kirk781

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I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think I remember Opera Mini's layout though I didn't much use it. It was a great alternative especially on mobile more than a decade back.

But yes especially after changing ownership, switching browser engines and years down the line; things have changed.

I think I gave their desktop variant a try sometime ago but didn't find it compelling enough. I haven't even used their Android fork. I keep using a Firefox fork only :p.

I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think 4K is only available on Edge on Windows for Netflix. I never bothered with 4K since that's above and beyond my device's native resolution but I didn't have too positive a experience with Netflix, IMO.

I just want to watch something in full HD without intermittent streaming or buffering. Legal streaming services including Netflix treat one like a criminal by forcing them to watch in a Web browser with constant Internet connectivity forced upon them. I can use keyboard shortcuts to increase playback speed by 0.1x each time in mpv, does Netflix allow me to do the same? No, instead it gives me a dusty experience.

I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 months ago

I gave Vivaldi a try way back in its early days when I was on Windows. IIRC, it was bundled with lots of features even then and I think, for some weird reason, had Philips Hue Lighting support integrated (unless I am really confusing it with something other, this is multiple years old experience of mine).

I used it as my main browser for Atleast couple of months then.

I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I am surprised they abandoned it. It was originally launched as a macOS variant only, correct? And Mac users praised it a lot, on the Web. I thought with that level of traction they will keep going.

In contrast, there are projects that have a much lower user base though vocal (read: Pale Moon) and despite struggling with half of the available modern Web pages, those projects still keep going.

I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 months ago

Many sites have become worse. I think stuff like Cnet, PCMag (which still has a digital magazine I think)were much better in the previous era.

I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I will give Zen browser a try. As for Netflix, I only used it for a one month since it's quite expensive in my country and it crawled like anything on Firefox for Linux. I was getting consistent 720p video but not sure about full HD. Eventually I canceled it.

I've tried nearly every browser out there and these are my top 6 (none are Chrome) in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Opera also was a good alternative on Symbian phones right or whatever OS Nokia used before they switched to Windows Phone, I think.

[dk wm] red moon in c/unixporn@lemmy.ml
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nice visuals. I should check out deadbeef once again. I switched to Strawberry, a clementine fork sometime ago.

Also, I like your music collection, mainly because Mukesh happens to be my favorite playback singer of all time :p.

Gemini replacing Google Assistant on Android phones later in 2025 in c/android@lemmy.world
Humane's Ai Pin was a flop. Now it's a recycling nightmare. in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think the company behind Fairphone makes wireless earbuds as well with replaceable batteries. They are priced in the mid range segment but sadly not available worldwide.

How Spotify's Premium Piracy Panic Played Out & What Pirates Did Next. in c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Haven't Spotify mods already been clamped down in one way or the other(in terms of having a trimmed down feature set)? I used to follow Balatan's mod from Mobilism and last I saw, Atleast some stuff was server sided.

Either case, mods can only go so far. I only used Spotify Premium once for a short while before returning back to YT Music and one of the things I liked was third party clients on desktop. ncspot is a terminal based client for Spotify that rakes in one tenth of memory requirements but sadly requires Premium and I don't think there is any way to bypass that as of now. (though of course, most users won't even care about such a niche client)

But if someone is serious about music, then Soulseek is the way to go. It has most genres of music, usually in flac and locally stored music is any day superior to cloud.

“We are not corporate slaves”: Indian tech workers fight for dignity : Peoples Dispatch in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The most egregious example is the Larsen and Toubro India Head who asked for NINETY HOUR work weeks and said that he felt sad that he couldn't make his workers work that long legally.

Funny thing, not only the company defended him (and his crass remarks associated with it), he also earned, I think, INR 50 Crore whilst a new guy at his company will get ~5 Lakh per annum. Since 100 lakh=1crore (Yes, Indian conversion system are slightly different than million and billions), the CEO nets in 1000x that of its lowest earner. If there ever was a picture of evil, then this person is.

And you can't even point to any specific political party as such since except for Communist Party Of India(Marxist) perhaps, none take this issue seriously. (India has a gamut of parties from regional to national level). Part of the blame does goes to the voter base as well ultimately since the reason this isn't a topic in India's Parliament is because outside of the urban masses (and even then for many it was secondary issue to others), others don't see this as part and parcel of their future.

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‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine (www.404media.co)
 

You wouldn't pirate a medicine, would you?

