Can you explain how a car accident lead to this?

Here you go: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/

Warning: This will open your eyes and make you want to dump all your major apps for FOSS alternatives.

Here are the trackers contained in Yelp’s app according to Exodus:

• Adjust (analytics)
• Braze (formerly Appboy) (analytics advertisement location)
• Brightcove
• Bugsnag (crash reporting)
• ComScore (analytics advertisement)
• Facebook Analytics (analytics)
• Facebook Login (identification)
• Google AdMob (advertisement)
• Google Firebase Analytics (analytics)
• Snowplow (analytics)

That’s a lot. They make money off of people having their app running on their phone. That’s why they push their app.

It was exactly the reason I was thinking

What was it, not even two months ago when they said they “listened” to us and that they wouldn’t go forward with Recall? And we all said they would still roll it in later when the dust had settled? Yup, we were right.

Never had that issue

That’s extremely uncharacteristic. Are they trying to prepare for an antitrust probe?

I used to be annoyed by this. I’m running GrapheneOS so I denied Google Photos access to the network but it didn’t stop it from asking every few times I started the app. Sometimes it even ignored my response and tried to connect to the network anyway.

I just uninstalled it and installed Fossify Gallery instead from F-droid. Haven’t looked back since.

They’ll just do it anyway quietly later on

Nah, I’m just a bored guy on the internet

Day 1 after implantation: this is great! I now have photographic memory of everything! Best decision ever.

Day 20: I’ve memorized so much so fast, I’m going to have to go for the next higher up subscription level to unlock more storage.

Day 200: I’m running out of space again. Going for the plus subscription.

Day 600: ran out of storage space again. I can’t afford the next higher subscription. I’m going to have to start deleting unnecessary memories. My brain has lost its natural ability to make and retain memories by itself. I can’t even function on a daily basis without free storage space.

Day 700: I have run out of memories that I’m willing to part away with. I still can’t afford the higher subscription. Luckily there is a cheaper tier. All I have to do is give NeuraLink full access and rights over my memories for marketing and AI training purposes.

Day 900: They have increased the cost of subscription. I can’t afford it. I’m going to lose half of my storage space. I have two days to choose which of my memories to keep. The rest will be no longer accessible to me, but will still be used by Neuralink for their own purposes as they own those memories now.

Day 1200: the chip will no longer be supported next month. I can’t afford the new model. It will be disabled in 30 days.

Day 1235: I have just found this diary. It explains a lot. I only wished it told me what my name is.

I’ve lost count of how many times Microsoft, and many other big tech companies, hindered me from doing something I wanted to do on a device that I own for “security” reasons while it had absolutely nothing to do with security and everything to do with forcing their users to comply with their business model.

DRM chips have nothing to do with device security and everything to do with further controlling what you can and cannot do on your machine and making more money off of you.

You really shouldn’t believe the Corporate bad faith arguments used to justify anti-consumer practices.

So Microsoft wants to force everyone to ditch their perfectly good machines so they can make more money off of selling OEM licenses.

I’m just waiting for Europe to sue their greedy asses for planned obsolescence.

I saw it years before deepfakes were a thing. I wish I had saved the video now. I would have loved to take a more critical look at it.

There was a Trump interview from the 90s where he said that if he ever ran for office he would go Republican because they were stupid, gullible and easily manipulated. Sadly I cannot find that interview anymore.

So… Someone is going to jail for that, right?

Right?

I used to have those concerns. But I still switched earlier this year from being a die-hard Microsoft user since DOS in the 90’s. It’s no where nearly as bad as you make it sound.

First of all, the controller not working is only the tip of the iceberg of the bullshit sandwich Microsoft has been serving its users and it has gotten far worse now with Windows 11. Microsoft has turned Windows 11 an anti-consumer nightmare of a platform that has zero care for privacy or even for treating paying users as anything else than a source of additional income to exploit further through things like ads and data mining. On a platform they paid for already, must I say again.

Secondly, you can dual boot which means you don’t have to abandon your current setup and always have the option to go back to it should it not work for you. That being said, I haven’t booted my Windows partition in months and am increasingly considering repurposing the drive for something else now.

Thirdly, what very little problems I encountered were a simple google search away to be fixed. And I am far from being a superuser in that environment. I tried to use Linux 10 years ago before and it was a PITA and I gave up. It isn’t like that anymore. It is much better. Things just work now unless you pick a shitty distro.

Finally, I’ve had a harder time finding the settings in a Windows machine after an update that moved things around than I ever had when I first used Linux. And with Linux, especially if you use KDE Plasma as a desktop environment, if something isn’t where you want it, you can customize it to be exactly how you like it. You can make it mimic Windows if you want. There are even custom themes that make it look exactly the same if you really don’t want to change.

And even if you don’t mind that rapidly growing list of major irritants, many people including myself cannot even upgrade to Windows 11 unless they buy a whole new machine even if they wanted to because of the arbitrary DRM chip requirements. And they’re dropping support for Windows 10 next year. So looking down the barrel of having to pay for a new computer while the current one works perfectly well, plus having to pay for another Windows license with which Microsoft will monetize the shit out of my usage of the platform with zero regards to my privacy, making the jump doesn’t sound that bad of a decision anymore. I did it and I’m glad I did.

This thread is weird. People complain about Microsoft doing its Microsoft thing but the moment someone suggests to stop using Microsoft products and switch to an increasingly viable and approachable alternative they get downvoted.

“I don’t want a solution, I want to be angry!”

No shit. Now do Amazon, apple, meta, Microsoft, Disney and all the food conglomerates. Then it will have been a good start.

Anything that runs the Android version that came with it will gather data on you and short of permanently disabling the data connection, you will not be able to escape it. Google gives back door access to everything it wants, constantly sends encrypted data packets to its servers that only they know what they contain and doesn’t give you the ability to stop any of it.

If you have a Pixel phone installing GrapheneOS is incredibly easy. It gives you full control over what the apps installed on it are allowed to do on your phone, including Google’s if you wish to install them (unlike on other phones where the privacy options are grayed out for them and permanently enabled). Mind you, you will lose some functionality if you block everything. But you are empowered to decide which apps you trust to do what on your own phone and disable what you don’t need.

If you have something else than a Pixel, LineageOS is an option, however the installation process might be more complicated.

Mind you, with the FOSS alternatives you will sometimes experience some jank or advanced features that don’t work. But it is a tiny price to pay to know you’re not giving your data away. It has gotten far better in the last few years as well, at least from my experience with GrapheneOS