Is Microsoft trying to force thousands of good computers to the trash, going straight against the original Fairphone campagne

Discuss The Industry
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Agreed with you 100%. Again most people don’t see this one bit. Honestly I use linux mint with twister os as my daily driver, raspbian for internet protocols like DNS and cashing them with phython so even if they remove the site for any reason. I can just see it anyway. This is a resource hog. But a necessary evil living in the USA today. Having them in raids for redundancy and having bigger storage helps here. Thanks Seagate and others for massive storage on the cheap. I can still see review tech usa videos today even if he deleted his channel. I just rely on my cash to view them today. I was a Self Taught linux user who used to once believe in these tall tales. Nowadays just having reference quides on how to code in Python and others is enough. A trial and error sort of thing. This is why i like progress bars and loading screens. You can never see enough of them. Once you put anything online. More than likely its still there in one form or another. You can never truly erase the entire information. Someone out there most likely archived it.

Yeah its a shame that as an American citizen who was born and raised here is scared about ice for many reasons. A lot of American people have been deported already. Not even the birth certificate or drivers license is of any help here. Its an all out crisis if the legal paperwork you have doesn’t even work. My old schoolmate was recently deported and was legally a us citizen. There is no justice here. Its funny that all European people that was here with the Indians before the US was even thought of long ago are technically not an American. The indians are and we kicked them off their land. I can’t stand any US music today like god bless the USA, stars & stripes forever, etc because its lost all meaning of what it once stood for. I’m honestly fear living in a country with no rights for others anymore. If things get worse. I would say life isn’t worth living. I can’t just pick up and move with no money. Everything has a cost. I’m ashamed to even admit that. I fear for my safety and well being. I voted for Carmela Harris being a Democrat myself. I sure didn’t vote for this. I fear for my safety today having many sleepless nights since Trump took office. Hope this post may be kept here for others. I know i was off topic.

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My only use of Windows is Tiny10 (a cut down version of 10) in a VM. I defenestrated 25 years ago and have been using different flavours of Linux ever since.

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I moved a number of posts over to Technical requirements of playing MIDI files today to keep this topic here more on-topic and readable, sorry for any resulting disruption in any argument here which I might have overlooked.

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If you are cautious enough, yes. Most of the malware infections come through the web browser or through email. Having antivirus on an outdated system is not enough, since the antivirus also relies on the security functions in Windows. Mac and Linux use security updates to secure the systems.

Having worked with business security on a general basis since 1999, I’d say the easiest and most secure way is to install Linux Mint. Wine will even run a lot of the legacy Windows applications on Linux.

If continuing using an outdated Windows installation, I’d install the addon noscript for Firefox and use it with great caution when online.

Mentioning old systems used in closed systems in the governments, banking and so on is not evidence that the systems are secure to use online. You’d really need to know what you are doing, to stay secure. Remember that the IT department would have gone through every security measure, to keep those old systems safe. There is enough stories about companies being hacked. Now who do you think gets the blame in these cases? :joy:

The reasons for these systems still being used is that they are very reliable and does the job well. Migrating to a modern system is in many cases extremely expensive.

This is one I really support! People even throw away their 2-3 year old computers for being unstable, instead of reinstalling. I’m sorry to say that I’ve been a part of this in the past as a consultant, at a time when the development required a lot more hardware.

After being that Micro$oft guy for 25 years, I migrated to Linux in 2020. I’ve never had better tools for my work :slight_smile:

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@rokejulianlockhart @Svampe
Thank you both for your take on security.
<rant>
I wouldn’t be without ‘NoScript’. It both amazes and irritates me just how many sites deploy third party scripts and the number they use too. Flagfox shows me the server is in the UK, yet the IPs of those scripts point all over the world ( though mostly to the US ). Some sites won’t show any meaningful content without allowing some or their scripts. Maybe in addition to the EU Cookie Law, sites should have to declare who provides their scripts, what countries they are based in, and what they are used for and why / if they are needed. I bet half the companies don’t even know what junk they are using as they pay someone else to create their site.
</rant>

My XP / Win7 PC lasted 15 years but I assembled a new PC to replace it last year. Old machine was failing at the hardware level. I now run Debian Bookworm and Win7 runs as a VM under the auspices of Virtualbox. Full boring story in post 5. The 12700K processor has plenty of poke, so hopefully I’ll get 15 years out of this new PC.

Have you fully detoxed from M$ or do you still use Windose sometimes? For majority of things, Debian work fine for me, but I couldn’t go to ‘Micro-$oft-aholics anonymous’ and say that I’m clean. Closest comparison would be like saying I used to smoke 20 a day, now smoke 3. Weaning myself off Windows is hard. For a start there’s a whole heap of Excel Visual Basic excel macros that I need to re-write to work in *Basic and I just can’t be bothered at the moment.

I tried Wine, but it didn’t work well for me. Some had missing windows and buttons, others like Micro$oft Orafice refused to install at all. That’s why I took the VM option.

