5 ms·

As my paranoia ramps up year on year, I now use Opera with µBlock. For me, it has the polish of Chrome with some nice extras, but without the increasingly creep

by Nexxxeh 12y ago

As my paranoia ramps up year on year, I now use Opera with µBlock. For me, it has the polish of Chrome with some nice extras, but without the increasingly creepy Googality. It works fine, although I've not tried µMatrix. (I have my defaults changed to DuckDuckGo. Usually connecting via a VPN.) I've whitelisted a few sites I like to support (a couple of webcomics, HaD etc). I have a lot of filters: "62,501 network filters ＋ 40,728 cosmetic filters". Opera's task manager says the extension is taking up a mere 32MB. Probably not accurate, but a lot better AdBlock (my previous favourite). Off-topic but I wish people would stop using Mu for project names. Where is the Mu key on the keyboard? I have to copy and paste or alt-code it. Call the project microBlock or something! They use "u" instead of "µ" on Github, so why not just use something else entirely? µTorrent was the one that really irritated me because I couldn't type "utorr" to search for it on my start menu. I'd say something to gorhill (albeit far more politely), but it seems childish and ungrateful. He's clearly poured so much time and effort into making such useful software. "Great software but the name is fucking annoying, mate!"

gorhill 12y ago
I myself most often write "uBlock" and pronounce "you-block", as in "users decide". I originally used the mu character in place of the u to emphasize smaller resource footprint relative to similar solutions out there. I've never been good with picking name etc., unfortunately now we are stuck with it.
- Intermernet 12y ago
  Don't sweat it. It's actually quite a good name. It works both as "you block" and "micro block" depending on reading the first character as "u" or "mu".
xenophonf 12y ago
http://www.howtotype.net/symbol/Micro/ http://www.howtotype.net/symbol/Micro/ Sadly, the US-International keyboard on Windows does not implement a shortcut for the "micro" character (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560).
- stinos 12y ago
  There's always character map which has this and like all others you can ever think of. A bit cumbersome, but at least one doesn't have to remember character codes and can search for characters by name.
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    "Let me google that" pulls out character map pretty poor UX if you ask me. Almost as bad for search ability as calling your product "go" or "cloud" or "driver" or any other one-word generic, hard to find even with contextual terms around it.
    - stinos 12y ago
      pretty poor UX if you ask me yup. Has been around since NT or maybe even longer..
      - raverbashing 12y ago
        the poor UX is not the Character Map It is having to open it every time you want to type the name of µSomething
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        The poor UX is the keyboard layout throwing away altgr.
- driax 12y ago
  In addition, I pretty sure many European keywords can type µ by alt-gr+m, at least in Windows on my Danish keyword. Only know that because once I had a keyword were they actually had printed it on the key, just like they always do with € on E.
bla2 12y ago
If this is motivated by your paranoia, why are you switching to a closed-source browser?
- lol123456 12y ago
  If you are motivated by the love of free software, why aren't you thinking of the possibility that gcc can have a backdoor written by bribed immoral programmers ? Or has Richard Stallman convinced you that by mere repetition of the word free, free software is also moral software ? I have no doubts what so ever that Opera is run by ethical people and it an ethical company. In any case a security / privacy audit is a much more rigorous test. The whole free software movement is based on a pathetic assumption that if you can't read 10 million lines of open code you have to suffer from paranoia.
  - GhotiFish 12y ago
    A security audit done by whom? Surely not people paid by the vendor of the product bring audited... Right?
    - lol123456 12y ago
      Go read 10 million lines jack ass.
drvortex 12y ago
There is a μ on the German QWERTZ keyboards.
colechristensen 12y ago
On Apple keyboards Alt+m prints µ.
davidy123 12y ago
Use a compose key system, native on Unix (Linux, Mac, etc) and available on Windows. It's very intuitive and will open up your character vocabulary considerably. I use the caps-lock key for compose. http://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/ http://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/
bashinator 12y ago
> Where is the Mu key on the keyboard? At least for me, option-m is the µ key.
Tanath 12y ago
DDG lies about not tracking you. Startpage appears not to.

by Nexxxeh 12y ago

gorhill 12y ago

I myself most often write "uBlock" and pronounce "you-block", as in "users decide". I originally used the mu character in place of the u to emphasize smaller resource footprint relative to similar solutions out there. I've never been good with picking name etc., unfortunately now we are stuck with it.

Intermernet 12y ago
Don't sweat it. It's actually quite a good name. It works both as "you block" and "micro block" depending on reading the first character as "u" or "mu".

xenophonf 12y ago

http://www.howtotype.net/symbol/Micro/ http://www.howtotype.net/symbol/Micro/ Sadly, the US-International keyboard on Windows does not implement a shortcut for the "micro" character (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560).

stinos 12y ago
There's always character map which has this and like all others you can ever think of. A bit cumbersome, but at least one doesn't have to remember character codes and can search for characters by name.
- seanp2k2 12y ago
  "Let me google that" pulls out character map pretty poor UX if you ask me. Almost as bad for search ability as calling your product "go" or "cloud" or "driver" or any other one-word generic, hard to find even with contextual terms around it.
  - stinos 12y ago
    pretty poor UX if you ask me yup. Has been around since NT or maybe even longer..
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      the poor UX is not the Character Map It is having to open it every time you want to type the name of µSomething
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        The poor UX is the keyboard layout throwing away altgr.
driax 12y ago
In addition, I pretty sure many European keywords can type µ by alt-gr+m, at least in Windows on my Danish keyword. Only know that because once I had a keyword were they actually had printed it on the key, just like they always do with € on E.

bla2 12y ago

If this is motivated by your paranoia, why are you switching to a closed-source browser?

lol123456 12y ago
If you are motivated by the love of free software, why aren't you thinking of the possibility that gcc can have a backdoor written by bribed immoral programmers ? Or has Richard Stallman convinced you that by mere repetition of the word free, free software is also moral software ? I have no doubts what so ever that Opera is run by ethical people and it an ethical company. In any case a security / privacy audit is a much more rigorous test. The whole free software movement is based on a pathetic assumption that if you can't read 10 million lines of open code you have to suffer from paranoia.
- GhotiFish 12y ago
  A security audit done by whom? Surely not people paid by the vendor of the product bring audited... Right?
  - lol123456 12y ago
    Go read 10 million lines jack ass.

drvortex 12y ago

There is a μ on the German QWERTZ keyboards.

colechristensen 12y ago

On Apple keyboards Alt+m prints µ.

davidy123 12y ago

Use a compose key system, native on Unix (Linux, Mac, etc) and available on Windows. It's very intuitive and will open up your character vocabulary considerably. I use the caps-lock key for compose. http://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/ http://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/

bashinator 12y ago

> Where is the Mu key on the keyboard? At least for me, option-m is the µ key.

Tanath 12y ago

DDG lies about not tracking you. Startpage appears not to.