyncThing...

P.S. I just found out it is written in Go so that is a big plus for me as well.

coffeedrinker | 11 years ago | on: Replacing Dropbox with BitTorrent Sync

I've been using btsync for a long time. I have seen high cpu or net utilization, but it was because of a changed name on one of the computers that were syncing. The other instance was still trying to connect to the device using the old name. The solution is to delete the synced folder and reestablish it under the new name. It does not need to recopy the data, but it does need to reindex.