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Auto update is basically a root backdoor, it's especially troublesome when you are not the customer, you are the product!
by z3t4 5mo ago
Auto update is basically a root backdoor, it's especially troublesome when you are not the customer, you are the product!
- dist-epoch 5mo agoYes, which is why I use paid-for OSes and browsers, instead of free ones like Linux or Firefox. I don't want to be the product.
- pipe2devnull 5mo agoI think with Windows you probably are the customer and the product
- vanderZwan 5mo agoCory Doctorow had an essay about that years ago, except he didn't artificially limit it to Windows: "Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product: Incentives matter, but impunity matters more." https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar...
- pjc50 5mo agoMan, this is a dumb take even by HN standards.
- dist-epoch 5mo agoNo, the dumb take is believing that if you pay for something you are not the product anyway.
- coldtea 5mo agoHe meant the face-value of your comment is dumb. But I think it as sarcasm is also wrong.
- liminis 5mo agoI definitely feel less a product on macOS than anything Google-orientated. I don't know where Windows fits into that exactly, given "paying for Windows" is not really how it's even seen, given major updates were 'free' (with extra ads).
- coldtea 5mo agoWith Linux you can control up to the detail any auto-update, and any update in general, all the way to being able to inspect the code.
- dbgobrrr 5mo agoWith GNU/Linux, yes. With Android/Linux, not so much. [1] (I used to dislike this "GNU/Linux" term, it seemed unimportant - Android showed me why the GNU part of it is) [1] https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/
- nathanmills 5mo agoOnly if you have the closed-source Google Play Services... Just like desktop, there are plenty of Android distros like LineageOS
- coldtea 5mo agoI don't think anybody implied or thought of Android in this subthread, just because it nominally runs the Linux kernel. I for sure understood it as just "Linux = whole OS-level distros of the laptop/PC bound type" not "anything with a Linux kernel even if it's a proprietary mobile phone OS".
- z3t4 5mo agoWhy is nobody building a paid for browser with built in search engine and LLM assistant? Should probably make it open source for transparency. And before anyone says you would build/compile it yourself if it was open source, those ppl are already running their self compiled tools and are not the target market.
- FoxBJK 5mo agoWho would pay for it when literally every other option has been free for a lifetime?
- liminis 5mo agoIsn't that essentially Dia? (Pro is 20USD/month.) https://www.diabrowser.com/ https://www.diabrowser.com/ (I miss Arc, such a shame it only gets security/chromium updates now ...) And I think Codex's desktop client has a built-in browser now? At least I've seen someone using something like that. Nevermind Atlas is a thing now too. https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas/ https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas/ (Tell me if I'm misunderstanding you?)
- Narishma 5mo agoYou are still the product with commercial OSes. Paying doesn't stop them from shoving ads and telemetry wherever they can.