399
Tesla Cybertruck caught fire after hitting a fire hydrant in bizarre crash (electrek.co)
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Cosmo, the Hacker 'God' Who Fell to Earth (www.wired.com)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de to c/technology@lemmy.world
4 comments fedilink
 

A decade old longread from Wired that also shines a light on how trivial it was to bypass mechanisms of some online services back in the day.

(I am not sure if Wired has this paywalled because I had the BPC extension installed but it opens properly with it).

17
What do you think of Google's Play Pass service? (discuss.tchncs.de)
 

It is at a slightly cheaper value than YouTube Premium in my country and offers multiple games and few apps. Though the quality of the games are sometimes poor (I think Apple Arcade has some exclusive games for itself something which Play Pass lacks) and apart from apps like Tasker or KWGT, one would be hard pressed to find a good dev offering for apps in general.

18
Notification access for sideloaded apps (discuss.tchncs.de)
 

This was seen on two phones, one running near Stock Android 13(Nokia G20) and another on an usual OEM customized variant of Android 14. When I sideloaded two different apps on each phone and attempted to give them Read notification access in the settings, a message came that it was restricted for my security and no way to bypass it.

Is this by design? I don't think it improves security in any way except to restrict the user to Play Store apps. And when ironically, the latter is plagued with so much quality control issues.

78
Fallacies of Youtube (discuss.tchncs.de)
 

I had a Youtube Subscription mainly for using Youtube Music since last year. I used to be on Newpipe before that. However, the mobile app always made be feel uneasy. From not being able to choose system wide video quality for all Youtube videos at once[ seriously, there is like 'High' or 'Data Saver' only and explicit options are available per videos only ] to Youtube nudging me to purchase/join a Youtuber's membership channel really irked me [I just paid you, Youtube ; why are you constantly asking me to pay more for something I don't want? Why can't I disable those notifications ?]

I have some time remaining on my subscription but converted to Tubular [Newpipe fork with Sponsorblock] simply because it doesn't treat it's end users like trash. Even for YTM, I switched to Revanced version which offered endless customization. I could hide useless stuff like cast, share buttons to even functions in the Account tab. The granular control was so much that I was able to get a simplistic neat looking UI setup.

In the transition, I understand, I lose some of my playlists [under a throwaway Google account since I don't wish to risk my main one getting banned] but I understand that the only true way anyone controls their music[or any form of data is by truly owning them and streaming services don't allow that]. It might sound stupid, but I have been downloading music from Soulseek for some time and now just plan to transfer some of my favorites over to the SD card.

It was never a money problem. It was an experience problem. I paid money to Google and all I got was Shorts, Games and other stuff I didn't wanted. I never got customization or fine grained controls. The open source community offers that. Sorry for the long rant.

117
DRM Hell (discuss.tchncs.de)
 

Amazon Prime, like many services, is a DRM hell. It won't go to over 480p on Firefox on Linux at my end. However, instead of a rant, I am interested in why this is happening. Say, I rented the same film from YouTube Movies(Yes, such a service exists) and the quality can toggle all the upto 1080p but the same title on Prime Video is stuck at 480p. Is it because both services use two DIFFERENT kinds of DRM?

13
Google Play System Update (discuss.tchncs.de)
 

What is exactly Google Play System Update buried deep in the settings that can be manually updated and usually has a date of say, eg, May 1. Is it part of Project Treble from Google to decouple parts of OS from full system upgrades and make more Modular updates possible?

153
Youtube Rant from a paying customer (discuss.tchncs.de)
 

I used to use NewPipe back in the days of yore. Then I got Youtube Premium since it bundled in Youtube Music as well which I used. But the former's app on mobile is a shit show. Even after paying, you are asked to tip random creators, purchase merchandise[ which are shown as actual ads below videos] and join channels to access exclusive videos for more money. Basically pay money once, and then pay more money for more content.

Okay, one could argue atleast the above goes to a channel's creators and helps them. How would one say then that the Youtube app still doesn't have a systemwide option to choose video quality for all videos. New Pipe had that option long ago, but Youtube thinks it's user base are immature who need to be coddled with only two options like "High" and "Data Saver".

Despite having a Premium thing, I finally crossed over to a Newpipe fork Tubular [available on F Droid] today simply because the paying experience on Youtube Mobile is so bad. I can't fathom how bad it would be for free customers using the official app.

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