Zak

13 ms·

181.
by Zak 7mo ago
Play Integrity and developer options are entirely separate as far as I know.
182.
by Zak 7mo ago
As I understand it, that would not bypass Google's requirement that the developer of each app be verified by Google.
183.
by Zak 7mo ago
What do scams have to do with having developer options enabled? This isn't a rhetorical question. There's no big red warning on the developer options screen saying it's dangerous. I haven't heard about real-world attacks
184.
by Zak 7mo ago
I don't think Google should be changing Android this way at all, and fear that it will later be used for evil. That said, I thought of an improvement: Allow a toggle with no waiting period during initial device setup. The user is almos
185.
by Zak 7mo ago
If your goal is to boycott Google, you're probably not trying to use Waymo. My suggestion was only about punishing the use of remote attestation in the small way most of us can.
186.
by Zak 7mo ago
I'm not convinced the author cares very much about this. He bought an iPhone. Based on his other blog posts, he knew what he was buying and what the alternatives are. An Android phone, even with a stock OS would get him more of the cap
187.
by Zak 7mo ago
No they wouldn't. We don't have to speculate about that; Android already has a toggle to allow direct installation of apps, and most people don't turn it on. Many Android devices allow unlocking the bootloader and gaining roo
188.
by Zak 7mo ago
> Even today there’s a culture of downloading Android builds from long forum threads on XDA developers I did that this month. I wouldn't do that for a device I use for anything sensitive, but I have a niche use case for my old Nex
189.
by Zak 7mo ago
Be sure to give apps that behave that way one-star reviews. I just tested Waymo and my usual solution of Magisk Play Integrity Fix was insufficient, suggesting hardware-backed attestation. This is the kind of crap Microsoft was doing that i
190.
by Zak 7mo ago
Unless you're actually a spy, there's no reason to do this. Just use your secure solution all the time with those conversation partners who are willing to use it.
191.
by Zak 7mo ago
They don't understand anything, but they sure can repeat a pattern. I'm using Claude Code to work on something involving a declarative UI DSL that wraps a very imperative API. Its first pass at adding a new component required impe
192.
by Zak 7mo ago
This comment seems to be saying you don't want most people to do blog-like things. Most social media from Facebook to Youtube is blog-like if you squint. It does seem like fewer people are posting personal content that way lately. Perh
193.
by Zak 7mo ago
You can save all of anything someone makes public with ATProto, ActivityPub, or RSS. You can do that with anything someone puts on a web page too, but those protocols simplify automation. I understand why people want to be able to delete th
194.
by Zak 7mo ago
The Mastodon model does not offer much ability to delete. Well-behaved servers will honor delete requests, but the protocol doesn't mandate it. Additionally, a user cannot generate delete requests if they get banned from their server o
195.
by Zak 7mo ago
I had a camera with a field-sequential electronic viewfinder. Because it relies on persistence of vision to mix RGB colors, it could be pretty distracting if I moved my eye quickly, breaking the illusion, and I think it would be similarly a
196.
by Zak 7mo ago
The problem there is that the primary security mechanism is enumerating badness by policing what apps users can install. That's not nearly as robust as designing the sandbox so apps can't do much harm. If toggling the setting is
197.
by Zak 7mo ago
That wasn't the standard on the Mac, and looks like it still isn't. That platform has a strong tradition of utility apps that add to or modify core OS functions, and when I looked up "essential mac utilities" today, I fo
198.
by Zak 7mo ago
The obsession with control I find objectionable is not their decision not to enable emoji widely until support was stable. That's an obsession with polish , not control. The commitment to polish and self-restraint to not add features
199.
by Zak 7mo ago
Jay Leno, perhaps the world's most famous car collector refuses to buy a Ferrari due to practices like that.
200.
by Zak 7mo ago
I beat it with Firefox, UBO, standard Firefox advanced tracking protection, and a VPN. It was able to track me as long as my IP address didn't change, but as soon as I switched VPN endpoints, it gave me a new identifier.
201.
by Zak 7mo ago
This doesn't cover in-app adds on phones over mobile data, which is probably the main vector for the tracking discussed in the article. For that: 1. Adblocking via private DNS (e.g. https://mullvad.net/en/help&#x2F
202.
by Zak 7mo ago
I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.
203.
by Zak 7mo ago
I suspect there's a large overlap between people who want a small phone and people who only upgrade their phone when there's a pressing need. I am in both groups. The root cause is that the phone is not a primary device for me. It
204.
by Zak 7mo ago
I'm glad to hear that. That means these devices will be a popular target, perhaps the popular target for alternative operating systems both Android-based and non-Android Linux.
205.
by Zak 7mo ago
> Humanity settled on these numbers long ago because they work best. Standardized time zones are a recent invention (late 1800s through early 1900s). Working hours in that period were determined by what factory owners could get away wi
206.
by Zak 7mo ago
I know that I want an end to clock changes more than I want the time zone to be optimized. Both spring and fall clock changes cause a spike in car crashes and serious health events, which I suspect of being worse than the problem they'
207.
by Zak 7mo ago
That's gatekeeping/snobbery. VSCode won't tell you you're not allowed to install extensions that aren't blessed by Microsoft. If it started doing that, most people could trivially switch to Codium.
208.
by Zak 7mo ago
> Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives. Are your relatives unable to install Signal or WhatsApp? Yes is a possible answer here, but installing a messaging/video-call app seems pretty low effort. I've had several elderl
209.
by Zak 7mo ago
It's less surprising to me that a developer would choose a Macbook than an iPhone. You can have root on a Macbook and install software without permission from Apple (though I hear of late it may require using the command line). The har
210.
by Zak 7mo ago
I expect most people to think it's bad if a corporation can keep them from running apps on their phone when those apps are good for the user and bad for the corporation. If most people don't understand that conflicts of interest l

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