There are things about Debian I really don’t like. The file managers’ I’ve tested so far are horrid, plus Cinnamon plays up or freezes frequently. Not every day, maybe 3 times a week? Before I found a workaround, I had to log in from my Raspberry Pi just to shut the PC down cleanly. I’m okay with the workaround now I know it :
CTRL-ALT-F1, log in as screen user, enter the cinnamon replace command,
CTRL-AlT-F7 to get back to the desktop,
then CTRL-ALT-ESC to restart cinnamon.
During the writing of this message, cinnamon started to play up by highlighting a whole page of text just by a single mouse click, on this occasion it allowed me to use the last command I mentioned without going through the terminal.

With the above in mind, do you think the average PC user is ready for Linux? I’ve always used Debian on my VPS starting with 7 (Wheezy). I know my way around the command line and Linux file structure, but I have struggled to get used to the Desktop. Maybe Mint is a better option than Debian for ex M$ users??

Though I’ve sited some annoyances, I have far more gripes with Windoze, and will never go back (not that I’ve fully abandoned the platform). The Linux desktop environment has vastly improved over the last few years but is the demise of Win10 enough to temp people over? I’m not so sure. If we get people using Linux in the workplace, then I think the stats below will change for home use too, but it surprises me greatly how low the Linux market share is currently.

Snip below from https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/

Operating Systems Percentage Market Share
Operating System Market Share Worldwide - December 2024
Android 47.21%
Windows 25.73%
iOS 17.4%
OS X 4.96%
Unknown 2.32%
Linux 1.46%

No, I wouldn’t even try! I cant even load *.xls(x) on my FP3. You got me there.

I agree with it, but haven’t we left the EU for better or worse? Would the vote of a UK citizen count? I will read it thoroughly.

It’s a shame there isn’t a law compelling companies to sell on or donate kit that is still viable before being allowed to scrap. I suspect the greener companies will do this without being asked.

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@TW8punk, I think that that’s a great idea. Normalising inclusion of metadata / documentation in every script served to an internet browser would be brilliant. The EU’s GDPR / cookie regulation has demonstrated that it’s feasible. Considering that licensing already tends to require a license per file when served via a Git repository, what you propose should be easy.

Have you seen TwinBasic? It’s designed to be a superset to VB6, but I believe that VBS is a superset of VB6, so it might be 95% compatible by default. More importantly, it should be cross-platform in the near future:

Anyway, I use Windows and Fedora together. I don’t think I’d ever want to not have access to it, for those rare times when something is a million times easier there. You needn’t wean yourself off unless you really hate the telemetry, right?

I’m surprised you noticed I’m English. Anyway, since it allows you to register with the UK set as the nation of residence, and then vote for it, I presume so…? Irrespective, I think it needs all the votes it can get, because I don’t see much change of it happening if Munich couldn’t get it to work.

I presume you tend to use stuff from F-Droid? Unfortunately, Microsoft (Office) 365 is the only document viewer of any use on Android, in my experience.

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Hi @rokejulianlockhart .
I signed the petition for EU-Linux despite thinking it is dead in the water. Only 9 people signed it after me. Despite that, I think the EU should consider encouraging governments to move away from running any propriety OS. The large licence fees’ paid out and funded by the taxpayer add up to a considerable amount. Then the vendor pulls the plug at some stage it’s time to pay again Keeerching! I know change can’t happen over night, but something needs to be done to prevent any repeat of the mountain of e-waste which we will likely see towards the end of this year.

OT ( skip from here ) :
In the unlikely event Trump wages WW3 and governments’ break U.S. ties, we will be in trouble. We run everything over the net these days don’t we? Are there many SSL certificate issuers or browsers based outside the US? Firefox, Safari, DuckDuckGo and Chrome are all American. The Gooplay store could be blocked too as it was for Huawei devices in 2019 under Trump1.0. I think relying on one country for our internet needs is foolhardy and may come back to bite us.

Twin Basic : doesn’t mention * Basic which Calc and writer use for Macros.

English : You mentioned it in a post about the man who had a worm eat part of his brain. The worm died but the man is now head of the HSS in the U.S.

Windows : Yeah, I think you are right. I’ll keep Win7 as a VM like forever :wink: I like it. As you say, there are lots of things it does better than Linux.

Docs
I think the FP3 was better at reading documents under Android 9. Somewhere along the upgrade line, it lost its built in PDF reader. Firefox has made itself the default now but makes a hash of it so I use Librera from FDroid. GooDocs can open some files but I’d rather use a PC. I haven’t got Orafice 365 but take your word it works better than anything else.

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@TW8punk, I’ve thought about this too.

  1. However, to my knowledge, the ultimate authority in the chain of trust that certificate distributors rely upon is ICANN. Consequently, all that a certificate authority need do to start operating is acquire trust directly from ICANN. Because ICANN is equivalent to the UN in global authority on its subject matter, this kind of centralisation actually works to global advantage.

The US attempting to prevent this would be more of a catalyst for global breakdown than basically any pandemic or war, so it’s incredibly improbable.

Hahahaha. That’s superb. A bit like ol’ Trotsky and Stalin, perhaps the worm might have done a better job. Both wormy and Trot died to an instrument entering their brains. XD

…Not that I’m fond of any of those four, actually. Especially wormy.