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Well, this is how it goes. Google/MS/Apple/Facebook/etc. are huge companies with extremely high costs (i.e. paying their expensive developers). They need to mak

Well, this is how it goes. Google/MS/Apple/Facebook/etc. are huge companies with extremely high costs (i.e. paying their expensive developers). They need to make a lot of money in one way or another. So, you can choose your poison, depending on your preferences, financial status, etc. The dimensions: - privacy - sneaky practices like what the article expains - one-off price of e.g. hardware - recurring price of e.g. services - freedom - stability of services - control over your devices - control over your data - seamless integrations Apple: high integration, high stability, high privacy, high price of hw and services, low freedom, low control over devices, high control over data, low amount of sneaky practices MS: low integration, medium privacy, high amount of sneaky practices, low price of hw, medium price of services, high freedom (odd thing to say), high stability, medium/high control over devices, medium control over your data Google: low privacy, medium sneaky practices, low price of hw, low price of services, high/medium freedom, low stability, high/medium control over devices, low control over data, medium integration You can't get all the good things at once, unfortunately.

ship_it 6y ago
GNU/Linux: medium integration, medium stability, high privacy, low price of hw and services, high freedom, high control over devices, high control over data, low amount of sneaky practices Your choice.
- sz4kerto 6y ago
  Almost - integration of Linux devices with other ecosystems is the worst of all, unfortunately. As mentioned above: using Linux as a means of keeping control over your software only makes sense if you don't rely on cloud services that are worse from the perspective of freedom than a Windows or a Mac.
  - koonsolo 6y ago
    Not my experience. One time the hard drive of my Mac Mini crashed. I lost all my mp3s. Fortunately, they were all stored on my iPod, so I could just get them from there. On Mac: There was an application that could do that, but Apple sued them and so was not available anymore. On Windows: Was not able to get those mp3's out (don't remember why exactly) On Linux: Was able to mount it and get those files out with some Open Source iTunes clone. At that point, I totally ditched Apple.
- danieldk 6y ago
  high privacy If you don't care that random X11 applications (e.g. your browser) can snoop keystrokes and mouse events or make screengrabs of any other X11 application. But it doesn't matter anyway, because any application can grab any data from your home directory. Unless you use Flatpak, bubblewrap, or some other sandboxing technology. Disclaimer: I use Linux 95% of the time. But we should be honest about the shortcomings. Desktop Linux is not secure and you only have privacy if you trust all of your applications.
  - ajvs 6y ago
    Everyone who cares about privacy uses Firefox browser for other reasons already so browser was a poor example. There's also Wayland as a replacement for X11, but granted not all applications support it.
  - akalsz 6y ago
    > But we should be honest about the shortcomings. Desktop Linux is not secure and you only have privacy if you trust all of your applications. No operating system is secure when it comes to installing untrusted applications. The strength of desktop Linux is the vast amounts of available free and open-source software, ergo software that you can actually trust. To my knowledge, no other OS beats that - usually you can't even trust your OS itself these days. Plus we already have a universally supported sandboxing technology, it's our web browser. I can use Microsoft's software inside a Firefox container when I'm forced to, without giving them access to my home folder, keystrokes/mouse events, etc. Even better, half of the requests those things would make are blocked by uBO.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Fine for open source applications. Sandbox would be improvement. How can one trust closed source software?
  - eitland 6y ago
    It's not like there isn't a number of screen recording and keylogging tools and/or malware available for any mainstream desktop OS. Your comment makes it sound like this is a problem that only X11 has.
- eitland 6y ago
  Also a choice between several desktop environments developed and maintained by actual enthusiasts. It is not for everyone, but for us who love one of them it is fantastic :-)
koonsolo 6y ago
On the other hands, I'm running Linux: 0 price, can't get more open than that, fully customizable, etc. So it seems sometimes you can get all the good things at once.
formerly_proven 6y ago
On a Likert scale of None-Low-Medium-High-VeryHigh I'd be hard pressed to rate any contemporary Desktop OS better than Medium on stability. Too much stuff breaks too often on all of them.
sergeykish 6y ago
FOSS - even lower price (upcycled hardware) - even higher privacy (how can one trust closed source?) - even higher freedom (replace any part of the stack) - no sneaking - high stability - high control oven device in right hands

ship_it 6y ago

GNU/Linux: medium integration, medium stability, high privacy, low price of hw and services, high freedom, high control over devices, high control over data, low amount of sneaky practices Your choice.

sz4kerto 6y ago
Almost - integration of Linux devices with other ecosystems is the worst of all, unfortunately. As mentioned above: using Linux as a means of keeping control over your software only makes sense if you don't rely on cloud services that are worse from the perspective of freedom than a Windows or a Mac.
- koonsolo 6y ago
  Not my experience. One time the hard drive of my Mac Mini crashed. I lost all my mp3s. Fortunately, they were all stored on my iPod, so I could just get them from there. On Mac: There was an application that could do that, but Apple sued them and so was not available anymore. On Windows: Was not able to get those mp3's out (don't remember why exactly) On Linux: Was able to mount it and get those files out with some Open Source iTunes clone. At that point, I totally ditched Apple.
danieldk 6y ago
high privacy If you don't care that random X11 applications (e.g. your browser) can snoop keystrokes and mouse events or make screengrabs of any other X11 application. But it doesn't matter anyway, because any application can grab any data from your home directory. Unless you use Flatpak, bubblewrap, or some other sandboxing technology. Disclaimer: I use Linux 95% of the time. But we should be honest about the shortcomings. Desktop Linux is not secure and you only have privacy if you trust all of your applications.
- ajvs 6y ago
  Everyone who cares about privacy uses Firefox browser for other reasons already so browser was a poor example. There's also Wayland as a replacement for X11, but granted not all applications support it.
- akalsz 6y ago
  > But we should be honest about the shortcomings. Desktop Linux is not secure and you only have privacy if you trust all of your applications. No operating system is secure when it comes to installing untrusted applications. The strength of desktop Linux is the vast amounts of available free and open-source software, ergo software that you can actually trust. To my knowledge, no other OS beats that - usually you can't even trust your OS itself these days. Plus we already have a universally supported sandboxing technology, it's our web browser. I can use Microsoft's software inside a Firefox container when I'm forced to, without giving them access to my home folder, keystrokes/mouse events, etc. Even better, half of the requests those things would make are blocked by uBO.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Fine for open source applications. Sandbox would be improvement. How can one trust closed source software?
- eitland 6y ago
  It's not like there isn't a number of screen recording and keylogging tools and/or malware available for any mainstream desktop OS. Your comment makes it sound like this is a problem that only X11 has.
eitland 6y ago
Also a choice between several desktop environments developed and maintained by actual enthusiasts. It is not for everyone, but for us who love one of them it is fantastic :-)

koonsolo 6y ago

On the other hands, I'm running Linux: 0 price, can't get more open than that, fully customizable, etc. So it seems sometimes you can get all the good things at once.

formerly_proven 6y ago

On a Likert scale of None-Low-Medium-High-VeryHigh I'd be hard pressed to rate any contemporary Desktop OS better than Medium on stability. Too much stuff breaks too often on all of them.

sergeykish 6y ago

FOSS - even lower price (upcycled hardware) - even higher privacy (how can one trust closed source?) - even higher freedom (replace any part of the stack) - no sneaking - high stability - high control oven device in right hands